We are familiar with the expression of the eleventh hour. That is when things are almost complete, beyond recovery. The eleventh hour is when there is still hope, but it might be mingled with panic. It is the time when we sometimes start making other plans, since these ones are close to failure. The eleventh hour is when people are telling us that we should move on. Then, sometimes something wonderful happens. In the eleventh hour, there is a deliverance, a solution a much needed answer to prayer.
However, periodically, the twelfth hour comes without the answer, solution or deliverance. The issue, person, dream has died. The proverbial train has left the station and you are not on it. I have had some twelfth hour situations. In those times, I was holding out for an answer, certain that my prayer would be answered in the way I thought best. The image in my head is of a plane going down. The eleventh hour answer is when the plane pulls up right before the crash. The twelfth hour is the crash- debris scattered around the countryside, people in tears, heads bowed and sheets covering bodies. I have seen marriages saved in the eleventh hour. One was saved in the courtroom just before the divorce decree was to be issued. But, I have seen marriages hit the twelfth hour. They have crashed and been seemingly irreparably destroyed. The NO is final. I believe some of David’s Psalms are twelfth hour Psalms. It seems like the disaster he was hoping to avoid has overtaken.
As I read the life of Jesus and witness his miracles from a distance, we see many eleventh hour healings and answers. In fact, that is when most of them seem to be. When hope seems to be only a flickering and dying candle, somehow light is fully restored. There was a man who was blind from birth (John 9), a woman bleeding for 12 years (Mark 5), a man who had been lame for 38 years (John 5), a woman who had been bent over in sickness for 18 years (Luke 13) and many others who had watched hope slip away. There was a demoniac on whom everyone had given up. They could only bind him and hope that he would die before he damaged anyone or anything anymore.
I try to put myself at those scenes and imagine what it would be like to see the reaction of the person who could see for the first time in life, or walk for the first time in nearly four decades or stand straight without pain for the first time in 18 years. What delight! Eleventh hour miracles make me cry with joy. The struggle had been so long for the hurting that it seemed hope was slipping away and resignation had set in. But, the dawning of the presence of Jesus brought an answer- a solution.
But, that is not the end of it with Jesus. He doesn’t stop with eleventh hour miracles. We are stunned, shocked and somewhat undone when we see something that is almost unbelievable- the twelfth hour miracle. The mourners are already hired, the friends have already prepared the spices and body for burial, there are no more corners to turn. It is finished! Lazarus is one, the son of the widow from Nain is one, Jairus’ daughter is one and of course, Jesus is one. In these cases, hope isn’t waning. It is gone. Dreams are not fading. They’ve disappeared. Plans are not escaping. They’re being redirected. Then, stunningly, Jesus says, “It’s not over. There is a tomorrow. She’ll live again. He’s only sleeping. Incidentally, after I die and rise again, I’ll go ahead of you and meet you somewhere.” These are nothing less than stunning.
In Luke 8:55, when Jesus brought the little girl back to life, there is an interesting phrase- “her spirit returned.” Other versions say, “her life came back” or “she returned to life.” She was dead- her spirit gone, the body cold. But, Jesus in that case did not simply revive or brighten a dimming light. The light had been snuffed out. The spirit was done. She was truly dead- not “mostly dead” as Magician Max would say. Life was gone. Jesus, however, made it return.
Twelfth hour miracles remind us that it is NEVER done. These remind us that hope never dies, the light can come back when it has been extinguished, the grave is weaker than it looks, that our clock may stop but God’s never does, that the plane crash does not mean that casualties are indefinitely lost. Knowing this should impact us in a few specific ways. First, we can keep praying with an unusual confidence even when we don’t get the answer we were hoping for on this matter. Second, we can paradoxically smile even while we cry. Third, hope is never out of place. Fourth, God will truly be with us to the very end of the age- and beyond. Twelfth hour miracles are rare in our day as they were in Jesus’ day. Most of the miracles we see are eleventh hour miracles. But, the twelfth hour ones will linger in our hearts and minds to remind us that it is not over, even when the curtain comes down.