John 11:23-27 (ESV) 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.[d] Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
The most unbelievably painful and agonizing pain I have ever felt in my life, was the day our daughter McKenna died and went to be with Christ. I will never be able to adequately convey to you the very depth of suffering that this brought upon my wife and I.
I remember the day it happened far too vividly. When we got home from the hospital, there was a weight in the air. Suffocatingly heavy. It was almost as if there was a fog in our home. You couldn’t see it, but it was there. I remember my wife going to lay down in bed. That was the first thing she wanted to do. She laid down and her sister laid down with her.
I sat on the couch looking out of our window with my head in my hands. I remember seeing cars pass by in what was oddly almost slow motion. “Do you not know what has happened here today?! How are you going about your life like this?”, ran through my mind. All of these cars, our neighbors, driving by like nothing had happened. To them, nothing had happened. To us, there was a void in our home that felt like it was to never be filled.
Then, all I can remember hearing from the other room is a cry to God that surpasses understanding. A wailing and guttural lament. I stood up to head to my wife, and thought to myself, “This is it for our family. This is the end…”
In the Scripture above, Christ is speaking to Martha regarding her brother. Without hesitation, likely looking into the eyes of her Creator, Martha responded with the utmost faith. Christ affirmed that faith with a question. Do you believe in Me? Her answer, so simple and so beautiful, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ…”
In the moment when my daughter died, I wish I had the opportunity to look Christ in the eyes and tell Him of my faith in Him. Just like Martha, I tell myself I likely would have had that same bold and yet gentle faith that she had. The greatest challenge we have in today’s world, when hardships and tragedies lie before us, is that we do not physically have Christ to speak to and lean upon as the Apostles and those around them did.
However, I am convinced that we have something so much better. Prior to that moment with Martha, Christ had yet to crush the very death that we all fear and grieve so much. Fast forward to today and we have a knowledge so full and so true that Christ died, and He rose! It is finished!!! Yes, we do not physically walk with Christ. This much is so true. However, His walking with mankind for a period was but a precursor to the triumphant display of the empty tomb!
That same victory He won on Calvary rings true even now! In your darkest hour! In the dark night of your soul church! In your most vulnerable and lowly. In your most hopeless situation…. He stands over all of them from the shadow of an empty grave. We have hope! It is NOT the end for you because there is no end in Christ!
This is the most potent weapon we have in our faith. That Christ’s supremacy goes beyond all things! It goes beyond all pain! It goes beyond all hopelessness, all loss, all grief, all worry and anxiety and fear! IT IS FINISHED CHURCH! HALLELUJAH AND AMEN! Our King LIVES! He is not dead!
And because He lives….so too does my daughter McKenna…Praise you Jesus.
SOLI DEO GLORIA!!!!
