When the Lord Says "Watch This!"

Remaining strong and hopeful while waiting on the Lord can be so difficult –especially as your season of waiting grows long or as the situation grows hopeless.

I wonder if a friend of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus may have offered this verse to them as a word of encouragement while they waited for Jesus to show up and heal Lazarus. Someone may have said to them, ‘I know you are concerned because Lazarus is sick and even though you sent word to Jesus, he hasn’t come yet. Remember what the psalmist said –wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.’

As Lazarus grew sicker and sicker, were Mary and Martha able to wait patiently for Jesus? Were they able to remain strong? Did they continue to have hope in their hearts? What happened to their hope when Lazarus died and Jesus still had not come?

I’m reminded of the end of the wedding scene in The Princess Bride when Buttercup is completely shocked and devastated because Westley did not come in time to rescue her from Prince Humperdink. It was with a deep sense of disappointment and hopelessness that she uttered, ‘he didn’t come.’

Like Princess Buttercup, Mary and Martha must have wondered why Jesus didn’t come and why He didn’t make it to Bethany “on time” to heal Lazarus and save the day. They must have wondered why Jesus was so slow. Didn’t he know what was going on and what they were going through in His absence? Didn’t He love them and their brother Lazarus? 

I find it interesting that John notes for us that “although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, he stayed where he was for the next two days” (John 11:5-6 NLT). His delay was not because He didn’t love them or want what was best for them or everyone else around them.

As the stone was sealed over the tomb, Mary and Martha must have seen their situation as finished and hopeless. As everyone knows, death is final and there was nothing else that could be done. It was over. Even Jesus couldn’t do anything for them at this point. Lazarus was dead, as was their hope. And this was all because Jesus was too slow in getting to them --at least in their understanding.

The apostle Peter was there and witnessed this entire event. I wonder if he had this in mind at all when he wrote, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness…” (2 Pet 3:9 NIV). How do we understand slowness? God not acting on our personal timeline? Or not acting according to our own finite understanding?

The Lord says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is 55:4 NIV). His thoughts and ways are not just a little bit higher than ours. We can’t just reach a little higher or think a little deeper or concentrate a little harder and be able to wrap our minds around the Lord’s ways and thoughts, just as we can’t stretch high enough to reach into outer space or even to touch the clouds in the sky.

Mary and Martha’s plan was for Jesus to come before Lazarus died and for Jesus to restore Lazarus to health. While this would have been a good, miraculous event, it was nothing compared to what Jesus did for them. He didn’t just restore health to a living person. He brought a dead, rotting, stinking corpse back to life. While healing Lazarus from his illness would have been nice, raising him from the dead after four days was a glorious, spectacular, incomprehensible miracle that no one expected --a miracle that could only be performed by the One who “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph 3:20 NIV).

Raising Lazarus from the dead was far beyond what Mary and Martha could have asked or imagined, and they would have missed it if Jesus had succumbed to their plans, their requests, and their timeline. Jesus waited until the situation seemed completely and utterly hopeless before He stepped in and said “Watch this!”

So again, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord” (Ps 27:14 NIV) and wait for God to step into your hopeless situation and say “watch this!”