Photo credits: dreams times.com.
Jesus’ disciples were bemused to hear him speak about journeying to arouse Lazarus from his sleep. Initially, they protested because they felt sleep was good enough for Lazarus; What’s the need to travel all the way down to Bethany to disrupt it?
Despite Jesus’ attempt to simplify his illustration by telling of Lazarus’ death, Thomas still misunderstood; He knew how the Jews wanted to kill Jesus and now, there’s a dead Lazarus in Bethany, where he thought they were all going with Jesus to die together.
Martha on the other hand must have been a very thorough Lady who believed in preventive measures. She accused Jesus’ of showing up late else the death of her brother could have been averted. However, Jesus tried to reassure her of the possibility of Lazarus’s resurrection if she believed but her belief was in tandem with her brother’s resurrection in the after life and not the kind Jesus proposed to her.
How about Mary? She was deeply grieved and wept bitterly. She also believed Jesus’ prompt arrival could have prevented her brother’s death. There was no need to continually play the blame game again– Lazarus was already dead.
Let us consider the actions of the Jews who came in their numbers to empathize with Mary and Martha. They reflected sorrow for their loss and availed themselves to soothe their griefs. Their actions supported the finality of Lazarus’s condition.
The death of Lazarus vividly portrayed the varied reactions of people to the reality of death or a hopeless condition,.
The disciples could not accept the reversibility of the situation like Jesus’ did when he initially used the word, sleep, instead of death. He likened death to sleep because to him, they were synonymous.
Martha struggled to believe in her brother’s instant resurrection because she had never heard of anyone raised back to life, and her brother’s death for four days couldn’t be any different. She already looked forward to counting more days to commemorate his death.
It was too late. Lazarus was dead.The Jews wept. Martha wept. Mary Wept. The weeping crowd moved Jesus and he wept too because he was in human form.
Nonetheless, in the midst of the rigmarole of sorrows, deep within Jesus’ heart, he believed Lazarus will rise again. No matter how the prevailing situation supported the fact that Lazarus had died and had been buried for 4 good days, Jesus believed otherwise. He knew his time has come and Lazarus’s condition will be changed.
He didn’t confer finality on his death but believed in the certainty of his resurrection.He knew from the outset that God would glorify himself in Lazarus’s situation to prove himself to the people.
Like Jesus believed against all odds, he is calling you to believe he can intervene in any situation that you might have tagged “dead” in your life.
Others might have also validated the impossibility of the situation and stifled every possibility of hope in you.You might have joined the crowd to blame God for being late in his intervention.
You might, like Martha, have moved on, although with a shaky belief in the possibility of a change in that situation because of how late help arrived; Jesus wants you to believe that whatever time he shows up is the best time, no matter how late you think he is.
No matter the damage wreaked in your life by the lethality of that condition, he has the power to bring out something beautiful from your ruins.
To God, death is the beginning of life and not the end of it for his children. God can turn around the deadness of the situation to an opportunity for a brand new start if you will just believe, no matter how hard it is to believe . Don’t write yourself off when God is opening a new chapter for you.
Therefore, friends, instead of weeping, rejoice and like Jesus, glorify God because he will surprise you in his due time.
God bless you.
