Dealing With Disappointment 

With apologies to those who are, I'm not a country western music buff, but I heard a song while scrolling stations on my car radio.  Momentarily, the lyrics caught my attention: "It seems like every time I make my mark, somebody paints the wall."  Subsequently each of the verses, of which there were more than I can or care to remember, was a mini-lament reflecting on an aspect of disappointment:    

            Every time I think I'm off and running, I'm barely up to a crawl.
            Every time I get a leg up on the ladder of success, I slip and fall.
            Last week down at the factory I was up for a promotion,
            but the boss says my little brother got the call.

That was about all I could take, so I put in a happy CD.  It was depressing!  But that's the point.  Disappointment is depressing! It seems like every time I make my mark, somebody paints the wall."

When was the last time you felt disappointment?  I don't mean in a trivial way.  I mean disillusioned, disenchanted, or deeply saddened?   

You know what a gut-wrenching experience it can be. It felt like your soul had been wrenched out.  You couldn't believe what was happening.  You may have felt hot anger, a sense of betrayal, or been heavy-laden with sadness.   

Perhaps someone broke a sacred promise.  Maybe you felt used or manipulated or someone did not live up to your expectations. Perhaps you were overlooked or maybe something/someone was taken away from you, against your will.  Perhaps your disappointment was with yourself when you didn't live up to your own expectations. You know what it is like.

I remember when I was in junior high school. I tried out but didn't make the football team. The coach said I was too small.  I was devastated.  When I got to high school I had physically developed, and my athletic skills had increased dramatically.  The high school coach begged me to come out for football.  But I didn't.  That prior disappointment of junior high had shattered my confidence - and I still hadn't recovered.  Disappointment can be a controlling force that can have long-term, even life-long implications.  How has disappointment reverberated through your life?   

As we look through the window of this morning’s gospel, we see a deeply emotional scene.  It's the story about the death of Jesus' friend Lazarus, and Lazarus' two sisters Mary and Martha.  When Lazarus became ill the two sent Jesus and urgent message to come, but Jesus delayed his coming.  In fact John says, "…after having heard Lazarus was ill he stayed two days longer."  When Jesus finally did arrive, both Mary and Martha were pretty upset.  First, Martha approached Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."   Can’t you hear the disappointment, anger and sorrow in her voice?  Don’t merely read the words intellectually, but hear them emotionally.  I can hear it because I have heard it in my own voice, and in some of yours. 

Next came Mary, and the pathos exploded out of her:  "Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died."  I know they had wept holding each other in their arms.  I know they  had dried each others' tears.  I know they had mutually expressed their disappointment that Jesus didn't come when summoned.  Why hadn't our friend come?  "Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died." 

Even the neighbors expressed disappointment: “Could not he who opened the yes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" 

You have been there and so have I, those times when we have felt disappointed with God; when it seemed as if God was far away or wasn't paying attention; when God was minimizing your problem; or had turned a deaf ear; or showed up too late; or was not taking you seriously. 

This was such an important story for those early Christians to remember and tell and retell each other.  I believe the reason they chose to remember this story is because they were dealing with disappointment too.  Believers were being killed and tortured for their faith. People were dying! Why?  "Why would such horrible things happen to good people," they were asking.  They, like us in our time, were disappointed, disillusioned, perhaps even felt let down by God.   

I believe this story gives us some clues as to how to handle disappointment when it comes our way - and it will.   

First, we can take it to God.  I don’t care how you feel: angry, enraged, depressed, let down, sad, grieving, whatever.  You can speak it to God. You can say it in God's face.  Are you free enough in your relationship with God to say directly to God how you feel?  Because Mary and Martha considered Jesus a friend, they felt free to express their disappointment.  Can you join the duet of Mary and Mary who were uninhibited enough to say to Jesus, "Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died."   I do not think it is sacrilegious or even immature to be honest with our feelings with God.  We can bring our disappointments to God.  If you don’t believe me, then read the psalms.  About half of the 150 psalms are laments, expressions of intense feelings of grief, sadness, despair, disappointment, anger and pain.   I think a sign of a healthy prayer life is honesty before God.  At that moment of hot intensity you are not dishonoring God to give him your honest feelings.  Ultimately you are trusting God enough to risk being honest to God!   

Second, in sharing your feelings you just might come to see the tears of God, wept for you.  The story tells us that Jesus was "greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved… and that Jesus wept."  The Greek words there reflect intense agony.  He was agonizing over their grief.  He was taking Mary's pain, and Martha's pain and the pain of the neighbors into himself.   God is not indifferent to your pain.  God has not turned his back on your pathos.  It may feel that way to you for sure. But we have a God who cries with us - and we must not be short-sighted here, if we see the tears of God, wept for you, we might also then come to see and understand the blood of God’s son, shed for you – the God who weeps with us and dies with us.  .    

Years ago a woman came to see me to share a deep pain she had carried in her soul since childhood.  She was angry at God, but yet so much wanted a relationship with God. She had never shared this deep pain and horrible secret with anyone.  After a long and revealing conversation, I invited her into the sanctuary, and I encouraged her to sit before the cross of Jesus and say her feelings out loud.  She was hesitant at first, after long period of profound silence, she began.  Literally shaking, she spoke in a barely audible whisper that slowly increased to a loud crescendo.  40 some years of pent up pain flowed out of her.  In a great catharsis, she screamed at God for allowing the Nazi's to murder her parents before her eyes, shot down on the narrow street in front of her home when she was seven years old, and she taken to a concentration camp.  When she was all but exhausted, she burst into tears and bitterly wept.

That day marked a new beginning for her - not instantaneously, but a new beginning.  Weeks later she told me that she was finally beginning to understand that the cross meant that God shared her pain; wept with her; died for her.  It didn't answer all her questions and solve all the mysteries, but she felt reconnected to a God of love - a God who loved her. 

This gospel story ends with Jesus shouting into the black hole of death, "Lazarus, come out!"  And he came out, his hands and feet still half wrapped in the clothes of death - but alive!   

The scripture from Revelation for this morning is a vision of a glorious time when all our tears will gone, when God himself will wipe them way; when all crying and grieving and pain will be no more.  But that's time that is yet to come.  Until then, we know that we have a God who is worthy of our trust and who takes us by the hand, with teas in his eyes to lead us into a new and more hopeful day. 

In the face of whatever your personal disappointments let this story speak to you.  See yourself in the story standing right alongside Martha and Mary.  Express your pain to God.  Ask a brother or sister in Christ to sit with you and hold you as you share your pain and grief.  As the disappointment flows out of you, trust that it doesn't evaporate into thin air but attaches itself to the cross and the one who is still suffering and dying there for you - taking your pain into himself and making it his own. 

And then hear him again, as he did on that day so long ago, shout into the black hole of your disappointment, "Joe, come on out!  Come on out into the light!"   Then, see your whole being respond and moving towards his voice, being set free from the tomb of disappointment within which it has been imprisoned.  Hear the voice you thought had forsaken you, but now you understand loves you more than you ever knew.   Amen.