Jump start # 440 

Mark 5:35 “While He was still speaking, they came from the house of the synagogue official saying, ‘Your daughter has died; why trouble the Teacher anymore?”

  Jesus was on the way to the home of this synagogue official. He had been summoned. A twelve year old girl was gravely ill. In the process of getting there, the woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus and is healed. Jesus stops and talks with her. Now word comes that the little girl has died. These are the worst words any parent could hear, ‘Your daughter has died.’ Too late.

  A similar situation is found in John 11. There Jesus’ friend Lazarus is dying. He delays, on purpose. Lazarus dies and is buried. When Jesus shows up, Martha, Mary and many who have assembled proclaimed had Jesus been there, Lazarus would have been healed. Again, too late.

  In both stories, Jesus brings the dead back to life. But there is a lesson to be learned about being too late. Now, I’m not talking about how some are late to everything. Their kids are late to school, they are always late to church—that just seems to be how some families operate—late. Being diligent fixes that.

  There is a much more serious lesson here—being too late to apologize, to say you love someone, to simply be there. Some don’t get it until it’s too late. A mate walks out of the marriage and the other now, too late, wants to begin working on things. This has been wanted for a long time. The other simply gave up. It’s too late.

  I’ve seen the bitter sorry at the funeral home—it was more than feeling the loss of a loved one, it’s the regrets that come from being too late to say what needed and ought to have been said for a long time. Pride, fear, and other things kept the relationship distant and shallow. Now a death has ended the opportunity and it’s too late.

  How does a person deal with such regrets? Death often causes a person to blame themselves. “If only I had not let them go to the party…” or, “If only I had been there…” and the misery of death is magnified with the regret and guilt that one feels. This is natural. This is common. Many go there. It doesn’t change things. It doesn’t bring the person back. It is our “sack cloth and ashes.” In the OT, with the announcement of bad news, men would put on sackcloth, which was like burlap and pour ashes upon their heads. This was about as bad as it sounds. They felt terrible on the inside and so they were making themselves feel terrible on the outside and everyone around them could see that they were in extreme mourning. Guilt and regret are the modern sackcloth and ashes. We tend to heap it upon us. It doesn’t change things and it only makes us feel worse.

  What do we do? We pray to the Lord of Heaven and Earth who forgives. We apologize if we have done wrong but more than anything else we understand death happens and separations and loss are a part of life. We don’t like it and we want to avoid it, delay it, and put it off, but we can’t. We need to live each day as if it were our last. Things, especially relationships, do not just fix themselves. Get rid of the pride, God doesn’t like it anyway. Make each day the best that you can.

  Too late. Sad words and sad thoughts. It will eat you up. Don’t live that way. Don’t live as if there will always be another day. Some day there won’t. Pick up the phone, write the email, make the trip, but patch things up to the best of your ability. It takes two with relationships. The other side may not budge. You’ve tried. You can live with that.

  I hope these thoughts help. 

Roger