John 11:1-25 (ESV)
1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
2 It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.
3 So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”
4 But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
6 So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.
7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”
8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?”
9 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.
10 But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”
11 After saying these things, he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.”
12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”
13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep.
14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died,
15 and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
16 So Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”
17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.
18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off,
19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.
20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house.
21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,

John’s accounts that when Lazarus of Bethany was on his deathbed, Martha and Mary, his sisters, sent Jesus an urgent message imploring for His assistance. However, Jesus stayed where He was. Why did He do that?
Does this mean Jesus can be late? Would the Lord arrive too late to help and deliver us when we need Him? So many already think the Lord is late. They have prayed, fasted, and waited but feel that since the Lord did not turn up when they asked, it means He is late or may not even answer them.
There is a lesson in every adversity and the process must be completed before the change, otherwise, we would find ourselves repeating the process to gain what is required.
NO, THE LORD IS NEVER LATE!
Remember, when we learnt about the significance of names? Check out the significance and ironic meaning of Lazarus. Lazarus is synonymous with the Hebrew, “Eliezer.” It means “my God is help.” And God did help!
The Lord was aware of Lazarus’s sickness, He mentions it to the disciples, then goes to proclaim that “the sickness is not unto death,” VS 4. Why? Yet Jesus made no move to travel to Bethany, in fact, He waited two extra days before setting out, timing His arrival to take place exactly on the fourth day after Lazarus’ death, VS 17. Jesus was at least one day’s journey away from Bethany and by the time the message reached him, Lazarus had already died, VS 11.
The Lord is purposefully intentional in all He does, and the maximum glory of everything goes to Him alone, if the Lord had arrived “early” the Jews would not have seen this event as a miracle because the Jewish tradition believes that the soul of a deceased person was believed to linger behind, hovering over the dead body for three days, desperately trying to get back inside the body. So introduces the reason why Jesus stayed two days longer, no room for doubt or dispute. He wanted the people to see his power over death, maximizing His glory VS 11:5.
Some would ask why Jesus didn’t come on time to heal Lazarus-Jesus’ answer in VS 15 points us again to maximum glory, healing Lazarus was not in His plan but that would have happened if He had come too early, this was an occasion to manifest the glory of God to man and to establish our faith.
Timing is everything to the Lord according to Ecclesiastes 3, the Lord is never late or too early. It was a miracle to see Lazarus was dead, at least for the disciples, as no person had come to announce it to them. It was a greater miracle to raise a dead man than to cure a sick man. And it was a greater miracle, to raise one that was four days buried, and in whose body, putrefaction might have begun to take place than to raise one that was but newly dead.
Don’t give up, God is never too late to help you or too early to miss you, He will arrive on time. The Lord is never late.
Shalom