The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Passion Sunday, is March 26, 2023.

Traditionally, the Fifth Sunday in Lent — Passion Sunday — begins a two-week season called Passiontide, which encompasses Palm Sunday (next week) and Holy Week.

Some traditionalist churches cover crosses and images with dark or black cloth from this Sunday throughout most of Holy Week. Crosses and crucifixes can be uncovered after Good Friday services. Statues remain covered until the Easter Vigil Mass takes place on Holy Saturday.

Readings for Year A can be found here.

The Gospel is as follows (emphases mine):

John 11:1-45

11:1 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

11:2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill.

11:3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”

11:4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

11:5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus,

11:6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

11:7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”

11:8 The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?”

11:9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world.

11:10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.”

11:11 After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.”

11:12 The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.”

11:13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep.

11:14 Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.

11:15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

11:16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

11:17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days.

11:18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away,

11:19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.

11:20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home.

11:21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

11:22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.”

11:23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

11:24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”

11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,

11:26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

11:27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

11:28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

11:29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him.

11:30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.

11:31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

11:32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

11:33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.

11:34 He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”

11:35 Jesus began to weep.

11:36 So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

11:37 But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

11:38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.

11:39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.”

11:40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

11:41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me.

11:42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”

11:43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

11:44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

11:45 Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

As this is most of John 11, I will write this in multiple posts.

This last great miracle of resurrection was late in our Lord’s ministry and was His final truly public miracle. His last miracle was healing the Roman soldier’s ear in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before He was crucified.

John’s Gospel is the only one that has the story of Lazarus’s resurrection.

Matthew Henry’s commentary explains possible reasons for that:

In this chapter we have the history of that illustrious miracle which Christ wrought a little before his death—the raising of Lazarus to life, which is recorded only by this evangelist; for the other three confine themselves to what Christ did in Galilee, where he resided most, and scarcely ever carried their history into Jerusalem till the passion-week: whereas John’s memoirs relate chiefly to what passed at Jerusalem; this passage therefore was reserved for his pen. Some suggest that, when the other evangelists wrote, Lazarus was alive, and it would not well agree either with his safety or with his humility to have it recorded till now, when it is supposed he was dead. It is more largely recorded than any other of Christ’s miracles, not only because there are many circumstances of it so very instructive and the miracle of itself so great a proof of Christ’s mission, but because it was an earnest of that which was to be the crowning proof of all—Christ’s own resurrection.

John MacArthur says:

It was J.C. Ryle, the English cleric, who looked at this chapter and wrote these words, “For grandeur and simplicity, for pathos and solemnity, nothing was ever written like it.” It’s a pretty amazing statement from a man such as he was. This is an amazing chapter. It is the account of the miracle of our Lord raising Lazarus from the dead. And while the story, of course, in short is very familiar to us, in its detail, it is much more rich. So we want to make sure that we cover the detail. This is the climactic, culminating, fitting sign to end John’s list of signs in this gospel that point to the deity of Christ.

John’s purpose, we all know that, is to present Jesus Christ so that you might believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you might have life in His name. He has an apologetic purpose that you might believe Jesus is the Christ, and he has an evangelistic purpose that in believing you might receive eternal life, but it’s all about Christ. It’s all about Christ. Here, in chapter 11, we come to the last and most monumental public miracle that Jesus did. It’s the climactic one for John. There is one later miracle, but it’s in the dark and very private because of how it happened. It’s in the garden and it was Jesus reaching over and giving Malchus a new ear after Peter had hacked it off. But apart from that miracle in the dark, this is the last great public miracle that Jesus did …

If you look at Verse 15 in this passage, Jesus says about not being there when he died, “I’m glad for your sakes, I was not there so that you may believe.” This miracle not only is an undeniable permanent evidence of the deity of Christ. It was for the purpose of producing greater faith in the disciples.

A certain man, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha, was ill (verse 1).

This is not the same Lazarus of Luke 16, whom the rich man in hell saw nestled in Abraham’s bosom. Nonetheless, our commentators find it of interest that Jesus chose the name Lazarus for that parable.

MacArthur says:

His name, Lazarus, not to be confused with the Lazarus in the beggar story, but an interesting parallel, isn’t it? That it was an issue of resurrection that was brought up in that story about that other Lazarus. That was a fictional Lazarus in the story that Jesus invented. But why two named Lazarus? It was a very common name, a very common name from the Old Testament name, Eleazar, Eleazar, a very familiar Old Testament Hebrew name. It means, whom God helps, whom God helps.

