Is It Bad Enough Yet?

So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days. (John 11:17)

Jesus had just returned to the region of Judea where He had not long previously left because the Jews wanted to kill Him. The disciples were confused by His actions and had in an impulse of fatalism exclaimed that they might as well go with Him and die there too. Jesus had deliberately ignored the urgent pleas of some of His best friends to hurry back in time to heal Lazarus so long that it was seemingly too late. Then when all hope seemed to be gone He showed up with a sense of anticipation only to find that Lazarus had long since expired.

From the perspective of the disciples and His friends Mary and Martha, all of this seemed totally out of character with the Jesus they thought they had come to know. It was not like Him to spurn the cries of the hurting and distressed. It was not like Him to hesitate when someone needed healing, except when it involved their own unbelief which definitely was not the case in this instance. And although Jesus never effectively been intimidated by the threats of His enemies, He generally had always tried to steer clear of aggravating their angst against Him by moving out of the way until things cooled down.

But things had not cooled down this time and the disciples were baffled as to why Jesus would risk His safety by going back to where people were so hostile toward Him. Yes, Jesus was going back in response to the request of His friends for Lazarus' sake, but even the way in which He dealt with that seemed confusing at best. None of this made much sense at all to any of His close friends and everything He was doing seemed to be only playing out for the advantage of His enemies.

From Mary and Martha's perspective it was even more distressing. They had invested much in getting to know Jesus at a very intimate level and felt that they had a special bond with Him closer than most others. They felt that Jesus had a special affection for them because of the many hours He had spent enjoying their hospitality and relaxing in their presence. Given their history with Jesus they felt that their level of faith in Him should be enough that they could expect Him to take care of their crisis, so they had confidently expected Him to answer their prayers in a timely manner.

But Jesus had not come through for them the way they expected. Jesus had not moved to eliminate their fears and cries for help and things had gotten worse. Lazarus was seriously ill and Jesus was nowhere to be seen and it was not long before he was taken away from them in death. But there still remained hope for awhile. They knew that Jesus had raised others from the dead within hours of their dying and so they hoped that maybe He would show up soon enough to bring their brother back to life before all hope was gone and his body began to decompose.

But this was the very point of issue that sometimes we miss in this story. The Jews had a belief that when a person died there was sometimes potential for them to be revived if it happened before the body began to decompose. In modern times we now understand the potential for a person to appear to be dead because they quit breathing but are still revivable. Throughout history stories have circulated of people who were prematurely buried only to wake up later trapped in their graves or tombs and it was discovered that they had violently struggled to get out only to truly die because of their entrapment. So in the mind of the Jews all the previous miracles where Jesus had raised people from the dead could be discounted as not necessarily miraculous because none of those raised had been dead long enough to be certain they were not revivable.

This is the reason Jesus chose to stay away long enough so that Lazarus would be certifiably and totally dead. The Jews believed that if a person was dead for three days then there was no longer hope of their being revived or resurrected. It was this window of hope that the sisters were clinging to believing that if Jesus returned quickly enough after Lazarus slipped into death that He could still bring him back to life. But after four days all hope was gone and their grief became subject to the intense temptation to become bitterness and resentment against Jesus.

This temptation was intentionally amplified by some of the friends of Mary and Martha who lived in Jerusalem but did not share their affections for Jesus. This family was well known in the region and many who were bitterly opposed to Jesus now saw an opportunity to use this occasion to discredit Him more effectively. They moved in like vultures on these hurting sisters to exploit their situation and highlight the unanswered questions that were unavoidable in the way Jesus had handled their situation. They suggested insinuations about Jesus and planted doubts in the minds of those around to try to amplify the negative assumptions that might be made about Jesus' motives and credibility. They were hoping that this was the ultimate chance to really expose Jesus as a fraud and they quickly moved into position among the mourners presenting themselves as ones desiring to console the family.

Jesus was fully aware of all of this taking place. But unknown to His enemies they were actually moving themselves right into an ambush set up for them by God Himself. By attempting to exploit the pain of some of Jesus' best friends they were actually setting themselves up to become exposed themselves. But all of this was as yet unseen by them when Jesus arrived.

Mary and Martha must have wondered how long Jesus would hesitate to do something to address their situation. When Lazarus was sick they knew he needed the presence of Jesus for his restoration and they confidently sent a message to Jesus fully expecting Him to come to their aid. But He did not and things only got worse. They must have begun to question each other saying, Is it bad enough yet? How long will He wait to help us? When will things turn around for us? Is He so intimidated by the threats of the Jews that He is afraid to come back to help us? Where is God when we need Him most?

