Specific Light

Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. (John 11:9)

The circumstances surrounding this statement were pushing both the disciples and Jesus' friends Mary and Martha beyond their comfort zone as far as their trust in Him. From their perspective they believed that Jesus cared about their feelings and needs and trusted that He would respond quickly to their request to heal their brother. They specifically reminded Him that the one they were asking Him to heal was a very special friend of His, not just another stranger asking for a favor. So they were confident that their closeness to Jesus should give them even more pull to compel Jesus to come and heal one of His closer friends.

Was Jesus ignoring this relationship and snubbing His friends? Was He spurning their request, wanting them to suffer more? Was He insisting that they have more faith before He would answer their request? All of these emotions and questions come up repeatedly in our own hearts whenever we request something we feel is very important and it seems that God pays no attention to our needs. And I'm sure that Mary and Martha could not help but go through the gamut of doubts and questions in their minds as they waited day after agonizing day watching their brother die right before their eyes with no response from the One they knew could have prevented his death. All their claims about Jesus' love for them were now ammunition that was being used against them by the many enemies of Jesus looking for opportunities to discredit Him.

But how did the disciples feel as they observed up close Jesus' reaction to the request from His friends? They were well aware of the special bonds shared with Jesus by these three siblings and they must have wondered how their own relationship with Him might similarly suffer if they needed Him in a similar situation. They had assumed that because they had given up everything to follow Him that they would be richly rewarded in many ways because of their loyalty to Him through thick and thin. Now they suddenly saw Jesus treating some of His closest friends with seeming indifference and it was likely alarming to them. They must have begun to question, at least in their hearts, how much pull they really had with Jesus when push came to shove.

As I have been meditating on these verses over the past few days about walking in the light to keep from stumbling, I came back again this morning to see what else the Spirit might bring to my attention about this. It was then that I noticed something a couple verses back where light was actually offered to the disciples specifically for them to take hold of for this situation. Jesus was not asking them to have blind faith in Him as many people propose we should do. God wants us to have an intelligent faith, a trust based on solid evidence though not beyond the possibility for doubts. Jesus had made a statement designed to give them something to hang onto in this time of extreme stress for their confidence in Him and if they had meditated on it and taken hold of it they would have had a much different attitude when a couple days later He proposed returning to Judea.

But when Jesus heard this, He said, "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it." (John 11:4)

It is not that the disciples had forgotten what Jesus had said necessarily. But they, like us so many times, had failed to keep their minds open to allow flexibility in just how Jesus' words might be interpreted. Upon hearing this statement from Jesus they had immediately assumed that Lazarus would not die before Jesus got back to heal him. That would be the logical thing most anyone would have assumed after hearing a statement like that. But Jesus does not often operate within the assumptions of this world and His kingdom is not rooted in the logic we are used to using. Because of this many things He says can be misunderstood because we fail to seek clarification from Jesus on what He intended to mean for us. We fail to give Him opportunity to explain what He means and thus we walk forward assuming we have the truth while all the time walking right into situations where we are sure to stumble over our assumptions about what He meant.

We have a harder time seeing the stumbling block here because we already know the outcome of this story. Many stories in the Bible lack the punch for us that the participants felt in the story because we don't allow ourselves to experience the emotions that are naturally aroused from not knowing the end of the story. But that is just the point. God has given us records of His dealings with people over thousands of years to make the point repeatedly that even when we don't know how things are going to turn out, it is His heart towards us that we need to trust, not our knowledge of how He is going to resolve our particular situation. Our faith must be grounded in trusting His heart rather than just His hands.

This statement of Jesus about this sickness not ending in death sometimes troubles people even today because it is so easy to make the same assumption that the disciples did, that Jesus was saying Lazarus would not die from the sickness. But after the whole story is understood it is clear that Jesus had something very different in mind when He said these words. But then the question naturally arises as to why Jesus didn't just explain up front what He planned to do, that He intended to let Lazarus die but that would not be the end of the story, that He was going to solve that problem by raising him to life.

That is what we would much prefer even in our own relationships with Jesus. We want Jesus to explain to us clearly just how He plans to solve our problems so we don't have to stretch our faith in the dark. The kind of light we prefer is a clear explanation of how God intends to rescue us from our pain. We want the kind of light that makes things clear well ahead of time so we don't have to worry about unknowns. We want God to come down and speak plainly to us and not in riddles. We really don't care for this arrangement of learning to listen to a voice that is so still we often can't even seem to discern it at all. We would much prefer that God speak a bit louder and more distinctly and in language easy to understand so that we can know what He really means.

But God seldom uses such methods to convey His will to us, though at times He does do so. Why is this? I believe it is because if God clearly spelled out just what He was going to do to resolve all our problems we would seldom have opportunity to build a deeper relationship of intimate trust in Him. We think we could, but in reality our confidence would be very shallow because we would never be stretched to trust Him at a much deeper level of our heart when we don't know how things can ever possibly work out. It is not just the good times when our emotions are high, when our worship and praise services exhilarate our senses and we think we feel the presence of God very close that our bonds with Him are formed. In fact, these experiences can often become diversions that the enemy can exploit to lead us to assume false ideas about our relationship with God and lead us into subtle deceptions that can even ruin our souls without our realizing what is happening.

