In John chapter 11 we learn of the death of Lazarus of Bethany.
Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, had sent for Jesus with a message stating, “Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick.”
Jesus offers an odd response, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Odder still he stayed put two more days. Afterward, upon leaving for Lazarus’s home he stated, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up” to which the disciples responded, “Lord, if he sleeps he will get well.”
Yet, we learn that Jesus was employing a common idiom for death as He explains, “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.”
It is noteworthy that Jesus often did and said odd things which are not understood until the completes His actions. The things He did are as important and telling as the things that He did not do, or waited to do.
We find that it took Jesus four days to travel from Bethany to Jerusalem, a distance of two miles.
“Now Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and_said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.’”
As the conversation ensues we learn that Jesus told her that Lazarus will rise again and that she thought that He referred to an eventual, general, resurrection. Employing various idioms, Jesus states, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” To which she responded, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
Next Martha goes out to meet Jesus and states, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”
“Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’They said to Him, ‘Lord, come and see.’Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, ‘See how He loved him!’
And some of them said, ‘Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?’”
Upon reaching the tomb Jesus asks that the stone which sealed the tomb be removed at which time, and before a crowd of mourners, Martha states what everyone knew, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days” (or as the quaint Authorized King James Version put it, “he stinketh”).
“Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?’ Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.’Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’
And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth.”
Lazarus had been sick and died, been declared dead, had his corpse prepared with wrappings and spices for encasement in the cave (until a year later when his bones would have been placed within an ossuary). These were well known facts and yet, a resurrection from the dead was evidenced.
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