Henry explains how the name Lazarus evolved out of Eleazar:

… his Hebrew name probably was Eleazar, which being contracted, and a Greek termination put to it, is made Lazarus. Perhaps in prospect of this history our Saviour made use of the name of Lazarus in that parable wherein he designed to set forth the blessedness of the righteous in the bosom of Abraham immediately after death, Luke 16 22.

Our commentators have a few notes on Bethany.

Henry says:

They lived at Bethany, a village nor far from Jerusalem, where Christ usually lodged when he came up to the feasts. It is here called the town of Mary and Martha, that is, the town where they dwelt, as Bethsaida is called the city of Andrew and Peter, ch. 1 44.

MacArthur says there were two villages named Bethany:

They lived in the village of Bethany.  That’s another interesting note because at the time that Jesus gets this message, He’s in another Bethany.  The tenth chapter ends in verse 40.  “He went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing and was staying there.”  That place, according to 1:28 of John was also called Bethany.  So there was a Bethany beyond Jordan a day away from the Bethany of Lazarus and his two sisters. 

Bethany is a small village.  It means, house of the poor, house of poverty.  That would be characteristic of that village.  Perhaps that’s characteristic of the other village where Jesus was currently ministering.  And by the way, many were coming and believing in Him.  That’s how chapter 10 ends.  Once He got out of Jerusalem, and out beyond the Jordan back where John started to minister, He began to reap the harvest of what John had planted in proclaiming Him.  And the people out there said everything John said about Him is true, and they came to believe.  That’s how chapter 10 ends …

Bethany, two miles from the eastern wall of Jerusalem, down the back slope of the eastern wall, across the Kidron brook, up the Mount of Olives around the bend and you’re in this little village of Bethany …

I can remember many years ago when Patricia and I were there and a number of times visiting there myself, but Patricia and I were there. I would say when we were there to find the traditional site of the grave of Lazarus and to go down the deep stairs into what is traditional said to be the place where he was entombed. I remember it was an Arab village at the time. There were Arabic women living there, Palestinian women living there, and we had the very bizarre occasion – Patricia will remember this – of having a lady offering us the opportunity to purchase her baby.

Now, I don’t know whether that was something she used as a device, but we were not interested in buying her baby. But that village, to this very day, is in Arabic named after Lazarus. So that’s the little village, and it is as nondescript, the last time I was there perhaps as it was even in ancient times.

Mary was the one who anointed our Lord with perfume; her brother Lazarus was ill (verse 2).

Was she Mary, the fallen woman who anointed His feet similarly at the Pharisee’s house?

Henry does not think so:

Here were two sisters, Martha and Mary, who seem to have been the housekeepers, and to have managed the affairs of the family, while perhaps Lazarus lived a retired life, and gave himself to study and contemplation. Here was a decent, happy, well-ordered family, and a family that Christ was very much conversant with, where yet there was neither husband nor wife (for aught that appears), but the house kept by a brother, and his sisters dwelling together in unity.

One of the sisters is particularly described to be that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, v. 2. Some think she was that woman that we read of, Luke 7 37, 38, who had been a sinner, a bad woman. I rather think it refers to that anointing of Christ which this evangelist relates (ch. 12 3); for the evangelists do never refer one to another, but John frequently refers in one place of his gospel to another. Extraordinary acts of piety and devotion, that come from an honest principle of love to Christ, will not only find acceptance with him, but gain reputation in the church, Matt 26 13.

Henry refers to Luke 7:36-50.

Nor does MacArthur:

What’s going on here?  That story doesn’t come until chapter 12.  But listen, that’s okay because that story had already been told in detail in Matthew and already told in detail in Mark and Matthew and Mark had been circulating for a very long time by the year 90 in the first century when John writes this gospel.  And so even though he hasn’t yet given his account of it, he knows they know that that Mary is the one he’s talking about.

And so he literally builds his comment on the knowledge of Matthew and Mark, gospels written very much earlier.

MacArthur is referring to Matthew 26 and Mark 14, when Mary anointed our Lord in the house of Simon the leper.

Mary — Miriam — was as common a name then as it is now, so the Mary of Luke 7 is probably not the same as the Mary of John 11 and 12, Matthew 26 and Mark 14.

In any event, the Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran churches’ feast day for Mary, Martha and Lazarus is July 29.

Mary and Martha sent a message to Jesus that Lazarus — ‘he whom you love’ — was ill (verse 3).

