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.

Part 1 of this exegesis covers the first 19 verses.

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him; Mary stayed at home (verse 20).

John MacArthur describes what it was like at home during this time of grief and mourning:

Let me give you kind of a picture.  When someone died, as I said, they put them in the ground right away.  Burial followed death immediately.  As a result of the death, people would be notified.  They would come to the house.  There would be a procession, a procession to wherever they were going to place the body.  They’re not necessarily digging a hole, but like Jesus who was buried in a cave.  There were many caves in the Bethany area as well as around Jerusalem.  Many believers were buried this way all over the ancient world around the Mediterranean.

So it’s very likely they put Him in some kind of cave on some kind of shelf, which is typically what they did in catacombs kind of places.  He would be placed there.  The procession would then go back to the house and mourners would stay for seven days, seven days.  This is how long the initial part of the funeral lasted.  For seven days, people would be sitting in the house.  Now, they couldn’t eat until the body was taken to be buried.  They didn’t want any kind of levity.  They didn’t want any kind of joy being expressed.  They didn’t want any kind of normalcy until the body had been buried, and then they would serve a meal.  They actually had designed a meal of bread, hard-boiled eggs and lentils, kind of a traditional meal to feed the people who were going to stay. 

Then they would continue to have to care for those people or others would bring food as the mourners stayed for seven days.  What they did was not just sit quietly like Job’s friends and say nothing.  They wailed out loud.  They mourned.  They wailed loudly.  Women led this, so it was kind of a screaming, wailing situation.  They saw this as comfort because of the sympathy behind it.  It was traditional.  They expected it.  For seven days, this wailing went on. 

So when Jesus comes and Lazarus has been dead four days, this is still in full bloom.  Sympathy was everybody’s duty.  It was really a beautiful custom.  By the way, at the end of the seven days, the wailing, sort of the formal wailing – and by the way, there were hired mourners as well, people who were professional wailers who sort of led the rest.  They embraced that family for seven days, and then after the seven days of really intense wailing, they would also carry on mourning for 30 days.  There would be some expressions openly, publicly of mourning for 30 days as those friends and those people came around.  During the time of wailing and mourning, there would be reminiscences and eulogies and remembrances.  There would be the sharing of stories and whatever was necessary to comfort.  It really was a beautiful custom. 

MacArthur offers possibilities on how Martha would have heard Jesus was there:

… maybe the messenger who came with them ran ahead. Do you remember the messenger who went to tell Jesus that Lazarus was sick? He must have come back with them. Maybe he waited the two days they waited, and then came back with them and maybe ran ahead a little bit. We can’t be certain about that, but somebody informed her that Jesus was near, but not quite at the village.

She heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house. Now, here we come to these two sisters again, and they perform kind of according to their personality and their temperament. If you go back to Luke 10 for a minute, this is where we meet them earlier in the ministry of Jesus, quite a bit earlier in the ministry of Jesus. Jesus and His disciples are traveling along and He enters a village. By the way, it’s Bethany, that same village, and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She knew about Him, must have known about Him. We don’t know at this point how much. She welcomed Him into her home. “She had a sister called Mary who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word.”

… And she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister had left me to do all the serving alone?”  I mean that’s a pretty bold lady.  “Then tell her to help me.”  Whoa.  “But the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha.” 

You know, when anybody repeats your name twice, you know you’re in trouble?  My mother was just, “Johnny, Johnny.”  “Martha, Martha, you’re worried and bothered about so many things.”  They don’t matter.  “Only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”  No way I’m going to tell her to go to the kitchen and fuss around.  She’s chosen the right thing.  So there’s the initial characterization.  Mary is the pensive, thoughtful, inward, melancholy kind of personality and Martha is the busy one, the active one, the aggressive one.  So we see that again. 

Go back to John 11.  The word comes.  She gets the word that the Savior is on the way, and as soon as she gets the word that He’s on the way, she charges in that direction.  Verse 20, Mary stays back.  She’s melancholy.  She’s broken hearted.  She’s sad.  She’s pensive, in deep sorrow.  She doesn’t even know Jesus is coming.  She doesn’t even know that because she doesn’t find it out until verse 28 when Martha comes back and tells her.  She’s just caught up in the loss of her brother, the agonizing loss of this brother that she loved.

Martha said to Jesus that, if He had been there, Lazarus would not have died (verse 21).

