I Will Lift Up My Eyes

Jesus faced an emotionally charged, spiritually potent, and physically impossible task. He stood before the grave of his good friend Lazarus. In the eyes of some he had come too late. Had he been there just a few days earlier he might have prevented this death. They had seen him heal, had witnessed the outpouring of compassion and power that rooted disease from its stronghold and set troubled bodies free. He could face down disease and win, but death, who could win over death?

Jesus loved Lazarus. He wept on his way to the tomb. Everyone saw it in his eyes, in the tears coursing down his face. He did not hide his emotions. He let them be just what God had created them to be, mini-revelators laying bare the depths of his heart.

The crowd was marked by diversity. The sisters were there, the real mourners, the ones whose hearts were broken by a loss they could not prevent. The mourners were there, the ones who spilled empty tears, paid to weep and wail but not to feel. The skeptics were there, posting their notes of disbelief on the hearts of any nearby listener. The stone was there, unreasoning, unmoving, a guard and an obstacle all at once.

And Lazarus was there. Dead. Four days decomposed. Smelly but not smelling.

We face occasions like this. Occasions of pain, difficulty, impossibility. Occasions that break the heart and try the soul. Occasions when dreams die, careers give up the ghost, hope fades. Occasions when we stand before an unmoving and unmovable obstacle and thinks to ourselves, "What do I do now?" Jesus came to the tomb. It was a cave. A stone lay against it. A dead guy, his friend, was sealed away inside.

"Take away the stone," he said.

"But Lord, he stinketh," they said.

"Don't miss the glory of God," he said. Don't let the seeming impossibility and unpleasantness of the moment prevent you from seeing the glory of God at work. You see, Lazarus might be dead, but God ain't dead. Not then. Not now.

So they took away the stone.

Then, oh then, Jesus lifted up his eyes. And he said, "I thank you Father that you have heard me." He hadn't said anything yet. He knew that God knew the outcry of his heart. That was the nature of Christ's relationship with the Father: utter confidence that God the Father would know without error or need for explanation the desire of the Son's heart.

E.M. Bounds wrote in his classic little book The Reality of Prayer, "As it was with Christ, so ought we to be so perfect in faith, so skilled in praying, that we could lift our eyes to Heaven and say with Him, with deepest humility, and with commanding confidence, 'Father, I thank thee that thou has heard me.'"

What do you do when your heart is broken and the task at hand bears all the marks of the impossible? Do you lift up your eyes to heaven? Do you speak forth confidence in wisdom, insight, and power of God? Do you plead for life or surrender to death? Do you share with Christ an utter confidence that your Heavenly Father has already heard what only your heart has uttered?

"I knew that you always hear me," he said to his Father. Then he spoke to his friend, "Lazarus, come forth." Right confidence led to right action. I will lift up my eyes in faith. Will you?