In Henry’s and MacArthur’s Bible translations the verse is as follows:

3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.

MacArthur looks at ‘behold’:

So this is going to take a day, a day to get from Bethany one to Bethany two. The message is very cryptic, very short. “Lord,” they acknowledge He is Lord. “Behold,” which means, this is urgent; this is sudden; this demands immediate response. “He whom you love is sick.” That’s the whole message. “He whom you love is sick.”

Since Jesus had left back in verse 40 of chapter 10 some weeks earlier, this man had become sick.

Henry elaborates on ‘he whom you love’:

His sisters knew where Jesus was, a great way off beyond Jordan, and they sent a special messenger to him, to acquaint him with the affliction of their family … The message they sent was very short, not petitioning, much less prescribing or pressing, but barely relating the case with the tender insinuation of a powerful plea, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. They do not say, He whom we love, but he whom thou lovest. Our greatest encouragements in prayer are fetched from God himself and from his grace. They do not say, Lord, behold, he who loveth thee, but he whom thou lovest; for herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us. Our love to him is not worth speaking of, but his to us can never be enough spoken of. 

MacArthur explains the word ‘love’ in that verse:

They talk only of Jesus’s love for Lazarus.  They think that will catch His heart, and here’s a very important insight: “He whom you love.”  The word love here is not agapaō, not divine love.  This is phileō, the love of a friend, personal affection, human love.  Jesus loved this man as a friend.  He had personal affection for him.  It’s obvious that as God, He loves the world, that as God He loves His own who are in the world, and He loves them to perfection.  He will tell them that in the upper room, but that’s not the thought here.  That thought comes later.  The thought here is this is a man for whom Jesus had deep affection.  This is a man who filled a need in his own life for a friend.

When Jesus heard the message, He said that Lazarus’s illness would not lead to death but rather to God’s glory, in that the Son of God would be glorified through it (verse 4).

Henry says that this refers to the upcoming miracle:

It was for the glory of God, for it was that the Son of God might be glorified thereby, as it gave him occasion to work that glorious miracle, the raising of him from the dead. As, before, the man was born blind that Christ might have the honour of curing him (ch. 9 3), so Lazarus must be sick and die, that Christ may be glorified as the Lord of life.

Serendipitously, we had the reading of Christ curing the blind man last week in the reading for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Laetare Sunday, Year A (2023) here and here.

John says that Jesus loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus (verse 5).

MacArthur points out that the Greek word for ‘love’ here is different to that in verse 3:

This time the word changes.  This is agapaō.  This is divine love.  He loved this man Lazarus, about which we don’t know anything.  He loved an obscure man like a man loves a friends.  But he also loved this whole family with a divine love because they belonged to Him spiritually, like He loves His own who are in the world even to the maximum.  So much love.  He loves with a divine love and He loves with a human love.

MacArthur has an observation on our Lord’s humanity:

I know we talk about the humanity of Jesus and we have to, and He’s fully human.  But almost all the time you hear someone talk about the humanity of Jesus they say, “Well, He lived and He hungered, and He thirsted, and He slept, and He was weary, and He died.”  And all of those are human things, but what makes humans unique is relationships, and this is explains why when He gets to the grave, He cries.  He cries at the thought that His friend is dead.  This is a beautiful insight into the full humanity of Jesus.  He is a man and like every person, He requires a friend, somebody who cares about Him.  A perfect man with all the needs of a man.

You see, this is part of what makes Him such a merciful, faithful High Priest able to be touched with all the feelings of our infirmities because some of our infirmities have nothing to do with physical well-being.  They had to do with relationships, right?  Right?  I mean isn’t the worst of it all?  Isn’t that where the most pain comes from?  You could probably take the cancer if all the relationships were what they should be, but His sympathy extends to understanding relationships.  He’s been there.  His friend that He had great affection for was sick, seriously sick. 

After hearing that Lazarus was ill, Jesus stayed two days longer in the place where he was (verse 6).

I never understood why until I read Henry’s and MacArthur’s reasons for the delay. It was to bolster the Apostles’ faith, as we see later on.

In verse 4, John uses the word ‘accordingly’ — ‘as such’. He inserted parenthetical information about our Lord’s love for the three. Then comes verse 5, stating the delay: ‘Accordingly … Jesus stayed two days longer in the place where he was’.

