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Jesus took advantage of the death of Lazarus to show His superiority above the rest. Notice how Jesus delays in attending to Mary and Martha’s plea for their sick brother on purpose. We sometimes don’t understand why our prayers take so long to be answered or why they don’t occur as we would like. Yet, those who trust in wisdom and God’s greater plan always receive the best answer.

Jesus had a bit of a strange reaction in verses 33 through 38; he had to deal with Lazarus’ death, his sisters, and the Jews who wept. It says that Jesus “groaned in the spirit and was troubled.” The original text in Greek uses a very strong word to describe this, enebrimēsato, basically it means “rebuking strongly, to get angry, anger in your spirit.”

The normal reaction you expect when someone dies is sadness. But instead Jesus became angry, enraged, troubled. Why?

Some of the reasons include:

• The disbelief of the sisters, even though He had said to them that they would see the glory of God, if they only believed.
• Everyone’s emotional reaction, their crying, and declaration of defeat because of his death. They failed to realize that the Author of Life stood before them.
• The comments of the Jews, and how they questioned if He really loved Lazarus being that He “had done nothing for him.”
• The anger He must have felt at the fallen, weak and impotent state of the people in light of disease and death, both consequences of human sin.

That’s why with a righteous anger, Jesus advanced with conviction and vehemence in order to resurrect Lazarus. He also showed His supremacy over death.

Of course, Jesus knew all that would serve as a lesson for generations to come. So that we too have a righteous anger in our spirit, anger towards disbelief, sentimentalism (which weakens us,) doubts in regards to God, and anger towards sin which kills you little by little and in the end throws your soul into hell. We have to believe in the Author of Life completely and overcome all of this.

Even today, there is no solution to death and the numerable diseases which plague humanity. But as Jesus said:

I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me shall not perish but have eternal life. Do you believe this?

Do you believe?

So receive LIFE right there, right now, as you read this!

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