[3] "So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
[4] "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.” [5] Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. [6] So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, [7] and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
When I first read these verses, it seems that they are just a quick introduction to the real story, the raising of Lazarus from the dead, but in reality, there are some REALLY significant things hidden here.
First, in verse 4, Jesus again says as clear as possible that He is God's Son! This may not seem like much, but remember this was a HUGE issue for the Jewish people. They were waiting for a Messiah, they had no idea God was planning to send His only Son! For them, saying You are God's Son was blasphemy, for they held God in such awe, they could not believe that He would lower Himself to our human form (see John 10:22-39). Jesus once again clearly affirms His identity to His disciples, and this is one of the absolute corner-stones of our faith, that Jesus truly is the Son of God. John slides it in so quietly one could almost miss the statement.
Secondly, Jesus says this was going to happen to bring God and Himself glory. I think this is one of the most understated and misunderstood statements that Jesus makes. Taking this to the personal level, Lazarus was loved by Jesus, in fact John makes it clear that He dearly loved the whole family.
In all our lives we come into contact with those that feel like family, people who we just connect with and love, sometimes we even feel like they are our second family. I believe this is what Martha, Mary and Lazarus are like to Jesus. They are one of the few people in the Gospels that are mentioned more than once. We know that Jesus hung out at their house ( Luke 10) and that Mary was one of His closest followers. Mary is mentioned multiple times in all four Gospels That is only true of a couple of the other Apostles, and she was one of the few of His followers who was present at His crucification and was the first one Jesus appeared to when He rose from the dead.
The point I am making is that Jesus had no closer friends than Mary, Martha and Lazarus, other than His apostles, so when Jesus had to sit and wait rather than hurrying to Lazarus when He heard he was sick, He clearly would have been significantly moved emotionally. Imagine if your best friend, who you really loved, was sick and in danger of dying, and you were asked to wait to return, even though you knew you could cure your friend.
How do we know that Jesus wanted to do that very thing, to heal Lazarus? We know because He tells us that He already knows the Father's will, which means He asked! Jesus did walk in incredibly close unity with the Father, but He was doing so as a completely human individual. He had humbled Himself and for a time emptied Himself of His divinity (Phil 2), so He was effectively shielding Himself of His Oneness with the Father where He would have known the Father's will, even as He thought it. Instead, Jesus operated on earth as fully man, interacting with the Father through the Holy Spirit, but always only as a man. Thus, for Him to know something from the Father, it was because He had asked or desired to know. So we know that His heart must have been to go and heal Lazarus, He asked this of the Father, but instead the Father instructed Him to wait.
Sometimes in our self-focus, especially when we are hurting or have lost someone close, we think that no one can understand our pain. We think that God doesn't care, that He is cold and heartless for allowing this situation in our lives. The truth is that Jesus completely understands our loss, our pain and our hearts. We know this because Jesus was clearly moved by the loss of Lazarus, and the pain that the sisters felt and expressed when He finally arrived on the scene. Here is the continuation of the story after Jesus meets Martha and now Mary - John 11:33-38 NIV:
[33] When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
[34] “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
[35] Jesus wept.
[36] Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” [37] But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
[38] Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance."
We know Jesus was moved with compassion at other times, as recorded in the Gospels, but never over a personal loss, and never as deeply. I believe He wept for Mary, for Martha, for Lazarus, and out of His own pain at the loss of Lazarus. Even though He knew the Father's plan, He was still moved deeply. The Greek word for compassion, means to feel something deep in our bowels, or our gut. The words used by John here mean to "charge forward snorting (original Greek would add 'in anger'), and wailing in grief!
I have a good friend who's dad passed away suddenly of a massive heart attack. He raced to the hospital, but his dad was already gone. He first saw his father laying on a hospital bed and was overcome with grief, ran to him, threw himself across his dad's body and wailed loudly! This is similar to what John appears to be describing in Jesus' response! That gives me great hope that Jesus understands my grief, my loss and my sorrow at the loss of my loved ones, and for any time I am dealing with the frustration of waiting for God to move! He knows our hearts and how greatly affected we can be by others and by difficult situations!
His encouragement to all of us would be to turn to the Father, and know that He has a great plan, one that will bring Him glory, and one that will sooth our hearts! So, if you are waiting desperately for the Lord to move, to visit you, to help you, to save you, to heal you, to ease your grief or your pain. Know that Jesus is VERY aware of Your sorrow and pain, and that He will move, will visit, will help, will save, will heal and will ease your grief! He loves you even as He loved Lazarus, Mary and Martha.
Lord I am so grateful that You came and become man, and personally experienced our human condition. I am so grateful that You know well our hurts and pains, our struggles, our woundedness. I am so grateful that You are not some far off god, who is cold, detached and unfeeling. Thank You for loving us passionately, even as you did Lazarus, Mary and Martha.
Amen!
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