Why Did Jesus Wait Two Days?

Fifth Sunday in Lent

April 2, 2017

John 11:6

Why Did Jesus Wait Two Days?

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

¹Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ²This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped His feet with her hair. ³So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

JOHN 11:1-3 NIV 1984

Why did Jesus wait two days? Why did Jesus wait two days to begin walking to Bethany after He had been told that a dear friend was near death?

Was He waiting for a deeper show of love from the sisters, Mary and Martha? Others had traveled many miles to beg Jesus to heal their loved ones or had actually brought the sick person to Jesus to heal. Mary and Martha sent someone else to tell Jesus about this critical situation. Was that the problem? They didn’t show enough respect?

Absolutely not! We have seen these pious sisters before: Mary at Jesus’ feet listening to every word that He spoke and no doubt Martha also at Jesus’ feet after Jesus had gently rebuked her for missing the point as to why He was there in their house. There were few, if any, who would have had more trust and respect for Jesus than Martha and Mary.

So why wait two days? Jesus said:

“This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” ⁵Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶Yet when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was two more days.

JOHN 11:4-6 NIV 1984

He waited so that He, God’s Son, may be glorified. And this glorifying would happen through death and resurrection. His death and resurrection. That’s what it would take to get Lazarus out of the tomb and back home to Mary and Martha. Lazarus has to get out of the tomb, so that Jesus can get into it. Someone had to die. Justice had to be satisfied.

And so Jesus Christ, innocent and holy, dies as Lazarus’ substitute. Jesus will soon be taken into the tomb, where Lazarus had lately slept. Not the same tomb, but it may as well have been. Jesus trades Himself for Lazarus. And He does the same for you.

He is the resurrection and the life and He gives Himself as a ransom for you, paying our ransom not with gold or money, but His own life-blood. And so the tomb and death will not have the last word; Jesus will have the last word, for if you die before He returns, He will stand over your grave on the last day and say, “Come out!”

And unlike Lazarus, you will never die again because He already has.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be Served, but to Serve, and to Give His Life as a Ransom for Many. Amen.