Henry explains:

Now one would think it should follow, When he heard therefore that he was sick he made all the haste that he could to him; if he loved them, now was a time to show it by hastening to them, for he knew they impatiently expected him. But he took the contrary way to show his love: it is not said, He loved them and yet he lingered; but he loved them and therefore he lingered; when he heard that his friend was sick, instead of coming post to him, he abode two days still in the same place where he was … If Christ had come presently, and cured the sickness of Lazarus, he had done no more than he did for many; if he had raised him to life when newly dead, no more than he had done for some: but, deferring his relief so long, he had an opportunity of doing more for him than for any. Note, God hath gracious intentions even in seeming delays, Isa 54 7, 8; 49 14, etc. Christ’s friends at Bethany were not out of his thoughts, though, when he heard of their distress, he made no haste to them. When the work of deliverance, temporal or spiritual, public or personal, stands at a stay, it does but stay the time, and every thing is beautiful in its season.

Christ had raised two people from the dead soon after they died: Jairus’s daughter and the son of the widow of Nain. The raising of Lazarus would be even greater because he had been dead for four days.

After the two days had elapsed, Jesus said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again’ (verse 7).

The disciples countered, no doubt bewildered, asking why He would want to go to Judea again when the Pharisees had only recently tried to stone Him (verse 8). That is recorded in John 8:59.

Jesus responded, asking them if there were not 12 hours of daylight, therefore, those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world (verse 9), but those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them (verse 10).

MacArthur explains those two verses:

He answers with a very interesting Proverb.  Verses 9 and 10, “Are there not twelve hours in the day?  If anyone walks in the day, he doesn’t stumble.  That is, nothing bad happens to him because he is in the light and he can see what he is doing and where he is going.  But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles.  Bad things happen because the light is not in him.”  What is the point of that sort of strange introduction? 

Well, at this point we are now moving from the man, the critical man and the concerned sisters to the disciples.  Now, they are puzzles.  Why would you step back into this and here’s His answer.  It’s a proverb, and the proverb is simple, very simple proverb.  You can’t lengthen the daylight.  You can’t shorten the daylight, right? Nothing any friend can do can lengthen the daylight.  Nothing any enemy can do can shorten the daylight.  It is what it is and it is fixed by God, and so is my life.  No enemy can shorten it.  No friend can lengthen it.  It is what it is.  And in that light of life which God has ordained for me, I will not stumble.  That is to say, nothing will happen to me that is outside the plan.  I’m not going in the dark.  I’m going in the light of God’s divine day.  A day can’t finish before it’s ordained end. 

The time allotted to me to accomplish my earthly ministry is fixed.  It’s fixed by God …

Jesus knew that His hour was coming, but it hadn’t come yet, and many times He’d said, “My hour hasn’t come. My hour hasn’t come.” And He escaped all of the plots and all of the mob violence. This has great application for us I think to realize that if you’re walking in the Spirit and serving the Lord, you have your day. Being a coward and taking all kinds of precautionary steps and not being faithful isn’t going to lengthen it; and being bold in the face of enemies isn’t going to shorten it because it is what God has ordained it to be. 

Jesus then told the disciples that ‘our friend’ — meaning that they all knew him — Lazarus had fallen asleep, but He was going there to awaken him (verse 11).

The disciples took Jesus literally, because they said, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right’ (verse 12).

Jesus had been speaking about Lazarus’s death (verse 13). He then told the disciples plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead’ (verse 14).

Then He added, ‘For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him’ (verse 15).

That verse seems puzzling, but Jesus meant that the disciples’ faith would not have been increased had He been in Bethany and raised Lazarus from the dead sooner.

Henry says:

If he had been there time enough, he would have healed his disease and prevented his death, which would have been much for the comfort of Lazarus’s friends, but then his disciples would have seen no further proof of his power than what they had often seen, and, consequently, their faith had received no improvement; but now that he went and raised him from the dead, as there were many brought to believe on him who before did no (v. 45), so there was much done towards the perfecting of what was lacking in the faith of those that did, which Christ aimed at: To the intent that you may believe.

MacArthur adds:

The disciples were always struggling with faith, weren’t they?  “O ye of little faith, O ye of little faith, O ye of little faith.  Why don’t you believe?” 

Yes, they believed in Him.  Yes, they had affirmed that He was the Christ, the Son of God, but they needed faith to be strengthened and strengthened and strengthened.  I mean it wasn’t just that they would believe, but that Mary and Martha would have their faith strengthened.  And then down in verse 45, many Jews who came to Mary and got the whole story of the resurrection first hand, and were eyewitnesses of the living brother, believed in Him.  This is a glory display that’ll produce faith, and it’ll also produce hostility that drives Him to the cross right on schedule. 