Saving faith must also go much deeper than the good feelings we experience when we first begin to catch a glimpse of the goodness of God and see Him working mightily in our lives. Yes, it is vitally important to frequently see clearly how good God is and that He is faithful and loving and forgiving and compassionate in situations that make sense to us. But God knows that we also need much deeper roots than good feelings to help us remain faithful and loyal to Him in times of emotional storms and troubles. So He allows situations to develop and says things that may seem initially confusing to offer us opportunities to choose to believe that His heart is always faithful towards us even when evidence seems to suggest something very different.

What I see now in this passage is that Jesus had specifically said what He said in front of the disciples about the situation with Lazarus to give them opportunity to think about what He was saying and then choose to believe that whatever happened or whatever appearances might suggest, Jesus already had plans to bring honor to His reputation through whatever was going to develop. Jesus wanted them to believe and anchor themselves in His word to them, not in a foreknowledge of how He was going to unravel this most difficult and seemingly tragic set of circumstances.

Indeed, this sickness did not end in death. But that did not mean that death was not to be experienced along the way. The disciples had assumed from Jesus' words that Lazarus was guaranteed to not die from this sickness, which is certainly one way of interpreting His words. But how often do we read into the Word of God what we desperately want to hear rather than choosing to trust that His Word is immutable but that He has multiple ways of bringing it to pass which often may not be our initial preferences. Most of the time our top priority in life is to avoid experiencing pain. But this is not God's top priority for us and thus we are set to come into frequent conflict with God's better plans for us.

God knows that for us to grow in our relationship of trust in Him (which is the ultimate objective each of us should be focusing on), that it is unavoidably necessary that we get out of our comfort zone which means we are most likely going to experience pain in the process. If we insist on living life without ever allowing God to take us through painful situations, then we are insisting on remaining babies in maturity and we are even in serious danger of endangering our souls because of our selfishness and stubbornness.

God is too wise to allow us to form our characters without the tough experiences that must happen to shape us and prepare us to live in the highly charged, even dangerous atmosphere that pervades all of heaven. God will not artificially or arbitrarily change anyone's character to make them fit for heaven. To do so would be to violate the most important part of who we are – our freedom to choose. And our freedom to choose is the most essential element in our ability to love which is the very atmosphere the permeates all the rest of the universe. If we refuse to allow God to transform us into people who have learned to love selflessly and honor each other's freedom to choose, then we will never be fit or safe to live around other beings who enjoy the bliss and joys of selfless, perfect love all the time.

Jesus gives us light ahead of dark times, times when it seems nothing makes sense, just as He did for His disciples in this story. He gives us a specific word for our situation, but we must be careful not to jump to conclusions about His word to us strongly influenced by our desires as they did and thus set ourselves up for the entrance of fear and doubt. If the disciples had simply clung to Jesus' statement that this would all work out to His glory, they would have not been terrified a couple days later when Jesus talked about returning to Judea. Rather than focusing on the threats and hostility of the Jewish leaders toward Jesus, they could have rested in His words that this was going to bring more glory to His name and they could have encouraged Him along the way instead of despairing in their assumption that they were all marching off to their deaths with Him.

I know I certainly need to learn this lesson for myself. It is easy to criticize the blindness of the disciples and wonder how dull they could remain after seeing so many miracles from the hands of Jesus. But miracles to not change the heart as is evident in the case of many of the Jews. What is needed far more than external evidence for real faith to take root is a willingness to believe in the heart behind the miracles. Until a person chooses to trust God's heart more than what He can deliver, they cannot really enter into that transforming relationship with Him that is required to make them safe to save in the end.

If these disciples had chosen to hang onto His words and give His word priority over what they thought was solid evidence of danger back in Judea, they would have found faith springing up in their hearts and their response to Jesus going back to Judea would have been very different. Even though they had little clue as to how Jesus planned to handle the sickness and then the death of Lazarus that appeared to damage His reputation as a healer and bring into question His love for His friends, they could have grown greatly in their own relationships with Him if they had chosen to trust His heart rather than lean on their own evaluation of circumstances.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6) And as we choose to do this we will discover that faith springs up spontaneously and our bonds with the heart of God will become more secure and stable. We will find that the light that always can be found in the Word of God can be within us and will be effective in shedding light on our path to keep us from stumbling in the inexplicable situations that come into our lives. Rather than stumbling over our assumptions about God's intentions or messages to us, we will learn to rest in His love no matter how confusing His ways may appear at times. And when we choose to do this our confidence in Him under such circumstances also will bring honor to Him and allow others to see the benefits of living in faith rather than in fear.