¹⁷ On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. ¹⁸ Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. ²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
²¹ “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
²⁴ Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
²⁷ “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
²⁸ After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” ²⁹ When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
³² When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴ “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
³⁵ Jesus wept.
³⁶ Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Jesus does not stand above our grief— He enters it.
Thoughts
- The Sisters’ Sorrow (17-22) By the time Jesus arrives, pain is already deep. Lazarus has been in the tomb four days, the house is full of mourners, and both sisters meet him with the same aching words: if you had been here, our brother would not have died. We feel the weight behind them. Disappointment, confusion, even a quiet accusation. They had trusted him, sent word, expected him to come, and now it feels like he showed up too late. The cry we all make when God seems absent in our deepest pain: where were you? why didn't you come sooner? Their faith is real, but hurting. ➤ ***If only is the universal language of grief: we believe Jesus has power but question his timing, and under sits a heart that still wants control over when and how God acts.*
- Not a Distant Doctrine, But a Present Person. (23-27) Martha's faith reaches for the right thing, but it’s distant. She believes in resurrection, but only as a future event on the last day, a doctrine to wait for. Jesus will not let her keep it at arm's length. He takes the hope she has pushed to a distant horizon, the hope Israel had long awaited, and locates it in himself: present, right here, beside the tomb. Jesus does not say I give resurrection but I am the resurrection and the life. That is the key: the question is not whether resurrection will come someday, but if she trusts the One who is* resurrection, standing with her now. ➤ The essence of faith is not believing facts about the future. It is knowing and trusting a Person, here, in the loss.
- Jesus Knows Our Grief Fully (28-37) At the tomb Jesus is deeply moved, troubled, and he weeps. This is his full humanity, and it answers the question we carry into every loss: where is God in my sorrow? Not above it. Jesus does not stand over our grief—he enters it. He feels the full weight of death's pain and more, because he weeps here knowing he will soon take on the death we deserve, so the promise he just made to Martha can hold for us. The God who could have stayed outside our suffering walked into it. He has been where we are. He has wept the tears we weep. ➤ When grief asks whether God is distant, the tomb of Lazarus says otherwise: he is close, and he has entered our lot completely.
Reflection
- Jesus met Martha and Mary in their incomplete faith and raw grief without rebuke. Where do you need Jesus to meet you right now in your own incomplete faith or sorrow?
John 11:38-44 • Ephesians 2:1-5
John 11:38-44
³⁸ Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ³⁹ “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”
⁴⁰ Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
⁴¹ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
⁴³ When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
Ephesians 2:1-5 ¹ As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, ² in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. ³ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. ⁴ But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
In spiritual matters, believing is seeing.
— James Boice
Thoughts
- The Dead Man (John 11:38-39 & Eph 2:1-3) The tomb is a cave with a stone sealing it and four days have passed; Martha states the obvious, that there is already a stench. Death here is not partial or reversible but complete and repulsive. Paul’s diagnosis matches exactly: we were dead in our transgressions and sins, by nature children of wrath. Not weakened, not wounded, not merely sick: dead. The diagnosis must be this dark for the love to shine this brightly, because only a true diagnosis of death reveals the full wonder of the love that reaches us while we are still dead, making us alive together with Christ by grace. ➤ ‘Sick’ allows for prescriptions. ‘Dead’ yields only to resurrection.
- Love Calls (John 11:40-43 & Eph 2:4-5) Before the stone moves, Jesus presses Martha on the order of things: if you believe, you will see. The world runs it the other way. Show me, then I'll trust. Martha reasons from the evidence of the odor; Jesus asks her to trust before the proof arrives. Then the turning comes: Lazarus, come out! A loud voice. You don't shout at a corpse. The volume isn’t for Lazarus but for the people standing there, and it runs to the future, too: the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out. Not the dead in general. One name, spoken to a man who could not answer back. Paul names the same mercy. God, rich in mercy, because of his great love, made us alive while we were still dead. ➤ The same voice that raised Lazarus calls you by name, and one day it will call you out of your own grave. This is love that pursues what cannot pursue back.
- Love Unbinds (John 11:44 & Eph 2) Lazarus walks out, still bound hand and foot, his face wrapped. Jesus says, Unbind him, and let him go. He is still wearing the soudarion (σουδάριον), the same cloth, lies folded by itself in Jesus's empty tomb (John 20). Lazarus comes out still dressed for the grave—he will need those clothes again, because he will die. But Jesus leaves his behind. He is done with death. The raising is all Jesus. He could loose the linen with a word, yet he hands that part to the people standing there. Paul points the same way, toward the good works God prepared for the raised to walk in. ➤ We cannot raise anyone. But we can help pull off the grave clothes: the fear, the shame, the old name a person still answers to. Raised with Christ, not on our own like Lazarus, we shed them the way he did. They stay off.
Reflection
- Lazarus came out alive and still bound. What grave cloth is still on you: a fear, a shame, an old name you keep answering to? And whose grave clothes might God be giving you to help unbind