MacArthur thinks that that thought was going around in Martha’s head since Lazarus died:

… as Martha reached Jesus, the thought that had no doubt plagued her brain and she had shared it with Mary for the four days, was that Jesus should have been there; and if Jesus hadn’t left, this wouldn’t have happened …  “If you had been here my brother would not have died.” Here she is telling Him what to do again. This is definitely her. This is her. The first time she said anything to Him, she told Him what to do. The second time, she scolds Him again and tells Him if He’d had done what He should have been doing, He would have been there, and this never would have happened.

Even so, she said, she knew that God would give Jesus whatever He asked of Him (verse 22).

MacArthur says:

This lady got a solid Christology while she was in the kitchen overhearing what He was saying to Mary. She got it. By the way, Jesus no doubt stayed at their home Many times, but somehow with all that she knew, there was this pain that testifies to a faith that comes short of believing His power to raise the dead. She says, “I know you can ask the Father and you can do that now, and God will give you if it’s His will.”

Matthew Henry’s commentary says much the same:

How weak her faith was. She should have said, “Lord, thou canst do whatsoever thou wilt;” but she only says, “Thou canst obtain whatsoever thou prayest for.” She had forgotten that the Son had life in himself, that he wrought miracles by his own power.

Jesus told Martha that her brother would rise again (verse 23).

Martha took that to mean that he would rise again in resurrection on the last day (verse 24).

Henry explains, linking those verses to today’s first reading, Ezekiel 37:1-14, about the resurrection of the dry bones into an army:

Thy brother shall rise again. First, This was true of Lazarus in a sense peculiar to him: he was now presently to be raised; but Christ speaks of it in general as a thing to be done, not which he himself would do, so humbly did our Lord Jesus speak of what he did. He also expresses it ambiguously, leaving her uncertain at first whether he would raise him presently or not till the last day, that he might try her faith and patience. Secondly, It is applicable to all the saints, and their resurrection at the last day. Note, It is a matter of comfort to us, when we have buried our godly friends and relations, to think that they shall rise again. As the soul at death is not lost, but gone before, so the body is not lost, but laid up. Think you hear Christ saying, “Thy parent, thy child, thy yoke-fellow, shall rise again; these dry bones shall live.”

… As bone shall return to his bone in that day, so friend to his friend.

Jesus stated that He is the resurrection and the life; those who believe in Him, even though they die will live (verse 25) and everyone who lives and believes in Him will never die. Then He asked Martha if she believed that (verse 26).

MacArthur says:

I just want to affirm to you, folks, there will be a resurrection. This is not a misinterpretation of Scripture because Martha got the same thing from Jesus.  It is the truth.  You will rise to life or damnation.  You will receive a body for eternity.  Then our Lord says, “Martha, look, I am the resurrection and the life.”  Listen, not, “I will be.”  I – what?  “I am.”  This is the fifth of seven I ams in the gospel of John. 

I AM\\\am.  That’s the Tetragrammaton, the name of God.  I am the resurrection and the life.  He doesn’t say, “I can raise the dead.”  I am the resurrection.  I can pray the Father to give life.  I am life.  “He who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.  Do you believe this?”  So here is this great claim, this claim to be the I am, to be the one who is the source of life.  I am the embodiment of life.  I am the life.

Just as in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  Not in the future, “I will be.”  In the present, “I am.”  Here is the I am. Jesus is the life itself. He is everlasting life. That everlasting life, by the way, that resurrected life in heaven is for anyone who believes. Do you believe? That’s the compelling question. Do you believe? If you do not believe, you are without excuse. If you do not believe that He is the resurrection and the life, you are without excuse. Why? You must believe He is the life. He created everything that lives. You must believe He is the resurrection because He not only raised the dead, but He himself was raised from the dead; and because He lives, we live also.

Martha affirmed her own faith, saying, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world’ (verse 27). That is what the Old Testament teaches.

MacArthur says:

She didn’t even know about the cross yet because He hadn’t died. She didn’t know about His resurrection yet because it hadn’t happened, but she believed everything that had been revealed up to that point. She is an Old Testament saint. She is an Old Testament believer. I do believe. I do believe.

After Martha professed her belief in Jesus, she went back to the house to fetch her sister Mary, telling her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you’ (verse 28).

