Which is true in part, for while there “Jesus Wept”. When Jesus asked that he be shown the grave, they thought he wanted to go there to mourn like everyone else. The Old Testament does not give a whole lot of hope for the afterlife, though by Jesus’s time, the belief in an afterlife was strongly held by most of the Jews at that time. I am sure that some of the Jews there did not believe in an afterlife, being part of the more conservative branch of Judaism, the Sadducees. The people always wondered about his not being there. When he came to Mary, she also complained to him about his not being there to heal her brother. For her, at the moment, her brother was gone forever, already in the tomb four days, his body already beginning to rot…….there was only loss, sorrow, and yes, anger, at Jesus for not being there. I would think there would have been some anger, as well as a sense of betrayal, in the heart of both Martha, and Mary. So when he arrived, he stayed away from the gathering, and when Martha came to him, she remonstrated with him that he was not there to heal her brother and his friend. He waited three days before going, knowing that by then his beloved friend would be dead. People Jesus did not know personally, so yes, he would come. For after all he fed the 5,000, raised from the dead the son of the widow of Nain, as well as the daughter of the leader of a Synagogue. Jesus loved Lazarus very much, and I would think that his family, and friends, at the onset of his illness, would naturally think that Jesus would come and heal him once he found out. This kind of disruption is a wound, that cannot be healed….yet wondrous just the same. What would happen? It would be a break with reality as we know it, so I would imagine there would be some fear, even horror, and perhaps some would run out of the house screaming, because the dead do not come back to life….or do they in some instances, rare, like with Lazarus and the Widow of the city of Nain and her son. So just imagine a so-called holy man walks in, goes into the bedroom, and everyone wondering what is happening, and he walks out with the loved one, alive, healthy, and back to life, better than before death. Actually very ordinary, for we will each one day be the corpse in the other room. Horrible, yes, but known, and understood. Sitting, knowing in the next room is a corpse, getting cold, and rigor mortis soon to set in. It takes a few hours, so the family moves into the living room to wait, sitting, morose, for some, being in shock for others, too numb to feel, or cry or speak. Just think for a moment, about being at the death bed of a loved one, and the family is there around the body waiting for the hearse to come and to pick up the ‘remains’. When thinking about the miracle of Lazarus being raised from the dead, it would be good to go back and try to see what happened. For the news was spreading among the populace about the raising of Lazarus from the dead! Then there was the story about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead! In midst of that excitement was a mixture of awe, fear, and even dread. He had a lot of opposition by the powers that be, and looked upon as a threat to the survival of the nation. He was known in the area as a miracle worker, a healer, and for many, the coming Messiah who would usher in a new era for the Jewish Nation. On Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, there was a lot of excitement about him. Palm Sunday/The Rising of Lazarus from the dead
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