The Calculated Delays of Love Text: John 11:1-16
Introduction: Sovereignty's Timetable
We live in a world that prizes immediacy. We want instant coffee, instant communication, and instant solutions to our problems. When we are in distress, we cry out to God, and we expect a divine response on our timetable. We send up our prayers like an urgent text message and then stare at the heavens, waiting for the three little dots to appear, signifying that God is typing. But our God is not a cosmic butler, and His ways are not our ways. He is the sovereign Lord of history, and He operates on a schedule that is often inscrutable to us, a schedule designed not for our immediate comfort, but for His ultimate glory and our ultimate good.
In this passage, we are invited into one of the most intimate and perplexing moments in the life of our Lord. Jesus receives word that His dear friend, a man He explicitly loves, is sick to the point of death. And what is His response? He waits. He deliberately delays. From a human perspective, this is baffling, even cruel. It seems to contradict the very nature of love. But John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wants us to see something profound here. He wants us to understand that the apparent delays of God are not denials of His love, but rather are the calculated prelude to a far greater display of His power and glory. Jesus's love for this family is the very reason He delays.
This story is a frontal assault on our demand for a tame and predictable God. It forces us to grapple with the hard edges of divine sovereignty. God's love does not always manifest as the immediate removal of our suffering. Sometimes, His love allows the suffering to run its course, to descend into the grave itself, so that He might show us that His power is not merely in preventing death, but in reversing it. This is not a story about healing a sick man. This is a story about the glory of God, the authority of the Son, the necessity of faith, and the calculated, sovereign love that orchestrates all things, even death, for its own glorious purposes.
We are all, in some way, Martha and Mary. We send our desperate pleas to heaven and wonder why the answer is slow in coming. We are all, in some way, the disciples, confused by the words of Jesus, unable to see the grand purpose behind the painful providence. And we are all, in some way, Lazarus, dead in our sins, helpless in the tomb, waiting for the voice that alone can call us forth. This passage, then, is for us. It is designed to recalibrate our understanding of love, to deepen our faith in the face of confusion, and to fix our eyes on the one who is, Himself, the Resurrection and the Life.
The Text
Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. And it was the Mary who anointed the Lord with perfume, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. So the sisters sent to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick." But when Jesus heard this, He said, "This sickness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it." Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days in the place where He was. Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." The disciples said to Him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him." He said these things, and after that He said to them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him." The disciples then said to Him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be saved from his sickness." Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of actual sleep. So Jesus then said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him." Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, so that we may die with Him."
(John 11:1-16 LSB)
A Purpose Declared (vv. 1-4)
We begin with the setup, the desperate message, and the divine commentary.
"Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. And it was the Mary who anointed the Lord with perfume, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. So the sisters sent to Him, saying, 'Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.' But when Jesus heard this, He said, 'This sickness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.'" (John 11:1-4)
John introduces us to this family with whom Jesus shared a special intimacy. This is not an anonymous petitioner in a crowd. This is Lazarus, Mary, and Martha. John even points forward to Mary's extravagant act of worship in chapter 12 to emphasize the depth of their relationship with Jesus. Their appeal is a model of believing prayer. They don't demand a specific action or dictate a timeline. They simply state the situation and rest it on their relationship with Him: "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick." They appeal to His heart. They know that His love is the most powerful argument they possess.
Jesus's response is immediate, but it is not what we would expect. He doesn't say, "I'm on my way." He speaks to His disciples and gives them the divine interpretation of the event before it has even fully unfolded. "This sickness is not to end in death." Now, we must be careful here. Jesus is not saying Lazarus will not die. He knows full well that Lazarus will die. He is speaking of the ultimate end, the final purpose, the telos of the sickness. The final word on this situation will not be death, but glory. This entire ordeal, from the first fever to the final stone rolled over the tomb, has been orchestrated for one central purpose: "for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it."
This is a staggering claim. God is not a cosmic firefighter, rushing to put out fires that flare up unexpectedly. He is the sovereign playwright, and even the darkest scenes are written into the script to serve the final act. The suffering of Lazarus is not a meaningless tragedy that God must then redeem; it is a chosen instrument for the display of His glory. This is hard doctrine, but it is the bedrock of Christian comfort. If our afflictions are random, then our suffering is pointless. But if they are for the glory of God, then they are saturated with meaning. Jesus is teaching us to look past the immediate cause of our trials and to ask after their ultimate purpose.
A Paradoxical Love (vv. 5-7)
What follows is one of the most theologically dense and pastorally challenging statements in the Gospels.
"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days in the place where He was. Then after this He said to the disciples, 'Let us go to Judea again.'" (John 11:5-7)
John states plainly, "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." Then he connects this love directly to the delay with the word "So" or "Therefore." The logic is inescapable. Jesus loved them, THEREFORE He waited. His delay was not an act of indifference, but an expression of this specific, powerful love. Our sentimental, modern notions of love cannot handle this. We think love always rushes in to prevent pain. But divine love is after something far greater than our immediate ease. It is after our deepest faith and God's highest glory.
