Going at your own pace
In which Lazarus falls ill. His sisters send for Jesus, who stalls for two days, then sets off to see them. In the meantime Lazarus has died.
Why if Jesus was going to do something miraculous didn’t he go and do it straight away? Surely it wasn’t because he was worried about being stoned, or to put on a great show – after all a resurrection totally trumps a healing doesn’t it. Was it just so Jesus could make a good point?
I can’t imagine so. But Jesus works in his time and his way, not the bidding of his followers.
Martha is distraught, because she thinks that Jesus could have saved Lazarus. But Jesus can reach beyond that. Then Mary also tells Jesus that if he had been here “it would never have happened”.
How often do we cry that to God. “If you’d only been here God this would never have happened.”
Why isn’t Jesus doing something?
Eventually they go to the tomb. A tomb with a four-day corpse in it in the heat of the hills around Jerusalem!
And there is life…
And there is faith…
God is there.
Who knows what the reaction would have been if Jesus had got there sooner, before Lazarus had died. What would people have seen and done then? How would they have reacted? Would they have seen all that God can do, or just a small part?
God can be so annoying when he goes at his own pace! We can try to force his hand, but what do we miss?
Can we wait, and trust?
Let God be God
and do his stuff?
That from death and decay
he may bring life?
Come Lord,
may our time
be your time;
our will your will;
that we may see your glory
and new life
Pam's Perambulation 