When Lazarus dies.

John 11.1-8, 11-16.

Most of Jesus’s miracle stories are short, but the story of raising his friend Lazarus of Bethany takes up most of John 11. Mostly because this is a whole new experience for Jesus’s students. He’d raised the dead before, but these were people who had just died. One could argue, like Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, those people were mostly dead, not fully dead; Jesus got to them just in time to resuscitate them. Whereas in Lazarus’s case, dude had been dead four days. Wrapped in suffocating strips of linen. Left in a sepulcher to rot. He was super dead. Jesus raised him anyway.

But the story starts with Lazarus alive:

John 11.1-8 KWL

1Someone is unwell—Lazarus of Bethany,

from the village of Mary, and Martha her sister.

2Mary is she who anointed the Master with ointment,

who wiped his feet with her hair.

Her brother Lazarus is unwell.

3So Lazarus’s sisters send for Jesus,

saying, “Master, look!

He whom you¹ love is unwell.”

4Hearing, Jesus says, “This illness doesn’t end in death,

but in God’s glory,

so God’s son might be glorified by it.”

5Jesus loves Martha,

her sister, and Lazarus.

6So when he hears Lazarus is unwell,

he then stays two more days in the place he is.

7Afterwards, Jesus then tells his students,

“We should go to Judea again.”

8The students tell Jesus, “Rabbi,

the Judeans are now looking for you¹ to lynch you,

and you’re¹ going there again?”

The Greek text has λιθάσαι/litháse, “throw stones [at you],” but because stoning was illegal under Roman law, the students aren’t talking about the Judean leadership having Jesus executed by stoning; they’re worried about a Judean mob murdering him. So, “lynch.”

Jesus responds with the Twelve Hours Story, which tends to go over Christians’ heads entirely. So much so, we seldom list it among Jesus’s parables, and seldom teach on it. It deserves its own article, so I’ll discuss it elsewhere. But right after the story:

John 11.11-16 KWL

11Jesus says these things,

and after them he tells his students,

“Lazarus our friend slept.

But I go so I might awaken him.”

12So the students tell Jesus, “Master,

if he slept, he will recover.”

13Jesus had spoken about Lazarus’s death,

and the students had thought

he speaks about sleep and slumber.

14So then Jesus tells them bluntly,

“Lazarus died.

15I rejoice for you,²

for you² can believe because I am not there.

But we should go to him.”

16So Thomas, called Didymus, told his fellow students,

“We should go, so we can die with him.”

Little pessimistic of Thomas, who’s likely still thinking about that lynch mob. But yeah, off they go to Judea, and by the time they get there Lazarus has been dead four days already. Jn 11.17

Jesus just stayed put?

This is the part of the story which throws certain Christians—and, I’ve found, an awful lot of pagans. When Jesus finds out Lazarus is ill, he doesn’t spring into action; doesn’t cure him long-distance like he’s done in other stories. He stays where he is for two more days, then tells his students, “We should go to Judea. I need to go wake Lazarus.” Who died. Because he didn’t go to Judea earlier.

But why didn’t he go to Judea earlier? Why’d he let Lazarus die? I mean yeah, once he died he wasn’t suffering any longer; people figure Lazarus was doing just fine in the nicer part of the afterlife. Sometimes they mix him up with the Lazarus from the Dives and Lazarus Story—and they’re hardly the first people to do so; even famous Christian writers have done that—so they “know” he was at Abraham’s side, being comforted. And yeah, Jesus brought him back and all that.

But the family. Lazarus had a family. Two sisters. Maybe more; bible doesn’t say. Still, the sisters were heartbroken; on that, the bible does say. Why’d Jesus let Lazarus’s family suffer the loss of a loved one? Why the mourning, and the embalming, and the entombment—why’d he let them suffer through all this misery?

Yes, Jesus plainly says in verse 4, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” Jn 11.4 KJV Death wouldn’t be the end of this story. Lazarus would live, and there would be much rejoicing. God would be glorified. Jesus too, from the sound of it.

