For the glory of God
Another situation where Jesus says what we are seeing isn’t all it appears to be. The blindness of the man born blind (John 9) is for the glory of God and so is Lazarus. We often have the same issue with the idea of glory that CS Lewis had with the idea of praise in the Psalms. Why does God need glory? Why is Jesus going to wait and let a man die so that God gains glory? Isn't it a fact God is glory and cannot become more glorious than he already is? God has no deficit of glory and needs no glorification from men. The deficit is with men. We do not know how glorious God is - we don’t know the weight, the full measure of his renown. This event isn’t for men to give glory to God it is for God to give his glory to men - for the magnitude of the weight of His person to fall into view - in this case for it to fall into this little story and move everything out of its way. LIFE is getting ready to fall in this little pond. LIFE so much more alive than death that it will wash it away like dirt on a child’s face. It will be no more difficult for Jesus than simply calling out with his living lips to Lazarus's dead ears. The reverberations of his voice will penetrate the deepest darkness of men. He will say this later to his followers: he could, if he wanted, not only speak to a dead man and have him walk out of his rocky grave, but also speak to the very rocks of the tomb itself and tell them to come alive and sing.
This story is every story. Jesus tells us not where it will end, but where will it go. This is where all stories must go; through death to glory. Everything moves around him and takes its new place. Knees bending. Death giving way to life.
We don’t see it. We need the glorification. And so Jesus will reveal exactly who God is in this situation. The end of the story isn’t death, it’s that many will believe (see and know and commit themselves to the ultimate reality of God).
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