Eleonore Stump in her book Wandering in Darkness invites us to re-read the story of Lazarus (John 11) from Mary’s perspective. Stump argues that the story of Lazarus is a story of Mary, since both Lazarus and Martha are identified by their relationship with Mary. The true ending of the story is to be found in John 12, where Mary anoints Jesus.
Read from that angle, the story is a rather disturbing one.
The two sisters hopefully send a messenger to Jesus with a message: “Lord, he whom you love is ill” (John 11:3). Jesus has already healed a lot of people, so surely He will also heal Lazarus. He has even healed people from a distance, but probably in this case He will want to come and heal His beloved one personally. There is some trouble on the sisters’ mind, but it is not too burdensome. Lazarus is sick, but Jesus is the Son of God and He loves Lazarus.
Jesus, after hearing the message, tells His disciples: “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (v. 4). Fair enough.
But then Jesus does not go to Bethany. He stays where He is and lets the nature take its course. He does not even send a return message to the sisters, which He easily could have done since their messenger was available.
And Lazarus dies.
In the meantime, Mary and Martha are waiting and growing more and more puzzled. They have most probably heard from the messenger what Jesus told His disciples. But what should they do with these words? Sure, they want the Son of God to be glorified, but they also want their brother to be healed, and what could be a better way for the Son of God to be glorified than by healing the one He loves?
As the time goes by, the worry about their brother’s life starts giving way to a new worry, namely a worry about their relationship with Jesus. Is Lazarus really His beloved friend? Does Jesus care? Perhaps they have thought too much of their special bond with Jesus. Maybe they are not important in His big scheme after all.
We can guess that Jesus’s absence and silence causes pain; it breaks the heart of the sisters. “By the time Jesus arrives in Bethany, then, the sisters will have had ample time first for dismay, disappointment, and anxiety, then for pain and perplexity, and finally for the sodden misery that comes when the extinction of hope can no longer be denied” (E. Stump, Wandering in Darkness).
When Jesus finally comes to Bethany, only Martha comes to meet Him. Even though many commentators believe that her words come from her deep faith in Jesus, they sound rather like a reproof: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. 21). Yes, she believes in the resurrection and that God will give Jesus whatever He asks for. But when Jesus comes to the grave and asks for the stone to be removed, she clear-headedly reminds Him: “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days” (v. 37).
Mary, on the other hand, stays at home. She is withdrawn. Maybe this is how she wants to protect herself from any further harm. Or perhaps she wants to communicate something to Jesus?
When she finally comes to meet Jesus all she has to say is: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. 32). Then she falls to His feet and weeps. She is in pain for two reasons: her brother is dead, and, what seems to be even more important, Jesus seems to have failed her or maybe she had unreal expectations of Him.
So far, we do not see much of the glory of the Son of God. Neither do the people who came to console the sisters. All they have to say is basically the same as what the sisters told Jesus: “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” (v. 37).
Just then when everyone seems to be completely lost, Jesus raises Lazarus. Many believed in Him and glorified God. “And it is not an unreasonable speculation to suppose that the story does not say anything more on this score because it means us to understand that there is nothing more to be said. The narrative leads us to imagine that there was overwhelming excitement on everyone’s part, but especially on the part of the sisters, to have Lazarus restored. It is too much to expect Martha and Mary, but especially Mary, to absorb instantly what has happened, moving in no time all the way from heartbreak through relief and reconciliation to understanding and joy” (Stump, Wandering in Darkness).
But the story does not end here. Already at the beginning of it John identified Mary as the one “who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair” (v. 2). It seems as if he wants us to combine the so-called Story of Lazarus with anointing of Jesus described in John 12.
Now we see Mary again at Jesus’s feet. This time she is not weeping in pain and grief. If there are tears in her eyes, these are the tears of joy and adoration. She has not only received her brother back but she is also reconciled with Jesus. In the end He did not fail her. She failed Him.
This moment has been immortalized not only by John but also by many painters. Mary is glorious in her love and adoration of Jesus. She partakes in the glory of God that Jesus spoke about.
Yet, her glory is not just fame and bliss. It is also excellency. Her love for Jesus is much deeper than before, and her knowledge of Him too. Love and knowledge are often used as synonyms in the Bible. Mary is a more mature person, now, more Christ-like. In this sense, she is also much closer to Him. He is much dearer to her. In the end, she has received much more that she had asked for, then she had desired or even imagined.
Eleonore Stump draws our attention to the fact that in the story we see Mary twice at the feet of Jesus. But perhaps we should say that in the Gospels we see Mary three times at the feet of Jesus.
The first time is in Luke 10, where she “sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching” (Luke 10:39). Even though John does not mention this incident, this is the way we read the Gospels: John comes after Luke, and so when we come to John, we know the incident described by Luke.
Jesus commends Mary for choosing “the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42). We can try to imagine what it was for Mary to seat at Jesus’s feet and listen to Him. Who wouldn’t want to? This was like the green pastures beside still waters.
This moment of bliss gave her confidence in Jesus, which stood behind her kindly request when her brother got sick: “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But obviously Jesus had something better in mind for her and so he put her initial faith on trial. He did not come when she needed Him. He remained silent and absent. This must have been for Mary like the valley of the shadow of death.
Mary was heartbroken: not only her brother died, but, what was much worse, because Jesus acted in a very strange way. Why does He treat His beloved ones like this? Yet, eventually she came to Him and fell at His feet. This time it was not a moment of bliss but of despair. Yet, she was there. Maybe asking the same question as Peter did: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” (John 6:68).
The third time we see Mary at Jesus’s feet at a feast. Martha was serving at the table, as usual. Mary, too, took her usual place. She had been on the green pastures, she had traveled through the valley of the shadow of death, and finally she had arrived on the other side. Her faith had matured through hope into love.
Lazarus truly died. Jesus truly was absent. Mary truly was heartbroken. Yet, through this dire experience the glory of God was truly revealed in the life of Mary. And she could partake in this glory. “In the narrative it turns out that there are other things Mary herself wants and that she finds more worth having than the healing of Lazarus, although she did not know this fact about herself when Lazarus was sick. The restoring of Lazarus is more worth having, in her own eyes, than the healing she had thought she wanted more than anything else. It gives her Lazarus, as she wanted, in a glory-filled way that she would not have imagined, in a way that connects her more deeply to Jesus than she would have had courage or even imagination to hope for” (E. Stump, Wandering in Darkness).
According to Stump, stories like this help us not so much to solve the problem of evil as rather to understand “the compatibility of God and human suffering in our world.” We do this not by denying or downplaying the evilness of evil but rather by showing that what is meant for evil, God means for good. Yes, God lets us suffer evil, He lets the evil one attack us, He lets us do evil things. But as He does so, He draws us closer to Himself, He brings us to maturity, He makes us more glorious and He shapes us to be more Christ-like.
And the eternal weight of glory is beyond all comparison with any affliction which prepares us for it (2 Corinthians 4:17).
Bogumil Jarmulak is pastor of Evangelical Reformed Church (CREC) in Poznan, Poland. His PhD is from Christian Theological Academy in Warsaw, Poland.