21st March 2022
What time do you call this?
Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.”
John 7:6 (ESV)
I have a friend who is always late. If we arrange to meet for coffee, I arrive at the time we agreed, but bring a book because chances are she’ll be about twenty minutes late. Once when her family were going on holiday they missed their flight because she just wasn’t ready. Hard to believe, but true.
Whilst we may not miss a flight because someone in our party is late, we may have experienced people arriving late for a meal for example, and the food is spoiled. And how many children, not known for a good grasp of time, have got back home late to find an irate parent standing waiting, scowling, and demanding to know, ‘What time do you call this?’
We have recently covered John’s record of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in the lectionary (John 11:1-44). When their brother became sick, his sisters, Martha and Mary, sent a message to Jesus in good time to come and heal him. So when he arrived four days after their brother had died, they could have stood there with their hands on their hips and asked him the same question: ‘What time do you call this?’ They didn’t, of course, but there does seem to be an implied rebuke hidden in what they did say: “…if you had been here my brother would not have died.” (vv.21,32). And as Lazarus had gradually drawn closer to death, how often had they asked, ‘Where is Jesus?’
Now with the callous and senseless slaughter that is taking place in Ukraine, yet again the age-old questions resurface, to be asked by Christians and non-Christians alike: ‘Why does God allow this suffering? If he was good, he would stop all this death – just where is he?’
Jesus showed us what God is like. And we see how he let the two sisters suffer loss and bereavement, in order to show them something greater. As far as they were concerned, he was late. But God doesn’t do ‘late’. Actually Jesus was right on time.
Prayer
Father, in the midst of our inhumanity to each other, and all the suffering that comes with it, we cry to you. And we cry ‘your kingdom come’, and wait in faith, knowing that you are never late; you are always on time – your time. Amen.
Study by Hilary Buck
About the writer:
Hilary Buck is a Minister and pastors the Lewes congregation of Grace Communion International.
Local congregation:
Grace Communion in Lewes
The House of Friendship
208 High Street
Lewes
BN7 2NS
Meeting time:
Sunday 11:00am
Local congregational contact:
Hilary Buck
Email: lewes@gracecom.church
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Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church