Jesus followed the road on towards Jerusalem, stopping at the desert place by the Jordan where John had baptized him: where the sky had opened and the Spirit had come down like a dove. He will follow us too, even to the grave of one we love. It is the same phrase Jesus uses to answer “Where are you staying?” right at the beginning, inviting Andrew and another to follow him (1:35-39). Perhaps we can learn from this “come and see”, to invite Jesus into the darkest places in us. Jesus moves to stand by the grave with those who weep, and weeps too. Grief too for all the death and loss that are caught up in this, and in the death that Jesus himself will face very soon…. Grief here is fully experienced – for his friend, and for those who love him still. No accusation of lack of faith for being overcome with emotion. There is no talk here of denying the hope of the resurrection by grieving. Jesus is described as being greatly disturbed, deeply moved.
The pain of the moment now is overwhelming. Her words sound desperate, almost accusing. “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” She says it weeping. Jesus meets Mary, and the raw grief that she and the others bring with them. He himself is resurrection, and that means something transformative for Lazarus, and Martha, and Mary, and all of us.Īfter Martha makes her extraordinary statement, she quickly moves on. Jesus is more than the one who rises from the dead on Easter Sunday, for others to look on and marvel, and believe if they can. “I am the resurrection and the life.” Jesus moves that distant hope – a time, an event, a particular future thing, and says this instead: He is the resurrection and the life. It is a distant hope, though, for a distant future. To Martha, this talk of rising may have sounded like a conventional consolation, and Martha takes it up, this hope, and places it on the Last Day, a day when the dead will rise. “I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Perhaps she was simply throwing her whole self, her whole confidence and trust, on this dear friend who was unlike anyone else she knew.
We do not know what she expected might happen – maybe she didn’t know herself, speaking in fresh raw grief. Martha’s confidence in Jesus seems to hold even in the face of his delays, and her brother’s death. Then, Martha continues….”But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” They have such confidence that Jesus would have healed their brother, if he had been there.
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,” she says, the same phrase Mary uses later. Jesus is now close to Bethany, when Martha, Lazarus’ sister, comes out to meet him.
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