He Hears

 August 14, 2021

In the eleventh chapter of the book that bears his name, the apostle John tells us of the day Jesus stood before the tomb of his friend Lazarus and prayed, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me…” Before he could call the dead to life, he had to know his Father heard him. Years before, coming up out of the Jordan at his baptism, he had heard his Father say, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am pleased.” 

Jesus prayed often, but here, it was the Father’s listening ear that gave power to the Son’s clarion call for Lazarus to rise again. Seeing Lazarus hobble from the grave, swaddled in the burial bandages was perhaps the vindication of his prayer that gave assurance to him when in Gethsemane that prayer was not answered. Here, he had a foreshadowing of his own resurrection when he would hear the voice of his Father thundering, “Jesus, come forth!”

If we want confidence to be able to say to the spiritually dead, “Come forth,” we must know beforehand that our Father hears us, for if he won’t listen, why would anyone else? But if he does listen to the prayers of his children, the fact that our Heavenly Father hears us enables us to believe that when the God of all Creation is listening, how could anyone lesser not hear?