You, dear reader, get an excellent treat. I told you in December that I would be featuring other bloggers from time to time and sharing some of your stories as well. This week I introduce to a gentleman with an awesome gift for words. Not only are his blogs a tremendous testimony to his life and restoration through Christ, but he is an incredibly gifted speaker,singer, instrumentalist and song writer.
I introduce to you Lee Lumley. Be sure to follow him at http://leelumley.blogspot.com and for his music you can find him at http://www.reverbnation.com/leelumley. Once you start reading you won't want to stop. Meanwhile....I'm back to my writing and reading.
Four Days Without Jesus
So when Jesus came He found that [Lazarus] had already been in the tomb four days.
They had sent for Jesus asking Him to come heal their brother. They believed that He was the Son of God and able to heal him. With expectation they waited patiently to see Him coming over the horizon. All the right things had been performed but still they watched their brother Lazarus take his last breath. In spite of their prayers, in spite of their faith, in spite of the fact that Jesus was able to heal him, Lazarus died.
It's one thing to experience the death of someone you love but it's an entirely different thing to experience that loss when you have a personal relationship with the one who holds the power to heal them. Mary, Martha and Lazarus were close friends of Jesus. They knew Him intimately and knew that He was the Son of God and was able to heal. That is why they sent for Him to come. The message they sent was simply, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick". They didn't even ask for healing because they knew if Jesus showed up the healing would come. They trusted His heart and knew His love for Lazarus. That's why they must have very confused and heartbroken when Jesus didn't show up.
The next four days had to have been torture for them. Not only did Jesus not heal Lazarus but He also wasn't there to comfort them in their time of grief. Thoughts of despair must have set in. They were surrounded by people who were trying to comfort them but the one person they wanted to see wasn't there. I'm sure Satan was throwing all kinds of fiery darts their way. "Jesus isn't really the Son of God" - "If He really loved you He would have healed Lazarus" - "God failed!" We read in John 11:6 that when Jesus heard Lazarus was sick he stayed where he was for two more days. The one who loved them seemed to be in no hurry to get to them. It's enough to make even the most faithful believer doubt God's love.
Sometimes God's miracles require us to be in that place of despair before they occur. We have to get to a point of complete loss before we can know the fullness of His provision. You see Jesus didn't delay because He didn't love them. He delayed because He wanted them to experience the the joy of seeing resurrection power but in order to do so they had to experience the pain of losing a loved one to death.
When Jesus finally came strolling down the lane to Bethany Mary said to Him, "Lord if you had been here he would not have died" (John 11:21) and the crowd said, "Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept [Lazarus] from dying?" The anger, frustration and doubt that had built up over the past four days was now coming to light. Their loss was causing them to feel hopeless and they were focused on what Jesus didn't do and lost sight of what He was going to do.
Notice that I didn't include Martha in that paragraph. We see in verse 21 that Martha, like Mary also said, "Lord, if you had been here he would not have died" but she doesn't stop there. In verse 22 she continues on to say, "But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You". Can I let you in on a secret? God isn't afraid of our anger. He's big enough that He can handle it. When we get angry with Him and tell him how we feel He doesn't give up on us and walk away. Look at Jesus on the cross. In His moment of despair he cried out, "My God, My God why have you forsaken me!". What God wants to see is if after our "Four Day Experience" of His apparent abandonment we will still have faith that He is who He says He is.
There is a hidden truth in this story that's easily overlooked. We are told that when Martha heard that Jesus was coming she ran to meet Him. Then it says "but Mary was sitting in the house" (verse 20) I believe what this is saying is that Martha was up and moving around trying to get on with her life because she believed that Jesus was able to anything, even after death. It doesn't mean she wasn't heartbroken but that she trusted God's will. Mary on the other hand was sitting still, stuck in the moment. She was so focused on what Jesus didn't do that she didn't realize He was there in her presence. We can't let our disappointment in what God didn't do keep us from looking forward to what God is going to do.
Jesus walked up to the grave and told them to roll the stone away. Now is where the rubber meets the road. Martha who just moments ago was saying "even now I know whatever you ask of God, God will give you", was faced with putting that faith into action. It's no longer allowed to simply be a thought in her mind but God is requiring her to do something, something that in the worlds eyes makes no sense. Martha replies, "Lord by this time there is a stinch, for he has been in there for four days". You see Martha had faith that Jesus was able to raise Lazarus but she wanted it done her way. She wanted him to magically appear in front of them. Opening the tomb meant that she had to be reminded of the death. By witnessing the resurrection in this way the tomb would forever be part of the memory of Lazarus' resurrection. She wanted Jesus to erase the ugliness of the tomb from her mind but Jesus wanted to make the tomb part of the beauty of God's grace.
I don't know what loss you are dealing with today. Maybe it's the loss of a loved one, the loss of a marriage, the loss of a job. Maybe you've prayed until you're blue in the face and you trusted God to deliver you but He didn't. You may be frustrated and confused, even angry at God. I'm not going to tell you that God will raise your situation from the dead like He did Lazarus but He will put resurrection power in your life! The story of Lazarus isn't really about Lazarus' resurrection so much as about our experience when deliverance is delayed. In order for God to have complete Lordship over our life He has to be God in our "Four Day Experience" eventhough we think He has abandoned us. If He isn't Lord over those four days then He's not Lord at all.
A slave no more, except to Him who saved me!
Lee Lumley
Romans 6:6
"Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. FOR HE WHO HAS DIED HAS BEEN FREED FROM SIN"
http://www.reverbnation.com/leelumley/song/20755674-life-after-hell
http://leelumley.bandcamp.com/track/life-after-hell
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