If Jesus had rushed to Bethany, He would have healed a sick man. That would have been a wonderful miracle, another one for the list. But by waiting, by allowing death to do its work, He set the stage for a far greater miracle: the resurrection of a man four days dead. This would not just heal a body; it would demonstrate His absolute authority over the last enemy, death itself. The two-day delay was an act of profound, albeit painful, love. He was giving them a greater gift than healing; He was giving them a front-row seat to the glory of God. He was preparing to give them a sign so powerful it would serve as the final trigger for His own arrest and crucifixion, the very act that would conquer death forever.
Walking in the Light (vv. 8-10)
The disciples, operating on a purely human level, see the plan to return to Judea as suicidal folly.
"The disciples said to Him, 'Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?' Jesus answered, 'Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.'" (John 11:8-10)
Their concern is practical and understandable. Judea was a hornet's nest. To go back was to walk directly into the hands of those who wanted Him dead. But Jesus answers with a short parable about walking in the day. The "day" for Jesus is the appointed time given to Him by the Father to complete His work. The "light of this world" is the Father's will, His divine commission. Jesus is saying that as long as He is walking in obedience to the Father's timetable, He is perfectly safe. He cannot stumble. No harm can befall Him before His appointed "hour" has come.
This is the calm confidence of a man who lives in perfect submission to the sovereignty of God. The threats of men are irrelevant. The plots of the Jews are meaningless noise. All that matters is the Father's will. To walk in that will is to walk in broad daylight. To deviate from it, to act out of fear or self-preservation, is to walk in the night, where stumbling is inevitable. He is teaching His disciples, and us, that true safety is not found in avoiding danger, but in radical obedience to God's revealed will, trusting His sovereign timing completely.
A Sleep and an Awakening (vv. 11-16)
Jesus now shifts from parable to a metaphor that His disciples, once again, completely misunderstand.
"He said these things, and after that He said to them, 'Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him.' The disciples then said to Him, 'Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be saved from his sickness.' Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of actual sleep. So Jesus then said to them plainly, 'Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.' Therefore Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, 'Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.'" (John 11:11-16)
For the believer, death has been transformed. It is no longer a terrifying finality but a "sleep" from which we will be awakened. This is the consistent language of the New Testament. Death has been defanged. But the disciples, still thinking in purely natural terms, take Him literally. "If he's just sleeping, that's great news! He's on the mend." Their misunderstanding forces Jesus to be brutally plain: "Lazarus is dead."
And then He says something else that must have shocked them. "And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe." He is glad for the grief of Mary and Martha? He is glad for the death of His friend? No. He is glad for the opportunity this presents for the disciples. Their faith was still fledgling. They had seen healings, but they were about to see a resurrection. This event was not primarily for Lazarus, but for them, "so that you may believe." God will often lead His people through deep waters not for the sake of the one drowning, but for the sake of those watching from the shore, that their faith might be galvanized.
Thomas's response is telling. He is often remembered as "Doubting Thomas," but here we see a different side. We see a courageous, loyal, albeit pessimistic, follower. He misunderstands the whole situation. He doesn't grasp the talk of glory or awakening. He hears "Let us go to Judea," and all he can think of is the stones waiting for them. But his conclusion is one of fierce loyalty: "Let us also go, so that we may die with Him." It is a faith mixed with fatalism, a love that is willing to die for a cause it does not yet fully comprehend. It is a dim faith, but it is a real faith, and Jesus will honor it and build upon it.
Conclusion: The Divine Delay in Your Life
This entire episode is a master class in divine providence. Every element is perfectly timed and orchestrated by a love that is far wiser than our own. When you cry out to God from your own Bethany, from your own place of sickness and sorrow, and the heavens seem silent, remember this story. Remember that the silence may be the necessary prelude to a greater glory.
Your sickness, your trial, your grief is not ultimately to end in death. Its final purpose is for the glory of God. God has a purpose in your pain, and that purpose is always good, because it is always tied to the glorification of His Son. Jesus's love for you may mean that He waits. He may allow the situation to get worse, to go from sick to dead, so that His power can be displayed not in prevention, but in resurrection.
Our task is to learn to walk in the day, to trust His timetable even when it makes no sense to us. It is to believe His purpose even when we misunderstand His words. And it is to cultivate the loyal heart of Thomas, who, even in his confusion, was willing to follow Jesus into mortal danger. Because the one who is willing to die with Him is the one who will, in the end, see His glory. And He is still in the business of standing before the tombs of our lives, the places of death and despair, and speaking the word that brings life from the dead. He is the Resurrection and the Life, and His delays are always the calculated movements of a sovereign and perfect love.