the Resurrection

Lazarus was very ill.  His two sisters--with whom he lived--did everything they possibly could to restore him to health.  Finally, realizing the seriousness of their brother's condition, they sent a messenger to Jesus, asking him to come, and quickly.  Jesus was a very close friend of theirs.  Though the situation looked very bad, yet they believed that Jesus--whose healing power they were well aware of, would come to them and everything would be alright.  Or, so they hoped.

The messenger soon returned.  "Did you find Jesus?" Martha asked.  "Yes," replied the messenger, "I told him to come, quickly, that Lazarus was very sick".  But Jesus didn't come that day.  Nor the next.  Nor yet the day following.  Why not?  Didn't Jesus know they urgently needed him?  More days passed and, still, Jesus failed to show up.  At length, Lazarus died.  Even then, Jesus did not come to them.  They didn't understand.  What had they done? they doubtless wondered.  Had they somehow offended Jesus?  Or, was he so busy with others' needs that he couldn't come to Bethany (where Lazarus was)?  Were they not, perhaps, as close friends with Jesus as they had imagined they were?  They were perplexed, to say the least.  Martha and Mary both would later say--to Jesus's face, that if Jesus had been there (in a timely way), then Lazarus would not have died.  I suppose that Martha and Mary were not a little hurt and confused, by Jesus's seeming neglect of them in their time of great need.
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Let's take a closer look at Lazarus and his family.  Where were the parents of that family?  There is no mention in Scripture, of Lazarus's Mother or Father.  If they died of old age, then, perhaps, their children (Martha, Mary, and Lazarus) were middle-aged.  Yet, because Scripture intimates there was a close friendship between Jesus and that family, I get the feeling that Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were probably about Jesus's age (who would then have been in his early thirties).  At the time of his death, Lazarus may have been between 30-40 years old (depending upon whether he was the youngest or the oldest of the three siblings).

Which brings me to ask yet another question, namely: Why was Lazarus still living at home with his unmarried(?) sisters?  Why was he also not married?  It seems rather unusual, to me, that Lazarus and his two sisters lived together, all as unmarried adults.  Was Lazarus, perhaps, in some way incapacitated and thus unable to work?  Or, maybe, Lazarus was the eldest of the three and, their parents being absent (deceased?), it then fell to Lazarus to take care of his sisters.  In any case, it appears that Lazarus's life, in some important ways, was, I will say, constrained.  Lazarus evidently was neither rich nor famous.  He appears to have been just a regular guy--with big burdens, who died before his time.

But he was Jesus's friend~

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Finally, after Lazarus's funeral, when most of the mourners had already gone home, Jesus came to Bethany.  When it was told Martha that Jesus was approaching, she hurried out to meet him.  "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died," she said.  "But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee."  Was there not in those words of hers an unspoken plea for a miracle?  Jesus replied to her, "Thy brother shall rise again."  Martha--with her head bowed and tears streaming down her cheeks (as I imagine), said unto Jesus, "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Martha--the busy one; the responsible one; the stoic one: was brokenhearted.  Her Mother and Father were gone.  And, now, her brother was gone, too.  And standing before her was the one whom she had hoped would save her brother--as well, then, as her sister and herself.  But he had not arrived in time to help them.  And Jesus's brief answer seemed, for a moment, to snuff out her last flicker of hope.

The picture, above (though very far from what I would like it to be), best captures (for me) that moment in time, when Martha was face-to-face with having to accept the finality of her brother's death.  I can almost see Martha, so weakened by despondency that she could hardly stand on her feet.  I can almost see Jesus, too, as he reached out to lift up Martha's downcast face, in order that he could look deep into her eyes when he would speak to her some of the most beautiful and powerful words that ever came from the lips of the Son of God: "Martha," Jesus said, "I am the resurrection".  'The resurrection is not an event; it is not a date on a calendar in heaven, Martha.  But you are looking at the resurrection!'

No one had ever heard those words before.  All of Jesus's stupendous miracles notwithstanding; indeed, Jesus had raised others from the dead; still, no one really knew that Jesus himself embodied the very Life of God the Creator.  No one.  Jesus revealed himself to Martha in a way that no other person had ever before even suspected, much less known.

To gaze with one's own eyes upon God in the flesh; upon the very Source of Eternal Life; to look into His eyes (merely inches away) who claimed--with all sincerity--actually to "be" the Resurrection--right here, right now; and not some resurrection "day" in the sweet bye-and-bye....

