“Let God Finish and We’ll Help,” with Rev. Lisa Yebuah

In this morning's scripture that I'm going to read, there are these two sisters named Martha and Mary who have a brother named Lazarus, and Lazarus gets ill.

And these two sisters believe that Jesus could have kept their brother from death.

However, Jesus is not in town when Lazarus gets ill, and unfortunately, Lazarus dies.

Now, four days later, Jesus arrives, and Mary, one of the sisters on site, as soon as she sees Jesus, offers these heavy words to the one that we call resurrection and life.

Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

Now, the reason why I love that particular line of Mary is that Mary knows that you've got to let God finish.

Like, I know, Lord, if you had been here, the way in which this thing would have ended would have been more glorious than my brother no longer being with his siblings, Mary and Martha.

But the thing about letting God finish that we're going to find in this particular passage of scripture is that as God is doing good work, And as we are not going to ever disrupt what God is up to in a place like this, God also invites us to co-labor alongside God.

Four days, Mary says, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

And then in John chapter 11, in the 38th verse, it says this.

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb.

It was a cave and a stone was lying against it.

And Jesus said, take away the stone.

Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.

Jesus said to her, did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God? So they took away the stone, and Jesus looked upward and said, Father, I thank you for having heard me.

I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.

And when Jesus had said this, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.

The dead man came out.

his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth.

And Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go.

I want you to hear these two parts of scripture again.

Jesus said to the people, take away the stone.

Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go.

This is the word of God for us, the people of God.

Thanks be to God.