NOTES for Joh 11:1-45

Lazarus was Christ's friend, and He loved him very much. Yet Jesus allowed him to pass through the experience of death. He allowed it consciously, because of course He could have come while Lazarus was still ill. The experience of death is something very important. In the story of Lazarus' family we see the sisters more, while Lazarus seems silent, but we know the main thing about him: Jesus loved him and allowed him to die. Very often, when we love someone who is gravely ill, we pray fiercely for his healing. Once a young woman's dearly beloved father was very seriously ill. She spoke about him with a very wise person; she said that she was asking for a cross for herself, since the Lord had not heard her prayers, which had already lasted almost two years, so that at least from the cross she could pray for him and then He would hear and heal the sufferer. And the wise person answered her: what are you praying for? Healing, no doubt. Pray instead that God's will be done. This is precisely what the story of Lazarus' resurrection is about. Even those whom He loves, even in some special way, the Lord leads through the hardest experience. Sometimes it is the experience of real physical death, and sometimes simply a special cross, so that God's grace and God's glory may be revealed in them, for in them it is revealed with amazing brilliance.