When God Showed Up For Lazarus

The God Who Showed Up For Lazarus

Lazarus is never described as a disciple, a teacher, or a man of notable faith. Scripture tells us only this: Jesus loved him, and He loved his sisters, Mary and Martha. Their home in Bethany was not a ministry platform, but a place of friendship. Jesus rested there. He ate there. He was known there.

That makes what follows harder to understand.

When Lazarus becomes sick, the message sent to Jesus is simple and confident: “Lord, he whom You love is ill.” No demand. No panic. Just trust. Yet Jesus does not come. He stays where He is, fully aware of what will happen. Love is holding a purpose greater than anyone yet knows.

By the time Jesus arrives, Lazarus has been dead four days, and any hope has expired with him. But Jesus explains why He waited: so that the glory of God might be revealed. This is not spectacle. It is glory as disclosure — God making Himself known through what unfolds next.

Then Jesus does something unexpected. He weeps. The One who will soon command the grave pauses long enough to feel its weight. He weeps because the love of Jesus does not bypass grief on the way to the cross.

There is much on Jesus’ mind here, yet His compassion for a friend is not diminished by what He Himself will soon endure. His love is not postponed until after suffering; it is revealed alongside it.

When Jesus calls Lazarus from the grave, the act that restores life also seals His own fate. This moment of compassion becomes the turning point for those in power, who resolve that Jesus must die. Life is given to Lazarus, and in response, death is assigned to Jesus.

Here is the point to dwell on: the same love that brings Lazarus back to life will soon carry Jesus to His own death on the cross. That is where love completes its journey — so that not one life, but all lives, might be saved.

When God shows up, He loves in a way no one saw coming.

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”