Referring back to verses 7 and 8 about the return to Judea despite the dangers there, Thomas the Twin — Didymus — said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him’, meaning Jesus (verse 16).

Henry’s Bible phrases the verse as follows:

16 Then said Thomas, which is called Didymus, unto his fellow disciples, Let us also go, that we may die with him.

MacArthur says:

He gets a lot of bad press for that, but just think about this.  This is a courageous pessimist.  This is not a cowardly pessimist.  He didn’t say, “Let’s get out of here or we will all die with Him.”  He said, “Let’s go and die with Him.”  This man has great faith, and this man knows what Luke 9:23 means.  “If you want to come after Me, deny yourself.  Take up your – “what? “ – cross.”  It might cost us our lives, men.  Let’s go.

Henry explains the names Thomas and Didymus:

Thomas in Hebrew and Didymus in Greek signify a twin; it is said of Rebekah (Gen 25 24) that there were twins in her womb; the word is Thomim. Probably Thomas was a twin.

When Jesus arrived in the Bethany of Lazarus and his sisters, He found that his friend had been in the tomb for four days (verse 17).

Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away (verse 18).

MacArthur gives us the timeline:

And so they go, and when they arrive he’s been dead four days; the day the messenger came, the two days, the day back, four days.

Henry has more:

When he came near the town, probably by the burying-place belonging to the town, he was told by the neighbours, or some persons whom he met, that Lazarus had been four days buried. Some think that Lazarus died the same day that the messenger came to Jesus with the tidings of his sickness, and so reckon two days for his abode in the same place and two days for his journey. I rather think that Lazarus died at the very instant that Jesus, “Our friend sleepeth, he is now newly fallen asleep;” and that the time between his death and burial (which among the Jews was but short), with the four days of his lying in the grave, was taken up in this journey …

MacArthur tells us what happens to the human body once it has been dead for four days:

Some might argue that since there was no way to be certain someone was dead, perhaps this was just a resuscitation of someone who was temporarily in that condition.  But in the case of Lazarus, that’s not possible because this is someone who’s been dead four days, four days.  Now, that really does matter.  I mean it matters a lot.   

And just to help you know how much that matters, I did a little research this week to find out what happens to a body in four days.  Very interesting.  This was not a theological resource, but as I opened up some research material, I was amazed to find out that all of the bad stuff happens by 72 hours.  What happens in four days? 

The Jews did not embalm.  The Jews did nothing to stop the decay.  They wrapped the body and sprinkled spices on it to mitigate the smell.  That’s it.  Here’s what happens in four days, pretty grisly stuff.  The heart has stopped beating.  The body cells are then deprived of oxygen, and they begin to die.  Blood drains from throughout the circulatory system and pools in the low places.  Muscles begin to stiffen in what is known commonly by the Latin, rigor mortis.  That sets in after three hours.

By 24 hours, the body has lost all its heat.  The muscles then lose their rigor mortis in 36 hours, and by 72 hours rigor mortis has vanished.  All stiffness is gone and the body is soft.  Looking a little bit deeper, as cells begin to die, bacteria go to work.  Your body is filled with bacteria, but that’s another subject.  The bacteria in the body of a dead person begin to attack, breaking the cells down.  The decomposing tissue takes on a horrific look and smell and emits green liquids by the 72nd hour.  The tissue releases hydrogen sulfide and methane as well as other gases.  A horrible smell is emitted.  Insects and animals will consume parts of the body if they can get at it. 

Meet Lazarus.  That’s the condition he’s in when Jesus arrives.  That’s important.  Everyone knows he is dead.  As Martha says in verse 39, “Lord, by this time there will be a stench,” or as the King James said, “He stinketh,” because he’s been dead four days. 

Look, they lived in a world of death.  They didn’t live in a sterile world of mortuaries and undertakers and embalming fluids and all of that where the body disappears and you never see anything but somebody in a casket who looks like the horizontal member of a cocktail party with a suit and tie and dressed up and make up. 

People lived with death.  They lived with the realities of death.  They lived with the horrors of death.  That’s very important.  It’s also very important to understand that there was a certain expectation, and it became a reality in this case of what a funeral was like.  When someone died, family, friends, neighbors, even connected strangers poured into their life.  Everybody showed up. 

As such, many of the Jews went to Martha and Mary to console them about the loss of their brother (verse 19).

To be continued tomorrow.