He is the means of bringing hope.

Lazarus reminds us of the unexpected hope that will spring forth from the darkest moments of our lives.......

It had been four days, four dark days of weeping, of wondering and of asking why.

"If you had been here..." Martha whispered to the Lord as she ran to meet Him.... "If you had been here..." Mary falling at His feet, the grief too much for her to bear.  Sorrow overflowing, still she clung to her faith in Him.  He saw the tears streaming down her face, streaming down the faces of the friends who had come to mourn, and Jesus wept. "If you believed." He pled with them "you would see"

They took away the stone from the place where Lazarus lay.  Then Jesus prayed, and the Father heard, and Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth"

Come forth from the darkness. Come forth from the mourning, the sorrow and the anguish.  Come forth from that which holds you back and be healed. 

And so, still bound with grave clothes hand and foot his face covered with the napkin, Lazarus came forth.  He whom Christ loved was risen from the dead.

The scriptures do not tell us what happened afterward, we can only imagine the celebration that surely followed, the gratitude and the awe.  What we do know is that this miracle of miracles marked one of the highest points in the ministry of Jesus Christ up to that moment in His mortal life.

The miracle was an unforeseen answer to a call for help that have been expressed by two sister four days before.  It came when every human condition would suggest it shouldn't have.  In the darkest moment. Unexpectedly.

I wonder if you have ever found yourself in a similar circumstance.  Maybe you have cried out to the Lord in anguish from a dark place.  Perhaps you know about the waiting and the wondering that come in those moments when you question if the Lord has forgotten you.  It's not that you don't have faith.  It's just that sometimes it feels as if the timing of the miracle you are pleading for goes unanswered.  We must remember that sometimes the miracle we are hoping for is not the miracle the Lord holds in store.  Sometimes miracles come in unexpected ways, and they come in the Lord's timing rather than in ours.

And yet, the Lord is constantly aware of us. He knows what is about to happen.  He sees the mourning, the yearning for answers, and He hears the questioning why.  Surely He weeps with us, just as He did with Martha and Mary.  We must remember that ours is a God of miracles, and in His own time He will heal us. Most often that healing that deliverance, will come in unexpected ways that is the way of the Lord. Always, He is the means of bringing hope.  

...may our eyes be open to believe to see the unexpected, to recognize the hope that is before us!  For there will be dark days, moments when we are lonely or forgotten, days when we carry a burden so heavy we wonder if the weight of it will ever ease.  Out of these dark places, hope will come forth. 

It always does.  It always will.

Emily Belle Freeman