His disciples may have had parallel questions of their own. Jesus' actions seemed to contradict what they thought they knew about Him and they could not predict what He might do next. They were forced to choose whether to trust His judgment and decisions without explanations or to turn away from following Him. They decided to continue their journey with Him but with open misgivings about the potential outcome.

Do these questions sound familiar? I have certainly resonated with them during some intense periods of trouble in my own life and I am sure it will happen again. I can distinctly remember watching things worsen in my situation, praying earnestly for deliverance only to meet with seemingly no answers from heaven. I began to ask myself, How bad do things have to get before God intervenes? I thought God showed up when people got to the end of their rope and I thought I was there. But when I looked around it seemed He was nowhere to be found. How bad do things have to get before God shows up to rescue me?

Sadism or Joy?

I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him. (John 11:15)

Is Jesus serious? This can be a very disturbing verse to our typical views of what we want God to be like for us.

Mary and Martha were close friends of Jesus as was Lazarus their brother. Lazarus gets sick so what do they do? They do what any friend of Jesus would do; they send word to Jesus immediately for help. They trust in Jesus' love for them and believe that He will care for and love them in a way consistent with how He has treated hundreds of other sick people for years. They are confident that He will come quickly to their aid and will heal Lazarus. They have nothing to fear for they have confidence that Jesus will come through for them in their time of need.

These friends of Jesus are living by faith. They are learning from personal experience that God is good and believe that Jesus represents God better than the dark views the religious leaders present. The sisters have both had personal experiences with Jesus that have dramatically changed their lives. Their trust in Jesus has deepened during the time they have known Him and their faith has become much more mature. They have found peace, deliverance from bondage, hope, encouragement and they have tasted a love that has thrilled and saved their souls. They have seen the beauty of God and have given their lives in devotion to Jesus.

So too the disciples of Jesus also have given their lives to follow Him wherever He leads them. They too have seen hundreds, likely thousands of miracles that have helped to firm up their trust in His power. They have lived very close to Him for several years and His influence in their lives has been changing the way they perceive God and the way they think about life. But there is still the issue of watching out for yourself and living within reason. Jesus engages in high risk behaviors that continually threatens both His popularity and even His safety. The disciples are immensely relieved when Jesus heads out of town from Jerusalem in Judea and finds a far more fruitful field far away in which to attract sinners to repentance. They feel much safer here and have no desire to return to the highly charged atmosphere of suspicion and deadly animosity that pervades all the surrounding regions around Jerusalem. They are learning to trust Jesus more but there are limits to what is reasonable to expect of them.

All throughout the book of John it is clear that Jesus is seeking to lead people and particularly His disciples to believe in Him more. He is ever talking about their need to believe and in their minds the many miracles He has performed is the natural method they assume as most effective for culturing such belief. Through His miracles it becomes clear that He cares deeply for people's pain and ever seeks to relieve such whenever it is possible. In fact, they have noticed that it is impossible for Jesus to be in the presence of disease and not intensely want to eliminate it. Whenever Jesus is near demons feel so uncomfortable they desire to flee and do so as quickly as possible on His command. Disease is abolished at a touch or a word and even in some cases they have seen Him do it from a long distance.

All of this has served to strengthen belief in the hearts of all of Jesus' friends that He can be trusted to care deeply about their lives and is always eager to relieve suffering and pain. That is why this verse seems to be such a contradiction to the pattern of compassion that has marked Jesus' ministry up to this point. Instead of doing the expected (and requested) for some of His closest friends, Jesus chooses to take a different response and seems to ignore their request altogether. He continues to work where He is at for two more days and then seems to be in no hurry to return to Judea to see Mary and Martha.

This creates deep questions in the hearts of all involved and gives sudden opportunity for His enemies to spread all sorts of insinuations and inferences about Jesus' motives and abilities. In verse 19 it says that many of the Jews had come to console Mary and Martha. Given the context of the story and the attitudes of 'the Jews' (generally a code term John uses for the Jewish leadership that is hostile toward Jesus' ministry), it is not hard to extrapolate that their 'consoling' may have had more in mind that just compassion behind it. These enemies of Christ were very keen and eager to exploit anything that might serve their intense desires to discredit Him and they were willing to even exploit someone else's pain and anguish to serve their own ends if given a chance.

These Jews were eager to plant doubts in everyone's minds about the true character of Jesus. In this seemingly heartless decision of Jesus to stay away and thus fail to heal one of His closest friends they thought they had been given a grand opportunity to ruin His reputation. His actions seemed so blatantly out of character with what everyone expected Him to do that they thought they had been handed the ace that would confirm all the suspicions they had been seeking to plant in people's minds. And indeed the effect of this choice by Jesus did add to the anguish of His close friends and brought confusion to the minds of His disciples as well.

