A friend of Jesus was sick. His name was Lazarus. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha. It was Mary who had anointed the Lord’s feet with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair.
Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus that their brother, Lazarus, who Jesus loved, was sick to the point of death.
When Jesus heard it, He said to His disciples,
“This sickness has come about so that God and his Son will be glorified.”
Jesus loved Mary and Martha and their brother, Lazarus.
Jesus stayed two more days where He was. Then after two days He said to His twelve disciples,
“Let’s go back to Judea.”
The disciples said to Him,
“Teacher, the Jews who live in that region want to stone you, and you want to go back there?”
Jesus answered,
“Are there not twelve hours in the day? If a man walks in the daylight he doesn’t stumble because he sees the light of this world.
But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him.”
Jesus said these things to His disciples after He told them that their friend, Lazarus, had fallen asleep.
“I will go and wake him up.”
His disciples said,
“If he is asleep then perhaps the fever is gone.”
Jesus was saying that Lazarus was dead, but the disciples thought He was saying that Lazarus was restfully sleeping.
Finally, Jesus said to His disciples,
“Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. Let’s go to him.”
Thomas, who is also called Didymus, said to His fellow-disciples,
‘Let’s go so that we may die with him.’
So when Jesus came to Bethany to the house of Mary and Martha, He found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days.
Now Bethany was very near Jerusalem. Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them over the death of their brother.
When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him. But Mary stayed in the house.
Martha said to Jesus,
‘Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died. But even now I know that what you ask God to do, He will do.’
Jesus said to her,
“Your brother will rise again.”
Martha said to Him,
‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’
