John 11:24

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

From Background Notes [BN] for August 4^th & 5^th written by Pastor Bob Brown:

The apostle Paul left behind the safe world of Jewish certitudes, learned within the context of the Pharisee party. Challenged to give Israel a summarized version of its faith, the rabbis distilled Torah down to 613 commands or mitzvoth. Paul wrote that at one time he considered himself fully expert…

 
… in all of them (see Philippians 3:6), only to surrender that certainty for the riskier quest to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ (3:7). Once imagining that he saw all things clearly, on the Damascus Road, Paul lost his sight only to recover it again by seeing all things through the eyes of Jesus (see Acts 9 and parallels).

Perhaps Martha and Mary and Lazarus imagined that they, too, saw all things clearly. Perhaps the Jews who came to comfort the grieving sisters thought that they saw all things clearly. After all, they believed in “the resurrection at the last day”! Jesus changed all of that: first by unveiling the hidden doubts they had, and then by showing them the way to a fuller humanity, rooted in the life he came to give. Sometimes faith creates doubt. Is that such a bad thing? Is it such a bad thing to doubt old certitudes when they turn out to be nothing but tradition in disguise? Martha liked the organized, tidy, predictable life, where the women of the household left the heavy lifting to their men (again, Luke 10:38-42). She liked the life where everything gets constructed out of a handful of truths. Then death came along and upended all of that. Suddenly the certain things weren’t so certain anymore. Mary, though more reflective and devoted, still struggled with her “If you had…”

In his New Testament letters, Paul created space for what theologians rightly call “mystery,” that inscrutable quality in God and His world that does not easily give up its secrets. Consider these things that Paul refers to as mysteries:

• Evil is a mystery (2 Thessalonians 2:7).

• God’s new people, the church, is a mystery (Romans 11:25; 16:25; Ephesians 5:32).

• God’s wisdom is a mystery (1 Corinthians 2:7).

• The resurrection of our bodies is a mystery (1 Corinthians 15:51).

• God’s purposes — His will — is a mystery (Ephesians 1:9).

• The plan of salvation is a mystery (Ephesians 3:9). [BN, 11]

Join us this week in Study, Worship, Praise and Celebration at Chicago First Church of the Nazarene:

* Saturday 6:00pm
* Sunday 8:30am & 11:00am, 5:30pm