Seven years separate me from my youngest brother. And stuck in between us, we have a sister and another brother. So life in our house was often total anomie. Many of my friends from Catholic families at the time still believed in the old ways and lived like an organically grown Brady Bunch. But let’s be honest, when you get past five kids or so, the number of years between them starts adding up, and the bigger ones can help care for the younger ones. But if you’ve got four kids fairly tightly packed into a scant seven years, and if the oldest of those four has already been nicknamed “the absent-minded professor,” and if you’re the mom in that “traditional” model of the family, then out of necessity you have to become a weasel wrangler.

My mom was an old cowhand, as Bing Crosby used to sing—who never roped a steer but had plenty of rounding up strays. As a parent of three children, I have a greater appreciation for my mom’s ability to ride herd over the chaos.

Sunday mornings at my house as a kid, for instance, my mom had to get herself and four kids ready for church and out the door. And if we weren’t in the car at some beastly hour like 9:00, we heard about it.

Whoever failed to be in their assigned seat in the old Chrysler New Yorker when my dad was ready to leave would hear about it … along with all the neighbors in a two-block radius. My dad was a honker. He could blow that horn like Gabriel at Jesus’ return. My dad mastered the art of impatience and was ready on Sunday mornings to let the world know that his family was a bunch of slackers and layabouts—but not to worry because he had a magic button that would let the world know he had the whole thing in hand. We knew who was in charge.

Let’s be honest: Doesn’t Jesus get under your skin a little in this story? Oh, don’t look at me like that. You know exactly what I’m talking about. “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”

And what does Jesus say?

“Don’t worry about it. The illness does not lead to death; rather, it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

How do you like that?

“Aw, he’ll be all right. Besides,” as one author wryly notes, “it’ll make a great sermon illustration.”

What kind of comfort do you think that gave Mary and Martha, let alone Lazarus?

And then, what does Jesus do? Does he call a power breakfast and say, “Fellas, I know we had plans, but we’ve got more urgent business? We’ve got to get to Bethany to see Lazarus. So drop what you’re doing and pack?”

No. The text says, “After having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.”

Now, we might cut Jesus a little slack if it said, “After having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was … until he finished raising the dead there.” That we could understand.

But it doesn’t say that, does it? We have no idea what kept him from jumping in the ’72 New Yorker and heading to see his pal. Maybe he was stuck doing his taxes and taking the name of Turbo Tax in vain. Perhaps he had an appointment for a haircut. (Well, that doesn’t track because we all know Jesus had long hair. You can’t fool us. We’ve seen the pictures.) For all we know, Jesus could have stayed two extra days, so he didn’t have to give up his tickets to Six Flags Over Judea.

We don’t know, and John doesn’t say. John doesn’t give any reason for Jesus’ delay—not that we’d buy it anyway. As far as we’re concerned, when death honks the horn, you’d better be in your assigned vinyl seat.

Everybody in Bethany understood it. You can hear it in their voices after Lazarus dies and Jesus finally puts in an appearance. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Ouch! The first words out of Martha’s mouth.

Then, later, Mary, who had been back at the house, hears that Jesus is calling for her, and she comes and the first thing she says is, “Lord if you hadn’t been messing around brushing your teeth, my brother would not have died.” Good to see you too.

Mary’s crying, which, John says, causes Jesus to start crying. Everybody sees how upset Jesus appears, “See how he loved him! But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’”

I mean, right? If Jesus had the power to fix things this whole time, why didn’t he just go ahead and do it … without all the theatrics of showing up late—only to do what he could have done before Lazarus shuffled off this mortal coil? Save everybody the grief—himself included, apparently.