Delay Is Not Neglect

5th Sunday in Lent March 22nd, 2026 Trinity Lutheran Church – Wyandotte, MI Sermon Text: John 11:1-45

Delay Is Not Neglect

“… It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and our guide and helper the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Why the delay? What’s the hold up? What is taking so long? At some point in your life, I am sure you have said that to someone, thought about it of someone else, or been said to or of you. Maybe it was your parents asking you what is taking so long to clean your room or do your courses. Maybe you are a husband waiting for your wife to finish getting ready, and you think to yourself, what is taking her so long to get ready. Not knowing or understanding the work, the care she is doing to look her best for you.

Here in our text today a friend of Jesus and the Apostoles, Lazarus the brother of Mary and Martha, is ill and on the verge of death. Mary and Martha send an urgent message to Jesus, hoping, expecting really that Jesus would stop everything He was doing and race over to them, to Lazarus side. They were expecting that Jesus would heal him, just as he healed the blind man. Instead, Jesus delayed.

Why the delay? Why did Jesus not rush over to Lazarus side and heal him? He healed the blind man, the lame, and the people with Leprosy, why not Mary and Martha brother, Lazarus? Why the delay?

When Jesus comes insight of Bethany, Martha runs to Him. Confused, afraid, maybe a little angry, Martha said to Jesus “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It would seem like Martha is blaming Jesus for Lazarus death. You and I do something similar when things do not go our way. We say things like “God why did you let that happen”. Why the delay?

Marthas continued and said, “[Lord] But even now [speaking of Lazarus death]I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you”. This my dear brothers and sisters, is grief centered in faith of Christ Jesus, trusting in His will. And how did Christ response to this trust, this faith in Gods will? Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha responded, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” This confession is the same confession that we say in the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe … the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.”

Though Martha expresses the same creed the you and I do, she still does not yet fully understand who Jesus is. Jesus corrects her misunderstand with the bold and powerful statement, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” Jesus is declaring himself God, for God alone has dominion over life and death. Resurrection and life are not abstract ideas, not just doctrinal statements, not vague spiritual comfort. Resurrection and life are a Person. Where Jesus is, there is resurrection. Where Jesus is, there is life. To be joined to Him is already to have one foot in the grave and the other in eternity.

“Do you believe this?” He asks Martha. He asks you too. Not, “Have you figured out why this suffering has happened?” Not, “Can you see how this will all work out?” He asks, “Do you believe that I, Jesus, crucified and risen, am your resurrection and your life even now?” Martha answers, “Yes, Lord; I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” By the grace of the Holy Spirit, that is your answer too.

But the story does not end with a private conversation about faith. Jesus goes to the tomb. Along the way, Mary comes to Him, falls at His feet, and says the same words Martha said: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She weeps. The mourners around her weep. And then John gives us one of the shortest and most precious verses in the Bible: “Jesus wept.”

This is not a distant God, untouched by our grief. This is the eternal Son of God standing in human flesh before a stone-sealed grave. He knows exactly what He is about to do, and still He weeps. He is moved, troubled, even angry at what sin and death have done to His creation and to those He loves. The Lord who formed Adam from the dust now stands before a man returned to dust and His eyes fill with tears.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, when you stand at a grave, you do not stand there alone. Christ, your Savior, stands with you, and He does not tell you to be stoic or to pretend that death is “natural.” He weeps with you. He hates death more than you do. He has come precisely to defeat the grave and give us eternal life.

Then comes the moment: “Take away the stone.” Martha objects, ever practical: “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Death has a smell. It is unmistakable. Jesus knows it; He will soon bear it Himself. “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

They roll away the stone. Jesus prays aloud, not because the Father needs to be reminded, but “that they may believe that You sent Me.” And then He cries out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The Word that called light out of darkness, the Word that called creation into being, now calls a dead man by name. And the dead man comes out, still wrapped in linen strips. “Unbind him, and let him go.”

The raising of Lazarus is a sign, a preview of what is to come. It points ahead to Good Friday and Easter. The same Jesus who stands before Lazarus’ tomb will soon lie in His own. The same voice that called Lazarus out will be silent under the weight of your sin, your death, your grave. On the cross He will enter the deepest darkness, not as a victim of circumstances, but as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He is buried. The stone is rolled in front. It looks, again, as if Jesus is too late.

But on the third day the stone is rolled back, the grave is empty, and the risen Lord stands as the true and final answer to every funeral, every cemetery, every obituary. Lazarus was raised back into this mortal life and would one day die again. Jesus rises never to die again. In your Baptism, that risen Lord joined you to Himself. Saint Paul says, “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” When Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life,” He is not speaking only of what happens on the Last Day; He is speaking of what began at the font and continues wherever His Word and Sacraments are given.

What does this mean for you today, here, in the midst of your own Bethanys?

First, your suffering and your waiting are not signs that Jesus has stopped loving you. He loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and yet He allowed a delay that broke their hearts. He loves you, and yet He sometimes allows delays that you do not understand. You are not given the timetable, but you are given the crucified and risen Lord. You are not promised explanations, but you are promised His presence.

Second, your grief is not unbelief. Martha and Mary both bring their raw sorrow straight to Jesus. So may you. We do not grieve as those who have no hope, but we do grieve. Tears on your face do not cancel the faith in your heart. Jesus did not rebuke tears at Lazarus’ grave, because He Himself shed them.

Third, death does not get the last word. Jesus does. He has already spoken it over you: “You are Mine.” The graveyard is not the end of your story. It is, at best, a temporary address, a place where these bodies rest until the trumpet sounds and the Lord calls your name as surely as He called Lazarus’. He will not say, “Lazarus’ friend, come out.” He will call you by name, because you are written on the palms of His hands.

Finally, the life that Jesus gives is not only future; it is now. “Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” Even when your heart stops and your body is laid in the ground, you live before God. To depart and be with Christ is far better. The saints who have gone before you are not lost; they are with the Lord, awaiting with you the day of the resurrection of the body. In Christ, the church at rest and the church at work are one.

So today, as you come to the altar, you come to the place where the Lord of life, who wept at Lazarus’ tomb and burst from His own, places His own risen body and blood into your mouth for the forgiveness of sins. Death has already done its worst to Him and lost. It will not win over you, for you belong to Him.

When you leave this place and the old fears whisper again—“Lord, if You had been here…”—remember His answer: not an essay, not a diagram, but Himself. “I am the resurrection and the life.” That is enough for Martha. That is enough for you.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.