Thankfully, that was not the end of the story. Yes, Jesus loved
Lazarus. At the very beginning of this account, right after Jesus heard that
Lazarus was sick, the Scripture says, “Now
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”[3] The only way to understand everything that
happened next is as the divine expression of a love that was greater than
anyone could have imagined.
It was this love that
compelled Jesus to wait a few days until Lazarus had died. Not loving, you say?
Actually, it was the most loving thing that Jesus could do. Why, you ask?
Because Jesus’ love had already revealed himself to Martha, Mary, and Lazarus
as the Son of God who heals people’s physical sickness and disease. They knew
this enough to send word to him to come and do what they knew he could do.
Jesus
alone knew he was more than a healer. He was more than the Great Physician who
makes the leper clean, the blind see, the deaf hear, and the mute to speak the
praises of God. His love for these dear ones of God compelled him to put them
into deeper grief in order to reveal himself in a higher glory. They knew he
could heal? Good. Now watch what he could do even better than that!
What
no one knew about Jesus was that he was “the resurrection and the life”.[4] All he needed was the death of someone he loved and he could reveal
himself in something more magnificent than healing. When he heard that his
beloved Lazarus was deathly ill, he waited for death to do its work so that the
resurrection and the life could do his work.
When Jesus stood at Lazarus’s tomb and “cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out’”,[5] he was revealing a higher expression of love than
people knew existed in this Jesus of Nazareth. All could testify that Jesus’
weeping at Lazarus’s tomb showed how much he loved his friend. Now everyone
through the ages can testify that Jesus shows his love by raising his beloved
from the dead so that we can live together with him forever.
The hope of the believer is not that Jesus will weep at our
funerals. The hope of the believer is that the bridegroom of the church so
loves us, that he demonstrated this to the church while we were still dead in
our trespasses and sins, made us alive in himself, and has gone to the heavenly
throne-room to prepare a place in his Father’s house to bring us home to him
forever.
No wonder the apostle John, who was inspired by God to
record the account of Jesus’ love to Lazarus, would also declare these
wondering words in one of his letters to the churches: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be
called children of God; and so we are”.[6]
There you have it: not a lonely Son of God who weeps at the
gravesides of all the people he had wished could be his brothers; but the
triumphant Savior who rejoices that he will soon come to gather all his
redeemed brothers to be with him, and live in the joy of his love forever.
Through the gospel, he calls us to come to him now, and one day he will call us
all to come into his presence forever.
From my heart,
Monte
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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