Lazarus And Us
Whether we like it or not God has an agenda he is pursuing but if we can give him a brave hearing we'll be assured that we'll see it all with shining eyes and astonished at its wonder. He will glorify himself and in the process he will bless us beyond our imagining with life that is brimful of life.
And, again, whether we like it or not God has created us not as billions of independent and free-standing human units but as a family of interdependent humans. Of course he works with us at the individual level but always and only as individuals who are part of a family.
What complicates matters further is that God takes sin more infinitely seriously than we do. But that's all right because God does not expect us to see sin as he is able to see it; especially since we have become used to it and we lack the purity of his vision. But it isn't sin that God is ultimately concerned with he is concerned about giving us fullness of life and the kind of life that can only be enjoyed in relationship with himself. Since he wants to give us this life he has to deal with sin which is the negation of life with him.
Part of the way he deals with it is by chastisement. He brought the curse on the human family when we rebelled against him and that curse that involves suffering and disappointment and death falls on the whole human family the innocent and the guilty. See Genesis 3:8-19.
But God never intended the curse to be absolute nor did he intend it to be permanent. It will continue until his work of redemption and glorification is completed. In the meantime along with the curse there is blessing everywhere we look and there are countless promises and prophecies that the curse will be brought to an end and life that is full of life will reign.
John 11 makes it clear that Jesus has a special friendship with Lazarus and his sisters which makes it more difficult to understand why he deliberately chose to stay away when he heard his friend was sick (11:5-6). This was hard on the sisters who couldn't understand why Christ didn't hurry to his side and heal him (11:21). But Jesus was unapologeticin fact, when he knew Lazarus was dead he said he was glad he wasn't there while his friend was dying (11:15). He knew that this whole incident would have a "happy ending" and that God would be glorified and life would triumph over death. Christ refused to step in as the sisters and others expected because he intended it to work greater blessing and glory (11:15). Just the same, it was hard on all concerned.
Lazarus wasn't the only one in the graveyard. And while socially he was a friend of Christ he was no "pet" and he didn't have a special claim on God. Like every good father God cares for all his children but he doesn't make "pets" out of any of them. Just the same, the raised only Lazarus at this point and left others dead though he could have raised them all.
Lazarus stands as a promise and a prophecy that death will be destroyed for all of us. "If he did it for me he'll do it for you," is Lazarus's message. He is one of the assurances that God will completely obliterate the curse. That Christ didn't raise others on that occasion is the way he called it but that raising has a message for more than Lazarus. The Master made himself absent for a while so that he could be present in a way he could not have been present if he had not chosen to be absent. If you had seen Lazarus the next day sitting eating and smiling (John 12:2, 9-11) he would have been a sign that said, "There's a wondrous day coming. This was only a promise and an illustration, wait until you see the real thing!"
These miracles were not only for the people to whom they occurred...they were and are for all of us that we might believe and rejoice and spread the word.
(I've developed this in a little book called "Celebrating the Wrath of God". You might find that helpful.)
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.