God’s Intentional Delay

“Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?” “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there

tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”

John 11:1-8

 

 

 

Don’t you wonder if maybe when Jesus didn’t immediately leave for Bethany His disciples may have been thinking something like this:

“We know he loves Lazarus but we can understand Him not going back there, He’s gotta know they’re gunning for Him and the minute He steps back into Bethany,

He’s as good as arrested!”  

Perhaps Jesus declared the truth that He did in verse 4 (italicized above) as an opportunity for his disciples to think on the truth of His delay, and His mission when He did return, instead of the destructive self talk they may have been engaged in.

Now, in verse 7, we find that Jesus heads back to Bethany – after a two day wait – not because of fear of man but instead because of the timing and the will of His Father. His message in delaying is clear to us now, but that delay, misunderstood as it may have been by His disciples, is also often misunderstood in our lives today,

it is sometimes less than clear and forces us to choose:

between trust and doubt;

between faith and fear;

between hope and despair.

“Why won’t God answer now?”

“God, why are you delaying your answer?”

God, don’t you love me anymore?”

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight we have in reading this story we can always say we understand but when it comes to our personal ‘story’ or our own Lazarus circumstances we are filled with the same statements of doubt Martha and Mary would later present to Jesus.

“Lord, if you had been…”

To which Jesus responds:

“Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

Are you believing in Him or are you in doubt because of the ‘delay’?