How could Jesus allow Lazarus to die without even a token effort to come to his rescue? How could He allow His loyal followers who were willing to stand up to all the insinuations and intimidations of the powerful and rich to be so exposed and vulnerable to their attacks? Many questions likely flooded the minds of all who thought they knew Jesus as He chose to do something totally out of harmony with nearly everything He had done for others. What in the world was going on here? How was this supposed to strengthen their faith in Him? If anything it only seemed to dismantle much of what He had been carefully nurturing for years.

This is the context of the thinking of the disciples and others when Jesus makes this bold and strange statement. How strange – Jesus is glad He didn't heal one of His best friends! Is Jesus glad that Mary and Martha are pushed into deeper anguish of soul and that He has made their trust in Him vulnerable to the attacks of those who claim He is a fake? What kind of God would lead people on and entice them to think He cares deeply about them only to suddenly fail to come through when they need Him most? And then to add insult to injury He almost laughs at their pain by saying He is glad He passed up an opportunity to reinforce their faith yet claims that somehow it will result in more belief. This all seems so bizarre that the disciples can make no sense of it.

The only way we can really grasp the powerful effect of their discouragement in this situation is to remember that none of them but Jesus had any idea of what plans He had for this situation. Looking back after the fact it is easy to see how it all worked out for a far greater glory, but in the situation without that foreknowledge it was nearly impossible for any of the people involved to appreciate what Jesus had planned. All they could see was pain, anguish, dashed hopes, reinforced threats and nothing but trouble and pain in their futures. How could any of this serve to strengthen their belief in Jesus when all it seemed to accomplish was to create doubts?

Yet from this side of what was about to happen it becomes easier to see that Jesus was actually exercising faith in Mary and Martha. He knew that their faith was matured enough to survive this severe test and was willing to offer them a chance to reinvest their faith in such a way as to receive exponential dividends from their investment of trust in Him.

That is the nature of faith you know. When we invest it it yields returns in more faith along with other positive benefits and feelings. And the darker the circumstances the greater the opportunity to return a higher return on our investment. In reality these times in our lives are really when God is demonstrating His faith in us. And faith has the ability to induce faith. That is why the only reliable source of faith is a growing awareness of the faithfulness of God. As we come to see how much God trusts us to cling to Him our own faith is awakened and strengthened. Just as love induces love, faith produces faith. When I come to appreciate how much God is willing to trust me under difficult circumstances I learn to trust Him and rely on His faithfulness for my faith.

How often do I find myself in dire circumstances, wanting God to come through for me in a pinch, looking for an immediate miracle while God seems to be distracted or not paying attention to my prayers? How am I supposed to strengthen my trust in Him when it seems that nothing is going right and the more I pray and believe the worse things get? And then I may overhear God say that all of this is supposed to result in a much stronger faith in the end and I wonder if maybe He has lost control or knows what He is doing.

Or maybe I have the presence of mind to remember this story and the people involved and choose to make a decision to trust God in the dark rather than stumble around because the Light is not yet bright enough inside my heart.

Scripture is given for our encouragement, for our instruction and admonition so that we may see ourselves in these stories and can choose to respond differently. We have the incredible advantage of a fuller revelation of God than even the disciples discerned because we have the entire history of His interaction with humanity all throughout history at our disposal. Because of this, if we choose to fill our minds and hearts with the stories and illustrations and teachings of Jesus we can respond with trust even when things seem to be the darkest.

That is what I perceive in the words of Martha when later in the story she confronts Jesus with her heart cry about why He didn't show up when she needed Him most. Even though she was not afraid to tell Him how she felt, she also chose to trust His love and power even though she had little clue as to what He was going to make of their situation. And because of her trust even in the darkness, her faith became a seed that allowed Jesus to perform one of the most amazing demonstrations of His love the world had yet seen. Both Martha and Mary's faith were tested severely during this trial but Jesus did not scold them for voicing their pain and questions to Him openly. But He encouraged them to hang on a little longer so they could see the end of the story and experience far greater joy than they would have known if things had worked out the way they had wanted.

Yes, Jesus was glad and was filled with anticipation for the joy He would share with those who believed in Him. Looking forward to joy with His friends was one of the sources of strength that Jesus relied on to keep Him going. And Jesus seeks to mentor His followers to live the same way He did so they will not become faint and lose hope.

...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 12:2-3)