Henry says:

[2.] She called her secretly, and whispered it in her ear, because there was company by, Jews, who were no friends to Christ. The saints are called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ by an invitation that is secret and distinguishing, given to them and not to others; they have meat to eat that the world knows not of, joy that a stranger does not intermeddle with. [3.] She called her by order from Christ; he bade her go call her sister. This call that is effectual, whoever brings it, is sent by Christ. The Master is come, and calleth for thee. First, She calls Christ the Master, didaskalos, a teaching master; by that title he was commonly called and known among them. Mr. George Herbert took pleasure in calling Christ, my Master. Secondly, She triumphs in his arrival: The Master is come. He whom we have long wished and waited for, he is come, he is come; this was the best cordial in the present distress. “Lazarus is gone, and our comfort in him is gone; but the Master is come, who is better than the dearest friend, and has that in him which will abundantly make up all our losses. He is come who is our teacher, who will teach us how to get good by our sorrow (Ps 94 12), who will teach, and so comfort.”

When Mary heard what Martha said, she rose quickly to go to Him (verse 29).

Jesus was still not in the village at that point, but at the place where Martha had met Him (verse 30).

The Jews who were in the house consoling Mary saw her get up quickly and leave; they followed her because they thought she was going to her brother’s tomb to weep there (verse 31). In other words, they wanted to be available to console her at the tomb and not leave her on her own.

Now we have a body of witnesses for the upcoming miracle.

Henry says:

Those Jews that followed Mary were thereby led to Christ, and became the witnesses of one of his most glorious miracles. It is good cleaving to Christ’s friends in their sorrows, for thereby we may come to know him better.

Note that Mary says the same thing to Jesus as had Martha in verse 21, the big difference being that Mary knelt at His feet when she spoke those words (verse 32).

Henry points out:

Now here, [1.] Her posture is very humble and submissive: She fell down at his feet, which was more than Martha did, who had a greater command of her passions. She fell down not as a sinking mourner, but fell down at his feet as a humble petitioner. This she did in presence of the Jews that attended her, who, though friends to her and her family, yet were bitter enemies to Christ; yet in their sight she fell at Christ’s feet, as one that was neither ashamed to own the veneration she had for Christ nor afraid of disobliging her friends and neighbours by it. Let them resent it as they pleased, she falls at his feet; and, if this be to be vile, she will be yet more vile; see Cant 8 1. We serve a Master of whom we have no reason to be ashamed, and whose acceptance of our services is sufficient to balance the reproach of men and all their revilings. [2.] Her address is very pathetic: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. Christ’s delay was designed for the best, and proved so; yet both the sisters very indecently cast the same in his teeth, and in effect charge him with the death of their brother.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping, He was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved (verse 33).

Both our commentators say that Jesus experienced a deep, groaning inner pain. In today’s secular world, we would call it an existential pain in the truest sense of the word: a yawning chasm of sorrow.

MacArthur tells us:

“He was deeply moved,” deeply moved.  Literally weeping is klaiō in the Greek.  It means to sob.  And when He sees all this sobbing, He was deeply moved.  That is a very interesting word, deeply moved.  It can mean being emotional.  It can mean being angry.  It can mean being indignant.  It can mean groaning, feeling inner pain and turmoil.  This is deep emotion.  This is a word that sort of grabs everything.  There is sorrow, sadness, indigence, anger, suffering.  It’s just every emotion grips Him in His spirit, in His inner person, His person, and He was troubled, reflexive verb, troubled in Himself or He allowed Himself to feel the trouble.  He let Himself feel everything.

This is like what Hebrews says, “He is in all points tempted like as we are.”  He’s been touched with the feelings of our infirmities as our great High Priest.  He’s sad because He’s lost His friends.  Now, He loved Lazarus.  It says that back in verse 3, and it’s phileō.  It’s, He had an affection for him, human.  He lost His friend.

He loved Mary and Martha.  There’s no question that He loved them.  Everybody recognized how much He loved them.  But there’s more there than that.  It’s not just the pain that He feels in the loss of a friend.  It’s not just the pain that He feels as He identifies with these two sisters.  He feels a far more transcendent pain.  He feels a cosmic pain.  He understands that He is surrounded by unbelievers, who are representative of a nation of unbelievers who are all being catapulted into eternal judgment because they will not receive Him.  He understands that looking down through human history.  He understands the pain and suffering of all humanity that faces the same inevitable hour of human loss.  He understands that how severe this loss is when you know you’re losing one to hell forever. 

