John 11:1-43
In the “Introduction” to his book, Brave Companions, historian David McCullough, makes this statement: “The past after all is only another name for someone else’s present. How would things turn out? They knew no better than we know how things will turn out for us.”
His statement is always in the back of my mind as I read about the people, relationships, places and events in the Bible.
In 2008, I was part of a group of people who got to help write a booklet for Lent called “Faces On the Way to the Cross”. I got to write about three of the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion, one of which was His relationship with Martha, Mary and Lazarus and His raising Lazarus from death. At that time I treated it as a series of media headlines, starting at John 11:44.
Now I’m looking at John’s memoirs of being there when it all took place, starting when Lazarus was sick and his sisters Mary and Martha sent a message to Jesus that said,”Lord, the one you love is sick”. I think that as the Holy Spirit enabled John’s memory, John added details, like the village where they lived and even Mary’s anointing Jesus feet, although that action took place later.
I like to think that John took joy in remembering what Jesus said about the sickness would not end in death, but was for the glory of God, so that God’s Son might be glorified through it. Also John understood how much Jesus loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus (although Jesus and the disciples delayed two more days where they were), He was still willing to return to Judea despite the disciples’ concern about the Jews having tried to stone Him there before.
I wonder if John thought a long time about all that Jesus said about walking in the day so as not to stumble, to avoid walking at night. I imagine all of the disciples listening to what Jesus said as they walked toward Bethany at night Although they didn’t understand at first about Lazarus “being asleep”, as soon as Jesus told them plainly that Lazarus was dead, and they were going anyway, John remembered Thomas’s courageous statement,”Let’s go so that we may die with Him.”
From my experience of memorial services (much like my husband’s), I picture Jesus and the disciples seeing the crowds that had come from Jerusalem to console Martha and Mary about their brother. Martha heard that Jesus was coming and went out to meet him, so I imagine she could talk to him quietly. John, enabled by the Holy Spirit, records Martha’s words, and not as an accusation, but as coming from a heart that trusts Jesus.
I believe that Jesus was very tender toward her as he told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” How glad John must have been to remember and record Martha’s words. “Yes Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”
John adds the loving detail of Martha privately telling Mary, who had remained in the house weeping, that the Teacher was calling for her.
John must have carried the memory of Jesus weeping. (From what I’ve learned about the Hebrew word that described His weeping, it was gut wrenching crying which goes along with Him being, “greatly disturbed in spirit”.) John also adds that some of Jews recognized Jesus’ love for Lazarus, but others criticized Him for not preventing Lazarus’s death.
Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”
Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” John 11:38-44 (New Revised Standard Version Updated 2021)
According to various scholars, John’s Gospel was written somewhere between 50 and 90 years after Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. I try to imagine in 2024, what it would be like to sit listening to John talk about what he actually saw and heard in the presence of Jesus, the other disciples and, during this particular event, Mary, Martha, Thomas and the crowd. It helps me remember that Jesus was praying for me, praying for us in John 17:20-26:
“I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.”
by Carolyn Schmitt
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