10/11/2023
How long will we wait for God’s answer to a prayer before we give up and try to do what we have asked of Him ourselves, or abandon that thing altogether? His silence defines our faith; in the quiet stillness we wait, until at last we begin to feel around in the darkness for the edges of our belief.
“So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again."”
John 11:6-7 ESV
Martha and Mary had waited for Jesus to arrive and heal their brother, but He hadn’t come. Not only hadn’t He come, but He had intentionally waited for Lazarus to die. The two sisters undoubtedly felt that their prayers had not been answered, and now after four days in the grave, it was too late... or was it? Oswald Chambers asks a telling question of us...
“Has God trusted you with a silence - a silence that is big with meaning? God’s silences are His answers. Think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything analogous to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking for a visible answer?” - Oswald Chambers
Mary and Martha had given up on their request to God and lost Hope in Jesus’ coming to heal their brother. They had prepared Lazarus’ body, placed it in the tomb, and rolled a rock in front of it. It was over! Then Jesus came.
Have you ever prayed and prayed for something; going to the Lord in tears day after day, only to be faced with silence? Have you sent for Jesus in a moment of great despair and heard nothing from Him? I think that if we think back, each of us can recall such a time, and if we can’t, then we had better prepare ourselves.
Jesus didn’t wait arbitrarily before he went to Bethany, and He wasn’t being mean or hateful by making Mary and Martha suffer. What He did was the will of God. The wait, the silence, and the lesson, were all in accordance with God’s will and purpose.
“"I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”
John 5:30 ESV
When at last Jesus arrived he didn’t just give Lazarus a little CPR and return him to life, He took a corpse that was rotting in the grave and regenerated it! He not only returned the breath to a dead man, but repaired every cell in his body... Jesus reconstituted every microbe in his gut... removed every one of death’s agents of deterioration from within him. The power of this miracle was immense, but was no more of a challenge for Him than healing a woman with a bloody discharge, or turning some water into wine.
Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave, but why did He wait? What was the purpose in the silence? Hmmm... interestingly, this is the same question we find ourselves asking in our prayer closets today. Well, there are many reasons and lessons in His silence, but they always boil down to one common theme... so that we will marvel at the Son of God, and to bring glory to God Himself.
“For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.”
John 5:20-21 ESV
Mary and Martha believed Jesus was the Son of God, but until this moment they only saw Him as an emissary of God, and the fulfillment of the promise of a resurrection and life to come. He didn’t heal... God healed. He didn’t raise the dead, only God could do that! But in this moment of miracle that understanding changed and God moves from the promise of a distant future to its realization in their day.
Wasn’t it Jesus that was standing before the tomb, and wasn’t it Jesus that called him out of the grave? Yes it was, but He was doing what the Father had taught Him, and would have him do. The purpose of God in Bethany was not only to glorify Himself, but to glorify His Son.
“But when Jesus heard it he said, "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it."”
John 11:4 ESV
So Lazarus was raised from the dead, and we marveled at the power of Jesus, and God was glorified through His Son, but there were other purposes as well... Mary and Martha were taught patience, and to never lose faith. The surrounding family and townspeople were led to a deeper faith in God, and an understanding of who Jesus was, and that He had been given God’s power. All of these things were done to benefit the faith of those who saw... and in hearing this account, our faiths as well.
“So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out."”
John 11:41-43 ESV
But even so, the purpose of Jesus’ waiting is not complete. The people believed when they saw Lazarus, then in their amazement some of them ran to tell the Pharisees, and in their innocent zeal we see that this two day wait on the part of Jesus set into motion the ultimate will of God... the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
“Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him, but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, "What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."”
John 11:45-48 ESV
Our individual moments of silence, when we wait for God to answer our prayers, are like this. The answer to our prayers, even the simple ones, have far reaching ramifications. Every prayer we utter is woven as a single thread, into the ultimate garment of God’s will. No prayer, nor desire is without grandeur, or consequence. In every request we make of Jesus there is marvel, and the glory of God... isn’t this worth the wait?
Prayer:
Father we thank you for the care you take in weaving our prayers into your will. We thank you for the marvel that we have in Jesus Christ, and the glory that your fulfillment of our simplest request brings to you! Holy Father we are unable to see as you do, and our expectations are in the here and now of our lives, but you see all things and in your mind lives the finished garment of your will; complete with each of our little prayers. Jesus we wait on you, and whether that be for a day, two days, or the remainder of our lives on earth, we know that you will answer in the perfect time, and that at that moment the thread of our desire will have been woven into perfection... into the glorious will of God. Lord we marvel at your sacrifice and complete adherence to the will of the Father. Teach us Jesus to wait as you waited, and to accept the Father’s will just as you have. Let our faith join with that of every saint in preparing a marvelous garment of radiant beauty to the glory of the Father.
Rich Forbes