I mean this is a massive moment of agony.  Maybe a little bit like His agony in the garden as He anticipates the sin-bearing.  He deeply enters in, not only to the wounded hearts and sorrows of people who are broken because they’ve lost the one they love; but He sees way more than that.  He understands what sin has done to the world and what unbelief has done to these people who are gathered around Him. 

Henry offers this analysis:

… Christ not only seemed concerned, but he groaned in the spirit; he was inwardly and sincerely affected with the case. David’s pretended friends counterfeited sympathy, to disguise their enmity (Ps 41 6); but we must learn of Christ to have our love and sympathy without dissimulation. Christ’s was a deep and hearty sigh.

[2.] He was troubled. He troubled himself; so the phrase is, very significantly. He had all the passions and affections of the human nature, for in all things he must be like to his brethren; but he had a perfect command of them, so that they were never up, but when and as they were called; he was never troubled, but when he troubled himself, as he saw cause. He often composed himself to trouble, but was never discomposed or disordered by it. He was voluntary both in his passion and in his compassion. He had power to lay down his grief, and power to take it again.

Jesus asked where they had placed Lazarus, and the mourners replied, ‘Lord, come and see’ (verse 34).

Jesus began to weep (verse 35).

It’s even better in the King James Bible, which gives us the shortest sentence in Scripture:

35 Jesus wept.

Henry tells us:

A very short verse, but it affords many useful instructions. [1.] That Jesus Christ was really and truly man, and partook with the children, not only of flesh and blood, but of a human soul, susceptible of the impressions of joy, and grief, and other affections. Christ gave this proof of his humanity, in both senses of the word; that, as a man, he could weep, and, as a merciful man, he would weep, before he gave this proof of his divinity. [2.] That he was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, as was foretold, Isa 53 3. We never read that he laughed, but more than once we have him in tears. Thus he shows not only that a mournful state will consist with the love of God, but that those who sow to the Spirit must sow in tears. [3.] Tears of compassion well become Christians, and make them most to resemble Christ. It is a relief to those who are in sorrow to have their friends sympathize with them, especially such a friend as their Lord Jesus.

The Jews said (verse 36), ‘See how he loved him!’

But some of them asked (verse 37), ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

Henry rightly calls this remark ‘sly’:

Here it is slyly insinuated, First, That the death of Lazarus being (as it seemed by his tears) a great grief to him, if he could have prevented it he would, and therefore because he did not they incline to think that he could not; as, when he was dying, they concluded that he could not, because he did not, save himself, and come down from the cross; not considering that divine power is always directed in its operations by divine wisdom, not merely according to his will, but according to the counsel of his will, wherein it becomes us to acquiesce. If Christ’s friends, whom he loves, die,—if his church, whom he loves, be persecuted and afflicted,—we must not impute it to any defect either in his power or love, but conclude that it is because he sees it for the best. Secondly, That therefore it might justly be questioned whether he did indeed open the eyes of the blind, that is, whether it was not a sham. His not working this miracle they thought enough to invalidate the former; at least, it should seem that he had limited power, and therefore not a divine one. Christ soon convinced these whisperers, by raising Lazarus from the dead, which was the greater work, that he could have prevented his death, but therefore did not because he would glorify himself the more.

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.

Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone lying against it (verse 38).

Henry explains why our Lord was disturbed:

Christ repeats his groans upon his coming near the grave (v. 38): Again groaning in himself, he comes to the grave: he groaned, (1.) Being displeased at the unbelief of those who spoke doubtingly of his power, and blamed him for not preventing the death of Lazarus; he was grieved for the hardness of their hearts. He never groaned so much for his own pains and sufferings as for the sins and follies of men, particularly Jerusalem’s, Matt 23 37. (2.) Being affected with the fresh lamentations which, it is likely, the mourning sisters made when they came near the grave, more passionately and pathetically than before, his tender spirit was sensibly touched with their wailings. (3.) Some think that he groaned in spirit because, to gratify the desire of his friends, he was to bring Lazarus again into this sinful troublesome world, from that rest into which he was newly entered; it would be a kindness to Martha and Mary, but it would be to him like thrusting one out to a stormy sea again who was newly got into a safe and quiet harbour. If Lazarus had been let alone, Christ would quickly have gone to him into the other world; but, being restored to life, Christ quickly left him behind in this world. (4.) Christ groaned as one that would affect himself with the calamitous state of the human nature, as subject to death, from which he was now about to redeem Lazarus.

Then we come to another famous verse — the previous one being verse 35 — one which I have also committed to memory in the King James Version.

Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone’, and Martha said that, after four days, there was a stench (verse 39).

The King James Version is far superior:

39 Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.

It was a very typical thing of Martha, a practical woman, to say.

Henry explains why she said it:

Probably Martha perceived the body to smell, as they were removing the stone, and therefore cried out thus …

It is not so easy to say what was Martha’s design in saying this. [1.] Some think she said it in a due tenderness, and such as decency teaches to the dead body; now that it began to putrefy, she did not care it should be thus publicly shown and made a spectacle of. [2.] Others think she said it out of a concern for Christ, lest the smell of the dead body should be offensive to him. That which is very noisome is compared to an open sepulchre, Ps 5 9. If there were any thing noisome she would not have her Master near it; but he was none of those tender and delicate ones that cannot bear as ill smell; if he had, he would not have visited the world of mankind, which sin had made a perfect dunghill, altogether noisome, Ps 14 3. [3.] It should seem, by Christ’s answer, that it was the language of her unbelief and distrust: “Lord, it is too late now to attempt any kindness to him; his body begins to rot, and it is impossible that this putrid carcase should live.“ She gives up his case as helpless and hopeless, there having been no instances, either of late or formerly, of any raised to life after they had begun to see corruption. When our bones are dried, we are ready to say, Our hope is lost. Yet this distrustful word of hers served to make the miracle both the more evident and the more illustrious; by this it appeared that he was truly dead, and not in a trance; for, though the posture of a dead body might be counterfeited, the smell could not. Her suggesting that it could not be done puts the more honour upon him that did it.

Henry also tells us why Jesus asked for the stone to be moved:

He would have this stone removed that all the standersby might see the body lie dead in the sepulchre, and that way might be made for its coming out, and it might appear to be a true body, and not a ghost or spectre. He would have some of the servants to remove it, that they might be witnesses, by the smell of the putrefaction of the body, and that therefore it was truly dead. It is a good step towards the raising of a soul to spiritual life when the stone is taken away, when prejudices are removed and got over, and way made for the word to the heart, that it may do its work there, and say what it has to say.

Jesus perceived Martha’s doubt because He reminded her (verse 40), ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’

MacArthur makes an excellent observation:

You say you believe.  If you believe, you’re going to see the glory.  Get your eyes off the corpse and on the Christ.  Set your heart on the Lord.  Wait to see the glory revealed.  We need to live in that kind of expectancy.  We’re not looking for miracles, but I will tell you this, folks.  When you really believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you see Him display His glory throughout all of your life.  I tell people all the time: I live in the middle of a glory display all the time.  I’ve never seen a miracle, but I live in the middle of a glory display by the amazing, astounding, incomprehensible providence of God by which He orders every circumstance, every day of my life to reveal His purposes and His will.  The complexity of it is more staggering than if He interrupted natural law and did a single miracle.  How many miracles does it take to create a complex reality out of all kinds of contingencies of the non-miraculous?  It’s what He does every day. 

My whole life is a glory display.  I just go from one day to the next, to the next, to the next.  And if you’re looking and believing, you will see the same thing.  You will see God in your life.  You will see God in circumstances.  You will see God working His purposes.  That’s what He called upon her to look for.

So they took away the stone and, looking upward, Jesus prayed, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me’ (verse 41)’; ‘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’ (verse 42).

Henry says:

Thus he stirred up himself to take hold on God in the prayer he was to make, that he might offer it up with strong crying, Heb 5 7. Ministers, when they are sent by the preaching of the gospel to raise dead souls, should be much affected with the deplorable condition of those they preach to and pray for, and groan in themselves to think of it …

1. He applies himself to his living Father in heaven, so he had called him (ch. 6 17), and so eyes him here.

(1.) The gesture he used was very significant: He lifted up his eyes, an outward expression of the elevation of his mind, and to show those who stood by whence he derived his power; also to set us an example; this outward sign is hereby recommended to our practice; see ch. 17 1. Look how those will answer it who profanely ridicule it; but that which is especially charged upon us hereby is to lift up our hearts to God in the heavens; what is prayer, but the ascent of the soul to God, and the directing of its affections and motions heavenward? …

(2.) His address to God was with great assurance, and such a confidence as became him: Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.

[1.] He has here taught us, by his own example, First, In prayer to call God Father, and to draw nigh to him as children to a father, with a humble reverence, and yet with a holy boldness. Secondly, In our prayers to praise him, and, when we come to beg for further mercy, thankfully to acknowledge former favours. Thanksgivings, which bespeak God’s glory (not our own, like the Pharisee’s God, I thank thee), are decent forms into which to put our supplications.

