The Other Side of Too Late

The Other Side of Too Late--November 16, 2017

“While [Jesus] was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’” [Mark 5:35-36]

Jesus has a wonderful way of redefining what is too late.

There are those moments in life itself when it feels like the universe itself is tightening up on you like a vise. You know? Well, Jesus has them, too.

This is one of those moments.  We have just a snapshot of the whole situation here in these two verses (the whole thing is there in Mark 5 if you want the play-by-play), but you can tell even with just these few sentences that Jesus has waded into a mess. Time is running out, and there are two people who need saving.  Jesus had started out on his way to help the young daughter of Jairus, the leader of the local synagogue, but on his way, another woman has stopped Jesus in his tracks needing his help.  Jesus does in fact help her and heal her of her malady, and he even protects her from any blowback from the crowd over an unclean woman touching another man in public.  But there has been a cost:  it now appears to be too late for Jesus to heal the young girl he first set out to help. 

Maybe there was only ever enough time for one of the two to be helped, but now it is certain. Maybe there was no elegant or tidy way out of this mess in the first place.  But now it seems certain.  Jesus was pulled in two directions, had to make a choice, and now he will have to live with the disappointment in the voices of these messengers:  Why trouble the teacher any further? 

All along this scene has played out in my mind like a set-up in the comic books—there’s Batman, staring up at the latest trap the Riddler has cooked up for him, with all of Gotham City in danger on the one hand, and Robin the trusty sidekick in danger on the other.  Will Batman defuse the bomb and save the city, or untie his young fellow crime-fighter?  Will Superman save Lois Lane from the clever ploy of Lex Luthor, or will he save Metropolis from certain destruction?  It seems that there is only enough time to pick one.  That’s always how the super-villains set it up:  there’s enough time to rescue one, so you pay your money and you take your choice.  One will get rescued, and for the other… it will just be too late. 

Now, of course, when Batman or Superman or some other costumed hero meets with this situation in the comics, they are somehow usually able to save both the girl and the world, or the sidekick and the city.  But those kind of endings seem too good to be true—and here in Mark 5 we don’t get one of those saved-at-the-last-minute endings.  We really don’t.  We reach this point of the story, where one of the two people in need was helped, but for the other… it really is too late.  All the sand has run out of the hourglass.  The story has pinched around Jesus and closed off any possibility that both could be saved from death.  By anyone’s rational description of the situation, it is now simply too late for Jairus’ daughter.  She has died.

Except… Jesus still has this look in his eye.

Jesus doesn’t propose some cheesy, far-fetched, just-in-the-nick-of-time way to prevent Jairus’ daughter from dying.  It is indeed too late for that.  It’s just that Jesus has a way of redefining what is “too late” and what can happen on the other side of “too late.”  Do not fear, he says, like a man who knows that there is more coming and the end of the story has not been written.  Only believe, he says, confident that there is more to be said.  Of course, for us who have grown up hearing these stories of Jesus—or even just as we are coming to see how Mercy leads us into the mess in our devotions these days—we have more than a hunch of what Jesus has up his sleeve.

We are coming to see that Jesus has a way, not of jumping in at the last minute to save the day and prevent the mess before it is too late, but of showing up after the last minute has ticked away and the mess is already made--to restore life after everyone else would have said it clearly was too late.  It is the Easter story in preview—not that Jesus escapes from the cross, but that he goes through it, into the tomb, and then arises long after everyone else had given up hope.  Easter Sunday happened on the other side of too late, also, and maybe here in today’s story, Jesus is tipping his hand to let us know where he is headed.

We Christians are not guaranteed that we will be spared from ever having to go through suffering in this life. If anything, just the opposite: following Jesus means he will be the one leading us into the mess. We are not ever promised that when things look darkest—look, up in the sky, it’s a bird! It’s a plane!  It’s Jesus!—just in the nick of time we will be beamed out of having to go through something painful or sorrowful.  Instead, we have a Savior who goes through those sufferings with us,  who meets us in the mess, and who does not abandon us in the face of them.  We have a God who endures, who stays well after “the last minute” has ticked away, who rolls away the Friday stone on Sunday, and who says, with a look in his eye, “Do not fear, only believe,” after everyone else has given up hope. 

Let us be honest: there may be places in our lives where it is now “too late” by any human reckoning.  Too late to start over in life.  Too late to be back at the bottom rung of the company ladder as you leave an old job and go to a new one.  Too late to get a smidge of the happiness you were sure would last forever in an earlier chapter of life.  Too late to hold the kids in your arms who have already grown up and gotten jobs.   Too late to say goodbye again to someone you loved and lost. Our lives are full of "too lates," and so often, we are the ones telling God, "Well, it's too late to do anything about it now..."

And yet it is possible, too, that Jesus will bring an unexpected echo of Easter in those very places, beyond our predicting or imagining.  Who knows what will be possible today on the other side of too late?  What might happen if we dare to go, as Jesus does, into the messiness of "too late" times, still seeking anyway to bring the presence and peace of Christ?

Lord Jesus, your time is not our time.  For all the things we are sure are past redemption or beyond hope, come in your own good time and work your Easter power in our midst again today.