“Even Now”

An Easter Meditation

In this Jubilee Year of Hope, in the buoyancy that so many have felt in the election of our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, and in his early message which seems to hang on two words: “Peace” and “Unity,” can we say, where ever we are, in the midst of our current situation: “Even now, Lord, I believe, that whatever you ask of God, God will give you” (John 11:22)? Even now?

I want to make a rather outlandish claim and state that in all the Bible the two words that evoke the most hope are those two words of Martha, standing before her brother’s tomb, facing Jesus eye to eye, and saying: “Even now, Lord!” Even Now!

Martha was no fool! She, with her sister Mary, sat and watched helplessly as her brother, Lazarus, grew sicker and died. She knew the sickness that leads to death. She also knew death’s finality. When someone is gone, they are gone. She knew the crazy-making reality of grief. Where a dark abyss opens up in a human soul and there are real moments when you feel: “This is all there is! And if I fall into this abyss I will fall into an eternity of relentless darkness.” Martha stood in that place where human limitation reaches its zenith and the sense of utter helplessness and loss of control cannot be meaningfully countered. She knew her brother was dead. She knew the reality of grief and death. She stood face to face with that which she could not comprehend and dared to say: “Even now, Lord!” Even now…

Jesus didn’t come when she had hoped. She didn’t hold back in letting him know her profound disappointment… but somewhere in that strange place where the reality and finality of death is confronted by Eternal Life in the flesh… she found it in herself to speak the most hopeful words any of us could speak: “Even now, Lord!” Even now…

Martha’s words have always filled me with both the giddiness of possibility and an existential dread all at once. “Even now” means whatever the content and the quality of my “now” Jesus can act and act in ways well beyond my capacity to imagine. But dread cuts off the giddiness of possibility because something in me says: “What if I hope and nothing happens?” And that’s okay. That’s part of what it means to be a human. That’s part of what it means to be a person of faith. But even in the midst of fear, am I willing to stand fast in that place Martha occupied, between the in-your-face-finality of death; the knock-the-wind-out-of-you reality of human limitations and Christ, Eternity Enfleshed, look him in the eyes, hold onto hope by a thread, and say: “Even now, Lord?” Even now?

Can I, can any of us, like Martha, stand in the seemingly endless pit of our own need, a need, perhaps all of us in our own way have spent a life time believing we can fulfill by transient, passing, seemingly plausible things, people, achievements, and titles and let them go, look up into the eyes of Christ and say: “Even now, Lord!” Even now…

Pope Leo XIV seems to be making it clear in these earliest days of his papacy that Peace and Unity is our path forward. I hear his words, I look around me, I look in my own heart and I feel the giddiness of possibility but also the existential dread that seems to say… it’s too late! Lazarus has been in the tomb 4 days and all we have left is the stench: Ukraine & Russia, Gaza & Israel, sanctioned violence against the other simply because they are other, violence in the streets of our own cities, the violence of the very real divisions in our own hearts. How do we dare say: “Even now, Lord?” Even now…

Well, we don’t do it alone and we don’t envision we have to do it alone. Without unity there is no peace. Unity first and foremost within ourselves, the healing of our own divisions, the reconciliations our own hearts long for, the willingness to make the kind of human connections we each desire, like a deep endless abyss within us, but too often we fear the risk such connection-making requires. Martha didn’t stand alone in the breach between the definitive reality of death and the promise of Eternity Enfleshed. Her sister was with her, her family was with her, her community had gathered around her. She could only stand in the breach because she stood in the breach as a member of the human family, connected to her human family, and therefore able to risk the kind of hope necessary in the face of the seemingly impossible. Only from there can any peace begin. Even now…

Whatever the quality and the content of our own “now” I pray we each can find the community, courage, and unconstrained belief, to join Martha in the breach and say: “Even now, Lord!” Even now…