In the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the final “sign” in John’s gospel, we are reminded of the purpose of these signs. Like a signpost, they point to something beyond themselves. When Jesus heard that Lazarus is ill, he told the disciples:
“This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory to that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” (John 11:4)
Like the turning of water into wine at Cana (2:11) this sign reveals Jesus’s glory. In John’s gospel, ‘glory’ refers not to the praise that is due to God, but to “his revelation, his self-disclosure” (Carson). Through these signs, Jesus is showing us something fundamental about who he is – in this case that he is “the resurrection and the life” (11:25)
Perhaps this explains the strange logic of verses 5-6, best captured in the ESV translation:
“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” Jesus loved them, SO he delayed. What? This seems absurd (and so many translations prefer ‘yet’ to ‘so’). Regardless of whether Lazarus was already dead when Jesus got this message or not, and whether Jesus could have actually got to Lazarus in time, we must still deal with the fact that Jesus could heal at distance . If he had wanted Lazarus not to die he could have achieved it. There is one sense in which he allowed Lazarus to die – and he did this because he loved Mary and her sister and Lazarus.
This is so instructive to us. More important for Mary and her sister than having Lazarus back, was to understand Jesus’ identity – to see his glory. This is why Jesus delayed. The most loving thing he could do for them was not to raise Lazarus (though of course he did). But the most loving thing he could do was to show them himself, his character, his power as lifegiver – his glory. When we suffer, or see others suffering, the ‘answer’ is not found in philosphical reflections nor apologetic arguments. It is the person of Jesus who brings comfort, and trust.
We may struggle with how Jesus could delay when he loved Mary and her sister so much. We still struggle today as Jesus permits his people to suffer greatly in this world, and appears to ‘delay’ in coming to help. We won’t know all the reasons now. As Job’s 'comforters' demonstrated, there is a great danger in trying to rationalise what God is doing, and presume we have all the answers. (It would be wrong, for example to assume that if someone is suffering, it is because God is trying to tell them something – this may be the case, but we simply do not know.)
But here we do see that whilst suffering still happens and is real, and whilst we may not be given the explanation (only the disciples got this, not Mary) we do know that our greatest need is to come to Jesus in this situation, and see more of him and his character. We may not get answers, but we know he is good. We may not have situations restored now, but we know he will one day restore all things. We may not understand how he can allow evil and suffering as part of his good purposes – but we do know that he does.
Ultimately, when we wonder how God can allow evil and somehow bring good through it, we must go to the cross of Jesus Christ. God the Father could have rescued Jesus, just as Jesus could have stopped Lazarus from dying. But through the greatest act of human wickedness, and the greatest depths of human suffering, God worked his exquisite plan of salvation. No human mind could have conceived it, angels long to look into it, without the Holy Spirit we could never understand it: well might we say of the death of Jesus Christ “it is for God’s glory so that God’s son may be glorified through it.” (11:4)
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