It is not surprising that Mary and Martha were irate with Jesus for intentionally waiting two extra days, until after their brother Lazarus had died, before he arrived to help them. I am reminded of a true story of a disillusioned scientist of Jewish heritage who thought he had given up on God. During an airplane flight, he was asked by a stranger if he would pray with nine other men in the back of the plane who needed a tenth to make a “minyan” (the quorum needed in Orthodox Judaism for public prayers). The angry scientist simply said, “I don’t believe in waiting for God to arrive.” At that point he showed the stranger the tattooed numbers on his arm indicating that he was a Holocaust survivor.A few weeks later the two men ran into each other at the opening of the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C. The stranger came up to the scientist and said, “Do you remember me?” The surprised scientist replied, “Yes, you are the poor fellow who wanted me to pray.” The stranger was filled with compassion and said, “I may not be able to help you to pray, but here is a map showing the groups that have assembled here according to the death camp that they survived.” The scientist took the map and said, “I see where I am to go but I don’t expect to find anyone I know, because all of my family were murdered.”
Soon afterwards he found the group he was looking for. And much to his astonishment an elderly man ran forward and cried out to him, “David, is that you?” The scientist, in tears, embraced his father. God had taken too many years to orchestrate this reunion, but that no longer seemed to matter to David. God had been grieving too.
—The Rev Steve Best
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