"I am the resurrection."  "I am the resurrection."  "I am the resurrection."  Those words must have so captivated her mind, I imagine, that everything else which transpired over the course of the hours (and, perhaps, days) following, must have seemed surreal to her.  (I know it was that way for me, when, many years ago, I accidentally hit a 10-year old boy riding his 10-speed bicycle, with my full-sized pickup truck traveling at over 50 miles per hour.  The center of my truck's front grille and hood struck the young boy in his lower back.  He immediately disappeared directly under the front of my truck.  I slammed on my brakes and slid almost 100 feet, off the road into a ditch.  I ran back to where the boy lay, motionless, in the middle of the road.  I picked him up to get him out of the road--as he could not be seen by oncoming traffic.  His eyes were rolled back into his head, and I just knew he was dead.  I held his still, limp body in my arms, until the ambulance came to take him to the hospital.  As soon as I could, I telephoned an Evangelist friend of mine, for urgent prayer.  During a few hours (as it seemed) after the accident, I felt as if a river of power was flowing, just out of reach, above my head: it was a transcendent experience, for lack of better words.  Yet, not only did the boy live, but he was dismissed from the hospital after 5 days of observation and tests.  He had no broken bones and no internal injuries, but a concussion only--from which he promptly recovered.)  I can imagine that Martha may have experienced something like that transcendent feeling I had--as if she could hardly discern between reality and . . . something . . . much more, much different, than that.

She followed Jesus toward the tomb, as if in a trance; wondering, with every step they took together, what those words could mean: "I am the resurrection".   She stood on a grassy slope at the entrance of a cave, together with her sister Mary and a handful of her neighbors who had come to mourn with them, as Jesus offered a very brief prayer (consisting of a couple of short sentences), to God.

"Take away the stone," Jesus commanded.  'Wait a minute,' Martha thought, 'that shouldn't be happening'.  Unable to comprehend the supernatural power that even then was moving in the midst, Martha blurted out, "Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days."  To which Jesus replied to her: "Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?"

"Lazarus, come forth!"

The above image of Lazarus emerging from his tomb inside the cave, is realistic, in that it shows that Lazarus was prepared as a mummy for burial.  His entire body was meticulously wrapped with strips of cloth infused with a resinous compound.  Even his feet were tightly bound together--so that Lazarus must have literally floated out of the cave, by the power of God (as Lazarus could neither walk nor even hop).  His head and face were similarly covered with multiple layers of wound strips of cloth.

"Loose him, and let him go," Jesus further commanded.  I suppose that the first bandages which the stunned onlookers removed were those about Lazarus's head and face.  Imagine, if you will, looking out through Lazarus's own eyes.  As he squinted against the bright sunlight, he first saw his dear friend Jesus standing a few yards in front of him.  Then, he noticed the small group of onlookers all gazing at him.  In that same instant, he was aware of the two or three near him, who were hastily removing his . . . grave-clothes!  It may have taken but a few moments before Lazarus was able to begin to make sense of what was going on--concerning which he himself was the focus of attention.

In the imagination of my mind, all I can hear is the gentle sound of a breeze blowing across that grassy opening at the cave entrance, and the muffled sounds of those who were fumbling to remove the layers of cloth strips from the mummy--which (they knew) had been dead for four days.  No one spoke a word.

Before they could remove the last remaining strips of cloth, however, Lazarus began to walk toward Jesus.  Lazarus could feel the cool grass beneath his feet; he could feel and smell the crisp air.  He was alive!  Alive from the dead!  And he knew it.  Moreover, he knew WHO it was that brought him back to life: it was that young man standing right in front of him: it was his friend, Jesus!

From that day forward, I don't think Lazarus ever feared death, again.  But he must have lived as a free man, one who not only had been "to the other side," but who came back to this world, more fully alive than he had ever been before his untimely death.

From that day forward, Lazarus--and Martha, and Mary--knew something about their friend Jesus, that they had never understood before.  They knew that, truly, he is "the resurrection, and the life".  All of their questions, about why Jesus had not come to them "in time", when Lazarus was sick, suddenly vanished.  In the place of which they became possessed of a confidence, and a love, and a joy, which could never be taken away from them.

Moreover, Lazarus--who, before his sickness and death had lived his whole life in relative obscurity, unknown and undesired, now, became a much sought-after man.  People came from near and far to see and to speak with the man who was dead, but now was alive.  Lazarus wasn't dead, anymore.  In fact, Lazarus wasn't even sick, anymore.  And Lazarus wasn't unknown and unwanted, anymore.  Lazarus did not receive his old life back.  But he received a brand new life, one full of health, full of power, full of victory and courage.  Furthermore, he received from Christ a ministry, whereby Lazarus was given a great, open door to witness of the greatness and power of Jesus Christ.
Can you imagine what it was like when Jesus, and Lazarus, and Martha, and Mary--and their dumbfounded neighbors, all turned away from that cave with grave-clothes scattered about its entrance, and headed off toward Lazarus's house?

"Oh, what singing! Oh, what shouting!  On that happy morning when we all shall rise!"

On that happy morning when Christ, the blessed Resurrection, shall come, again.