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hursday. We approached Bethany around the south eastern side of Jerusalem, directly from the road leading up from Jericho. A day's journey from where we started in Peraea. When we arrived, Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Four days. I still could not believe that we had delayed so long in coming. As we neared Bethany, I felt no small burden of guilt. There were still many friends at the home of Mary and Martha from Jerusalem, a mere two miles distant. They had come, of course, to comfort them in their loss. Martha, informed that Jesus approached, came out to meet us. Where was Mary? Odd!
"Welcome, my Lord Jesus!" Her eyes brimmed. She embraced him and he held her in his arms while she wept. With his hand, he stroked her hair. When she had gathered herself she said, “Lord, had you been here, my brother would not have died." At first, I thought her greeting accusatory. But then I realized that Martha had simply stated the truth. She knew that Jesus would not have allowed her brother to suffer. He could have and would have easily healed him. "But I know," she continued, "that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” What was she saying? What did she expect?
Sensing her meaning, Jesus said to her simply, “Your brother will rise again.” It was a simple something to say that anyone would say to ease the loss of a loved one. I am sure that is all I thought Jesus meant at the moment.
That is the first thing that came to Martha's mind as well as she responded, “Yes. I know he will rise at the resurrection in the last day. I will see him again. But Oh, Jesus, this hurts. It hurts so deeply.”
Jesus took her face in his hands and kissing her forehead he said to her, “Martha, Martha. I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." She looked at him not understanding. "Can you believe this -- my dear Martha?” still holding her face in his hands.
She nodded her head and whispered, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” The words spilled out. She swallowed and opened her eyes, returning his gaze. No sweeter moment of love existed than this.
“Then go,” he said, releasing her, “and bring Mary to me.”
She returned to the house and called her sister. “Our Lord is here,” she said, "He asks for you.” Mary's heart leaped within her. She caught her breath and got up quickly to greet him.
It took a few moments for all this to happen because we had not yet entered the village. We stood silent, waiting at the place where Martha had met us. When those who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she left, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb. But she came instead to Jesus and when she saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Jesus saw her weeping and the friends from Jerusalem also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked, voice breaking with grief.
“Come and see, Lord,” the friends replied.
Jesus wept.
I had never seen Jesus weep like this. There was murmuring, “Look at that! He must have loved him deeply!”
“Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind, could not he also have kept Lazarus from death? Could he not have protected him?” Heads nodded in agreement and sorrow. I was amazed at how this occasion of great mourning could bring forth so much belief. These things were not said to judge or accuse. They were words of expectancy, of anticipation. They thought Jesus would do something -- even yet!
When Jesus had recovered he said again, "I wish to go to the grave. Where have you laid him?"
Thinking that he wished to go there to grieve, a woman said, "Come Lord Jesus, we will take you there." The women began to gather their things and give instructions for more flowers. The garden lay just outside the town on the side away from Jerusalem. We were there in less than half an hour. Jesus, once more deeply affected as he came to the entrance of the tomb; a groan emitted deep from within him. I myself, heard it. A gutteral, whimpering groan. The Son of God grieved in pain. A large stone was sealed over the opening. He issued a single order, “Break the seal and take away the stone.”
Reaction to his command was predictable shock and for some, horror. Martha spoke for everyone, “But, Lord, by this time there will be an odor. He has been dead four days.” It was a common Jewish notion that corruption commenced on the fourth day, that the drop of gall which had fallen from the sword of the Angel of Death was working its inexorable effect and that, as the face changed, the soul took its final leave from the decaying body. A point well-taken, I thought. I was fond of Lazarus but I had little incliniation to disturb, let alone smell his remains.
“Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
Why this preachment? What exactly had he in mind? None of us had the slightest premonition of what was coming. Martha, a bit embarrassed by his remark nodded to the workmen. It took a moment to break the seal and work the stone loose but after a few moments of struggling, the sweating men stood aside and the opening of the vault stood dark and ominous almost inviting anyone, if they dared, to step in. Wrinkled noses. Hands covering nostrils. A putrid odor of decaying human flesh was distinctive and powerful.
Then Jesus looked up and offered a prayer just loud enough for those standing close by to hear, “Father," he prayed, "thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me. Grant that the people standing here who witness this, may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he gazed at the dark opening of the grave and then he commanded in a voice loud enough for the dead to hear, “Lazarus . . . come forth!” The sound echoed through the early evening hours and off the surrounding canyon walls. The words provoked an arresting dramatic effect. All eyes turned toward the cave.
Silence. The wind brushed whispers against the trees of the garden. First stars appeared. A rabbit poked its head around a stem of hyssop. A gentle rustling from inside the tomb. In the moment, a man, wrapped in strips of linen pasted to his body with burial spices stood in the doorway of the cave. A murmur rose among those standing by. Breath was arrested. Noises of fear mixed with joy. He stumbled awkwardly, imprisoned by the wrappings, eyes blinded by the cloth around his face. The odor of death had disappeared. I could not help but think of the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, how that when they emerged from Nebuchadnezzar's burning fiery furnace, there was not so much as the smell of smoke on their clothes. Jesus said, “Help him! Remove the grave clothes and free him.”
In a stupified trance, attendants mechanically completed this task and Lazarus stood naked as the day he was born, his skin fairly shining with life and vitality. His nakedness was only for a moment as his sisters, still recovering from the shock of what had just taken place, quickly provided him with robes. Jewish legend has it that before a child is born its soul has seen all of heaven and hell, of past, of present and future; but that as the Angel strikes it on the mouth to waken it into this world, all of the memory of those things pass from its mind and it awakes with no knowledge of anything. What was in the mind of Lazarus as he gazed into the eyes of Jesus on that wondrous day? I do not know. After what had just happened further description of events are somewhat anticlimatic. I sat on a rock, my mind numb with incredulity. I can speak of it no more.
