Letting Others Down - A Human Experience

Mar 25

In his commentary regarding the story of Lazarus, Scripture commentator William Barclay wrote: “This is one of the most human of experiences in all the Bible.” Why does Barclay believe this? Because the raising of Lazarus was possible only after dealing with something to which we can all relate: the experience of being let down by another, and the experience of letting others down.

When Martha meets Jesus, she greeted Him with this salvo: “If you had been here, my brother would not have die”. When you got our message, why didn’t you come at once? Why didn’t you make this a priority? And by the time you did come, you were too late. In contemporary language, she might have added: “We all know what you’ve done for perfect strangers. And this is how you treat your friends?” And yet, as devastated as she was – as tempted as she might have been to tell Jesus that His services were no longer needed – Martha found the grit to say: “And for all that, I still believe that God will give you whatever you ask.”

As disappointed as she was in Jesus, she still believed in Jesus.

For His part, we are told that Jesus was perturbed and deeply troubled. How could he not be? His friend is dead. Martha and Mary are besides themselves with grief and both have publicly rebuked Jesus. He is aware of the criticism in the crowd regarding his failure to do for a close friend what He had recently done for a stranger. Suddenly finding Himself disappointing pretty much everyone, Jesus might have been tempted to simply slink away in embarrassment or shame. But He managed to push through His humiliation and performed one of the most remarkable miracles of all: raising a man who had been dead for four days.

As disappointed as Jesus was in Himself, He still believed in Himself.

The lesson for us? Perhaps when we have enough faith to recover from the disappointments that we suffer at the hands of others; perhaps when we have enough faith to recover from the disappointments that others suffer at our hands – that incredibly miraculous things can happen.