Still, this strikes certain people as problematic. Jesus could’ve prevented Lazarus’s death, and chose not to so he’d get glory? What kind of self-centered egomaniac manipulates people into suffering so he can swoop in, play the savior, and get the praise? To them, none of this makes Jesus sound like a good person. He sounds like a supervillain—he caused the problem, so why praise him for fixing it?

Well, first let’s back all the way up. Jesus didn’t cause Lazarus’s illness. Yes, there are determinists who insist God is behind every illness, for he’s sovereign and can prevent them if he chooses. If he chose not to, it’s kinda on him. Plenty of Christians are determinists, and as a result pagans think determinism is part of Christianity. It is not. The determinists among us are a very loud minority, but still a minority, because determinism isn’t biblical. We got an entire book of the bible which repeatedly says so. God certainly determines some things, but absolutely not all.

Second, Jesus didn’t just sit around and let Lazarus die. Lazarus was dead by the time Jesus was told of his illness.

When Jesus got the message, he was at the place “where John at first baptized,” Jn 10.40 meaning Bethany-beyond-Jordan, today’s Al-Maghtas, Jordan. Nope, it’s not the same Bethany where Lazarus lived; that Bethany was a suburb east of Jerusalem. Bethany-beyond-Jordan. They’re only 28.3 km apart, though with the roads it becomes a day’s travel. So figure one day to send a messenger to Jesus, two days for Jesus to sit on the message, one day for Jesus and his kids to finally come to Bethany—only to find Lazarus had been dead four days. Jn 11.17 Lazarus must’ve died right after the messenger was sent. By the time Jesus heard it, Lazarus was already dead.

Critics sometimes wonder why on earth Jesus sat on the message for two days and did nothing. Duh; there’s nothing he could do. Okay yes, he could’ve raised Lazarus from the dead long-distance, but that’d be a nightmare for Lazarus’s family, especially if Jesus raised him just as they were embalming him. Or putting him in the tomb. Or after they’d put him in the tomb and left—and there’s Lazarus, tied up, trapped in a tomb, suffocating under all that ointment.

When many a preacher tells this story, they assume Jesus and his kids were up in the Galilee—about two or three days’ walk to Judea. So the timeline shifts a bit: If they came from the Galilee to find out Lazarus was four days dead, it means Lazarus died just as Jesus got the message. Still nothing he could do; still impractical to raise him from the dead long distance.

And let’s not assume Jesus frittered away those two days he waited. John doesn’t say what he was doing, but knowing Jesus, he was either preaching the gospel or curing the sick. Or since it was winter—between Hanukkah in chapter 10 Jn 10.22 and Passover in chapter 12 Jn 12.1 —it was a lousy time for travel, and Jesus was waiting for a less-rainy day. Or one of those days was sabbath, and he’d’ve outraged people if he chose to travel on that day. We don’t know why he waited two days, but there was a valid reason for it. We just don’t know it.

So no, Jesus wasn’t trying to exacerbate a bad situation so he could get glory out of it. It was plenty bad on its own. But it would end in glory.

“Oh he’s asleep? Then he’ll get better!”

Our culture uses euphemisms for death too. The news media doesn’t, and I appreciate this about them: “Twelve dead in a mass shooting” leaves no room for misinterpretation, whereas “Twelve have passed on after a mass shooting” leaves more room than there oughta be. Jesus should likewise have been blunt, but I think he wanted to say, “Lazarus slept but I go to awaken him”—it’s kinda clever. It is basically what happened.

It went right over the students’ heads though. “Master, if he slept, he will recover” shows they took him literally, as kids and dense Christians will. No no; he’s not literally asleep; he died. But Jesus is nonetheless off to awaken him.

Arguably the idea went over their heads because they were more concerned about all the animosity towards Jesus in Judea; it just wasn’t safe! Not for nothing was Thomas concerned about also dying with Lazarus. If Lazarus can get better on his own without Jesus traveling there, great! But nope; Jesus has to be there. He felt he oughta be present to cure death.

And, Jesus added, because he wasn’t there to prevent Lazarus’s death, now they can believe when he undoes it.