Where Was God When They Died?

Martha asked Jesus the same question on the road outside Bethany

The service starts at two. It's 1:40, and he's still on the bench in the hallway outside the chapel, folding the program in half for the second time. Through the doors he can hear the organ and the low sound of people finding seats. A cousin he hasn't seen in twenty years hugged him on the way in and said, "She's in a better place." He nodded. What he wanted to say was a question, and it isn't the kind you ask in a funeral home.

Where was God when this happened?

If that's your question today, you're in good company. It's in the Bible, nearly word for word, and it came out of the mouths of two sisters who'd just buried their brother.

The Question Martha Brought to Jesus

Lazarus got sick, and his sisters sent word to Jesus. He loved that family. He'd eaten at their table. And He didn't come. He stayed where He was two more days, and by the time He reached Bethany, Lazarus had been in the tomb four days, so Jesus is literally four days late.

Martha hears He's on the road and goes out to meet Him, and the first thing out of her mouth isn't hello:

Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. (John 11:21)

A little later Mary comes, falls down at His feet, and says the exact same thing (John 11:32). They're kind of blaming Him. They'd sent for Him and He wasn't there, and it's hard to blame them for saying so.

Here's what I want you to see. John put that question in the Bible twice, and both times Jesus let it stand. There's no lecture to Martha about needing more faith and no word to Mary about pulling herself together. The question you're afraid to say out loud in that hallway is one He's already heard, from people He loved, on the worst day of their lives.

What Jesus Didn't Explain

When I preached John 11 at our church, I asked everybody to resist the urge to turn Lazarus's four days into an explanation for our own. John isn't answering why things don't move fast for me personally. He's showing us who Jesus is when life refuses to follow our timeline.

So I'm not going to tell you why it happened. Jesus didn't tell Martha either. Watch what He does instead. She says if, and He answers her with who He is:

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this? (John 11:25-26)

Look at the tense. Martha's thinking about the last day, someday, a long way off. Jesus says I am. The resurrection she's waiting for is standing in front of her on the road, talking to her.

That's the line from that Sunday I keep coming back to. Jesus is not here to be worshiped for what He prevents. He's here to be worshiped for the life that He truly is.

Why Did Jesus Weep?

Then comes the verse most of us memorized first because it was the shortest one in the Bible, Jesus wept (John 11:35), and the house He walked into was anything but quiet.

By then the house was full of professional mourners. In the first century you hired them, and the louder they wailed, the more your family member looked loved. When I taught this, I asked our church to practice mourning me for a second, since I won't be around to enjoy it when it happens. They did. It felt nice. Then I had to say, "I'm sorry, honey, you had to witness that."

The word John uses for Jesus is a different word. Mary and the crowd are wailing, loud and outward. Jesus sheds tears quietly, grief expressed but not dramatized.

So why is He crying? He's about to call Lazarus out of that tomb. He knows it. He's minutes away. Here's why. He isn't weeping because Lazarus is dead. He's weeping because everybody standing around Him believes death has the final word. The tomb was about to open. The misunderstanding would take longer to heal.

But notice what moved Him first. When He saw Mary weeping, and the people who came with her, John says He groaned in the spirit and was troubled (John 11:33). Their tears reached Him on the way to the tomb, and He let them move Him before He did anything else.

Grief Isn't a Lack of Faith

Somebody may hand you a verse today to hurry you along. It's usually this one:

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. (1 Thessalonians 4:13)

It's a real verse, and it matters. Look at what Paul leaves in. He tells them not to sorrow as others who have no hope, which means he's expecting them to sorrow, and he's telling you what kind of grief it gets to be. Grief with hope in it is still grief. It still sits on a bench in a hallway, and it still can't make itself walk through the doors yet. What Paul takes away is the lie that the funeral is the end of the story.

Where He Was

So where was God when this happened? I can't answer the if for you any better than Jesus answered it for Martha. But I can tell you where He was that day in Bethany. He was on the road, walking toward two sisters who were angry with Him. He was standing at the grave with them, troubled by their tears.

And under the new covenant He's closer than the road. Because of what Jesus did, His Spirit lives in everyone who trusts Him, and I've told our church before: where you go, He goes.

So He's in that hallway. He's on the bench beside the man with the folded program, and He heard the question before it was ever spoken. When the organ stops and it's time to stand up and walk through those doors, He'll walk in with him, the same way He walked up to a tomb in Bethany with a family who thought it was over.