[2.] But our Saviour’s thanksgiving here was intended to express the unshaken assurance he had of the effecting of this miracle, which he had in his own power to do in concurrence with his Father: “Father, I thank thee that my will and thine are in this matter, as always, the same.” Elijah and Elisha raised the dead, as servants, by entreaty; but Christ, as a Son, by authority, having life in himself, and power to quicken whom he would; and he speaks of this as his own act (v. 11): I go, that I may awake him; yet he speaks of it as what he had obtained by prayer, for his Father heard him: probably he put up the prayer for it when he groaned in spirit once and again (v. 33, 38), in a mental prayer, with groanings which could not be uttered.

When He had said that prayer, Jesus cried with a loud voice (verse 43), ‘Lazarus, come out!’

MacArthur gives us the emphasis from the original manuscript:

If you were reading this in the original language, it would read like this: “He yelled in a loud voice with a loud voice.”  Why the double statement?  He is literally at the pinnacle of His voice, and He had a powerful voice, you can be certain.  He was a teacher.  He taught every day.  He taught in the open air, no amplification, except that which was natural.  He could speak to crowds of 20,000 people and be heard.  A powerful voice.  I’m convinced that probably was the most melodious voice ever created.  How could it be anything less than that.  And with that loud, commanding voice, maybe like the voice of many waters in the imagery of Revelation chapter 1, He yells at the top of His voice without distorting His words and says, “Lazarus, come forth.” 

The dead man then came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth; Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go’ (verse 44).

I envision Lazarus wrapped like a mummy.

Henry tells us that this resurrection miracle not only recalls Ezekiel 37 but also our Lord’s resurrection and his Second Coming, when we shall be joined with our bodies once more for eternity:

By his word, he saith to souls, Live, yea, he saith to them, Live, Ezek 16 6. Arise from the dead, Eph 5 14. The spirit of life from God entered into those that had been dead and dry bones, when Ezekiel prophesied over them, Ezek 37 10. Those who infer from the commands of the word to turn and live that man has a power of his own to convert and regenerate himself might as well infer from this call to Lazarus that he had a power to raise himself to life. Secondly, Of the sound of the archangel’s trumpet at the last day, with which they that sleep in the dust shall be awakened and summoned before the great tribunal, when Christ shall descend with a shout, a call, or command, like this here, Come forth, Ps 50 4. He shall call both to the heavens for their souls, and to the earth for their bodies, that he may judge his people.

Many of the Jews who had accompanied Mary to Lazarus’s tomb and had seen what Jesus did believed in Him (verse 45).

MacArthur says that Lazarus might have lived another 30 years:

Tradition says he lived another 30 years.  Maybe that’s true.  Certainly, he lived for a while.  This was not a temporary resurrection in that sense, in a human sense.  We don’t know anything about the reunion of Mary and Martha.  We don’t know anything about the shock and awe that must have just literally roared through the mourners.  We don’t know anything about that.  We don’t know anything about the conversations that Lazarus had after this.

Wikipedia states that the Eastern Orthodox tradition says that:

Mary’s brother Lazarus was cast out of Jerusalem in the persecution against the Jerusalem Church following the martyrdom of St. Stephen. His sisters Mary and Martha fled Judea with him, assisting him in the proclaiming of the Gospel in various lands.^[17] According to Cyprian tradition, the three later moved to Cyprus, where Lazarus became the first Bishop of Kition (modern Larnaca).^[18]All three died in Cyprus.^{[citation needed]}

Whatever happened, the main point is, as MacArthur says:

All we’re interested in is the glory of the Son, and when He said, “Lazarus, come out,” and in a moment Lazarus was standing there, that’s the point of the story.  The rest is irrelevant.  In fact, in verse 40, Jesus says to Martha, “Didn’t I say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” and they did.  The purpose of this was to bring glory to God, and glory to God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Ending on verse 45, how many are the ‘many’ that believed in Jesus?

MacArthur says:

I don’t know what the number is.  Maybe it’s dozens.  Maybe it’s multiple of 20.  Maybe it’s 100 or more.  I don’t know what the “many” is, but many mourners came, and they have been there now four days already, filling up the first seven days when everybody would be there.  Now the resurrection has happened, and the mourners are still there.  They have known the family.  They have known Lazarus.