9 IF YOU'D BEEN HERE

9

If You’d Been Here

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."

And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." John 11:17-32

Jesus finally comes to Bethany from Perea and on arrival is told Lazarus has been dead and buried for four days. Someone goes and tells Martha Jesus is there. Martha leaves Mary at home and goes herself to see Jesus. (I am not certain Martha told Mary He was there or if Mary was too grief stricken to go. Maybe it was just Martha's sense of being the one who "did" things that made her go alone.)

Her greeting is a bit accusatory, in my opinion, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died." I don't think her next statement was said with any real hope or expectations. I think it was just thrown on as a kind of last minute need to show some respect. "But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." But she doesn't ask Jesus to do anything and when he says her brother will rise, she doesn't get hopeful at all, no, "He will? Now? How soon?" She shows in her next statement she isn't expecting a miracle. "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

Jesus gives her the basic Gospel in reply: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

There is the question we all are asked. The question all have to answer and the answer that will determine each of our eternity. But the answer can't just be in words. Anyone can know the proper words to say. It has to be given from the heart with true belief and true faith.

Martha's answer seems too rote, too much what she has been taught to say. "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."

I know many claim this is a profession equal the one Peter made, but I wonder. I don't see any passion in Martha. There is no follow up to this, no indication she really knows what that means. remember, Jews had been looking for a messiah who was going to defeat their enemies and rule, not at some later time, but right there and now. Martha may have seen Jesus as this conqueror, not as a Savior. She just turns, leaves to go tell Mary that Jesus is there, and later (next post) we will see Martha again showing little faith when Jesus tells them to roll away the stone.

Martha tells Mary the Lord is there and asked for her. Mary immediately gets up and hurries off to Jesus. This is why I don't think Mary knew yet. She rushes out so quickly the others are curious enough to follow her. There is some excitement here. There is no indication that anyone followed Martha when she went. Martha was probably business as usual.

When Mary gets to the spot she falls at Christ's feet at once. Martha showed no such deference. Yet Mary makes the same statement as her sister; "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

Jesus had raised the dead before. He had went in to a ruler's house and brought the man's daughter back to life. There he told the crowd she wasn't dead, but sleeping and he went in alone and took her hand and she got up. On the way to that ruler's daughter, a woman touched his hem and was cured without so much as asking him, doing it surreptitiously, and what did he tell her, "Your faith has healed you." (Refer to Matthew 9:16-26.)

In Luke 7:11-17, Jesus and his Disciples were going to a town called Nain when they came across a crowd bringing out a dead man. The deceased was the only son of a widowed woman, and he was probably who cared for her. Jesus touched the coffin and the young man sat up and talked. All the mourners and other witnesses were totally in awe of this and they went about spreading the story all over Judea.

Surely, Martha and Mary must have heard of these tales of Christ raising the dead. Yet, they didn't ask Jesus to raise Lazarus. Their statements implied that if Jesus had been there, then he would have cured Lazarus of the sickness and he would not have died. Did they think from the stories that the deaths were so current that perhaps the people weren't dead at all, but simply in a coma? That is the how the critics try to explain these things away. Remember how Jesus waited two days before even journeying back to Bethany. What he is about to do is beyond any possibility of a coma. This man is long dead now and buried.

Even so, why didn't Martha and Mary believe Jesus could have cured Lazarus from his illness even from a distance? Hadn't they also heard what occurred just before He and the Disciples started for Nain, when a Centurion' sent elders to Him in Capernaum?

When Jesus had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." So Jesus went with them.

He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well. Luke 7:1-10

Jesus did not have to be physically present if the person had true faith. This man understood and had that faith and this Centurion was a gentile, not a Jew. Ah, shades of things to come. Keep that in mind when we go further into the raising of Lazarus and the aftermath.

We today do not have Jesus present when things happen. Do we have the faith to believe he can uphold us and comfort us and cure us if it is God's will although he is "beyond the Jordan" in a distant place? We should. Martha and Mary did not seem to understand that when their brother took sick and died. They sort of did what many of us do when something bad happens to us. Instead of trusting in the Lord, too often we feel deserted. We need to follow the example of the Centurion, not the sisters in this behavior.

Perhaps in these events we have a clue to why Jesus wept.

Illustration: "The Raising Of Lazarus" by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1608-09