Love and Delays

The word "therefore" is an amazing word. It connects the preceding verses, but it occurs in an unexpected place. That’s why, in my opinion, it is so interesting. "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus. When he heard therefore..." Now isn’t that a strange "therefore?"

Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus, therefore He stepped away when they needed Him the most. He loved all of them, therefore when they sent Him an urgent message saying come at once without delay, for two days He did not honor their request. He loved them; therefore He did nothing to help them after their desperate plea for mercy. He left them to bear it all alone.

One would be tempted to think that this must be a mistake. If left alone to complete this, we would have said, "When he heard therefore that he was sick, he set off immediately for Judaea and healed him." We would expect the actions of Jesus to be that of compassion, not apathy.

The natural thing for Christ to do was to go immediately and help a friend experiencing a crisis. He was always quick to show compassion, and to help those in need. Before men called He answered, and while they were yet speaking, He heard. But in this case, by the time He arrived, it seemed all He could do was cry with them

But this "therefore" brings out the fact that sometimes because God loves us, He delays answering us immediately. We need to understand that there is love in our delays and disappointments. No one enjoys sorrows and setbacks, nor are we supposed to. But there is more to adversity than grief. There’s love that our eyes cannot see and our minds cannot comprehend. We are tempted to say, "an enemy has done this", but it may be love delaying us while taking us through the trouble.

Think about Joseph and the enormous trials and tribulations he passed through. His brothers who physically abused him and actually considered murdering him, sold him into slavery. He spent years of his youthful life in prison because someone lied on him. It seemed like God forgot about him, but He didn’t. He saw everything that Joseph was going through. God loved Joseph, but allowed him to go to prison. Yet all the while, Joseph was on his way to second place in the kingdom of Egypt.

Had God not provided delays for Joseph, he never would have proven capable of ruling next to Pharaoh. Even in the prison cell, Joseph was second in charge. God used those unfair circumstances to train Joseph in the grace he needed to save the nation of Israel at the appropriate time. We focus on the present but God sees what’s ahead.

The Israelites roamed around the wilderness for forty years. Out of the millions that originally left Egypt, only two survived to make it into the Promise Land. When they first left Egypt, they expected a five-day journey. But they got delayed, and ended up wandering for years in the desert. They experienced hunger, thirst and dangers on every hand. It seemed that God had forgotten them, but He never took His eyes off them. He used that wilderness experience to mold them into a great nation capable of surviving against vicious and powerful enemies.

Paul cried out for God to deliver him from a thorn in the flesh. But God let Paul keep that thorn, and used it to bring Paul into new revelations and mysteries. It was Paul himself that said, "Gladly will I rejoice in my infirmities". God loved Paul but delayed him through shipwrecks, beatings and imprisonment. In the end Paul established churches all over the land and wrote most of the New Testament.

I can imagine that when Jesus arrived, those sisters didn’t quite know what to think of Him. But because Jesus loved that family, He went to them at the exact moment His visit would be most profitable. When they received Lazarus back to life, they were glad for the delay. They learned things about Jesus that they otherwise would not have known.

The very things that tempt us to say, "God has forgotten us" may be the proofs of His love. Because He loves us, He allows the road to get rough and the storms to beat on us. We may not always see the love, but it’s there. We just have to believe and trust Him. Behind that trouble and pain is the measureless love of God working in us in an eternal way.

During that two-day delay, Jesus was thinking about that family the whole time. His impulse was to immediately go and comfort them. But He had to wait until the right time. And when that right time came, He went and delivered His friends.

Notice that the sisters were in Bethany, but Jesus said, "Let us go into Judaea". He went back to the place where the Jews tried to kill him. Jesus didn’t regard His personal safety or comfort. He will take any risk and make any sacrifice because He loves us.

When it came to our redemption, Jesus made the sacrifice. He left the glories of heaven and came into a sin cursed world. He knew that He would suffer, but He came anyway. And no matter how many delays He allows us to go through, we can be sure that He has our best interest in mind. And when it’s all over, it will be well worth the wait.

By: Edmund Brown