The Gospel of John 11:1-57

The Raising of Lazarus

11:1 A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha.
2 This is the Mary who later poured the expensive perfume on the Lord's feet and wiped them with her hair. Her brother, Lazarus, was sick.
3 So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling Him, "Lord, your dear friend is very sick."
4 But when Jesus heard about it He said, "Lazarus's sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this."
5 So although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus,
6 He stayed where He was for the next two days.
7 Finally, He said to His disciples, "Let's go back to Judea."
8 But His disciples objected. "Rabbi", they said, "only a few days ago the people in Judea were trying to stone you. Are you going there again?"
9 Jesus replied, "There are twelve hours of daylight every day. During the day people can walk safely. They can see because they have the light of this world.
10 But at night there is danger of stumbling because they have no light."
11 Then He said, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but now I will go and wake him up."
12 The disciples said, "Lord if he is sleeping, he will soon get better!"
13 They thought Jesus meant Lazarus was simply sleeping, but Jesus meant Lazarus had died.
14 So He told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead.
15 And for your sakes, I'm glad I wasn't there, for now you will really believe me. Come, let's go see him."
16 Thomas, nicknamed the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let's go, too -and die with Jesus."
17 When Jesus arrived at Bethany, He was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days.
18 Bethany was only a few miles down the road from Jerusalem,
19 and many of the people had come to console Martha and Mary in their loss.
20 When Marta got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him. But Mary stayed in the house.
21 Martha said to Jesus, "Lord if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.
22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask."
23 Jesus told her, "Your bother will rise again."
24 "Yes", Martha said, "He will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day."
25 Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in Me will live, even after dying.
26 Everyone who lives in Me and believes in Me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?"
27 "Yes Lord", she told Him. I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God."
28 Then she returned to Mary. She called Mary aside from the mourners and told her, "The Teacher is here and wants to see you."
29 So Mary immediately went to Him.
30 Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met Him.
31 When the people who were at the house consoling Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to see Lazarus's grave to weep. So they followed her there.
32 When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at His feet and said, "Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died."
33 When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within Him, and He was deeply troubled.
34 "Where have you out him?" He asked them. They told Him, "Lord, come and see."
35 Then Jesus wept.
36 The people who were standing nearby said, "See how much He loved him!"
37 But some said, "This man healed a blind man. Couldn't He have kept Lazarus from dying?"
38 Jesus was still angry as He arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance.
39 "Roll the stone aside," Jesus told them. But Martha, the dead man's sister, protested, "Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible."
40 Jesus responded, "Didn't I tell you that you would see God's glory if you believe?"
41 So they rolled the stone aside. Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father thank you for hearing Me.
42 You always hear Me, but I said it out loud for the sake of these people standing here, so they will believe You sent Me."
43 Then Jesus shouted, "Lazarus, come out!"
44 And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth. Jesus told them, "Unwrap him and let him go!"
45 Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen.
46 But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
47 Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. "What are we going to do?" they asked each other. "This man certainly performs many miraculous signs.
48 If we allow Him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in Him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation."
49 Caiphas, who was high priest at the time, said, "You don't know what you're talking about!
50 You don't realize that it's better for you that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed."
51 He did not say this on his own; as high priest at the time he was led to prophesy that Jesus would die for the entire nation.
52 And not only for that nation, but to bring together and unite all the children of God scattered around the world.
53 So from that time on, the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus' death.
54 As a result, Jesus stopped His public ministry among the people and left Jerusalem. He went to a place near the wilderness, to the village of Ephriam, and stayed there with His disciples.
55 It was now almost time for the Jewish Passover celebration, and many people from all over the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early so they could go through the purification ceremony before Passover began.
56 They kept looking for Jesus, but as they stood around in the Temple, they said to each other, "What do you think? He won't come for Passover, will He?"
57 Meanwhile the leading priests and Pharisees had publicly ordered that anyone seeing Jesus must report it immediately so they could arrest Him. ~John 11:1-57

This story is interesting because neither Mathew, Mark, or Luke mention it in their writings. Only John wrote it. I was asked why I thought that was and I said, "I think it's because M, M, and L wanted to write very factually and objectively -focusing more on God's power and strength.They may have considered Jesus weeping to be a sign of weakness and too much of a "human" side to Him. John on the other hand would have seen it as a sign of Compassion and wrote the truth as he had seen it."

Jesus first gets angry after 1. His friend knowingly died while He was away because Lazarus was going to be used as a sign, 2. Martha and Mary both acknowledge He is the One and they believe in Him and always have, 3. His two female friends, particularly Mary, start weeping over the loss of their brother. It's a lot to take in. I think it was more personal tan any other sign because Lazarus was a friend and he had died -leaving the wreckage that is mourning behind for Jesus to wander into and see His other friends suffering through. I think He was angry and frustrated that He could have healed Lazarus and he wouldn't have died, but Jesus had to purposely wait to use his death as proof to people who didn't believe in Him that He was God. The fact that He had to watch Mary and Martha, who believed in Him whole heartedly, suffer so that people who didn't believe would be given concrete reason to -it must have been hard.

I think parents have to go through this with their kids sometimes. Especially if they have two kids. If there's a lesson they have to how by example, they have to show to both kids. And it's hard of e of the kids has already learned the lesson and hasn't been misbehaving. A teacher would do this for example if an eraser was thrown in class. A favored student that the teacher knows is a good kid can't be proven not guilty or shown favored treatment, so the good kid has to sit in class during recess along with all the other students in the class because no one would own up to who had thrown the eraser. It would be a hard thing for a fair teacher to do, but it is more important that the example be set so there is no further disruption.  

The other interesting thing about this story is the how the Pharisees react. They essentially have no choice but to try and stop Jesus because they fear their entire Temple and positions will be taken from them by the Romans if Jesus succeeds. In doing so the head priest warns from a future vision he got that killing Jesus would be worse than letting him live. It would be better to lose the Temple than risk losing the world to Jesus who would then bring people together and out live the time He spoke in. But they ignored that priest. I was fated. No sense or fact could have stopped it. It was always meant to fall on deaf ears and fail to catch their attention. It was destiny.