A Study of John 11:1-4

“Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it he said, “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.””

John 11:1–4 ESV

Observation/Summary (short explanation of what the passage says in your own words):

A man from the village of Bethany named Lazarus was sick. He had two sisters named Martha and Mary. This is the same Mary who anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive ointment and wiped them with her hair. At this time the sisters sent a message to Jesus and told Him, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” However, when Jesus heard this He said, “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.”

Textual Analysis and Implication (what is being said and what does this mean?):

John chapter 11 begins a kind of natural transition in the story of Jesus’ life that ends in chapter 12; the transition from His public ministry to the cross. John the gospel writer began this account with John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus by announcing His coming, and calling for people to confess their sin and be baptized in the Jordan river as a way of acknowledging their need for spiritual cleansing and to prepare their hearts for the coming Messiah. Then, Jesus came, just as John the Baptist said He would, and began His public ministry. Moving ahead, chapter 10 of John then ends with the beginning of the conclusion of Jesus’ public ministry by the Jordan river where John the Baptist had proclaimed Him to be the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Up to this point in John’s gospel account we have seen Jesus depicted as the bread of life, the water of life and the light of life, but now, in chapter 11, we will see Jesus as life itself. In this final miraculous sign Jesus will raise a dead man back to life, and this miracle points ahead to the resurrection of Jesus Himself after His death on the cross.

At the beginning of chapter 11 it should be remembered that chapter 10 ended with Jesus somehow slipping away from a hostile group of Jewish religious leaders in the Jerusalem temple who wanted to stone Him for claiming to be God. In spite of this Jesus escaped because His hour had not yet come. And as Jesus was continuing to minister in the rural areas outside of Judea, we read in verse 1 that a certain man, Lazarus of Bethany, was ill. Bethany was the village of the sisters Mary and Martha, and Lazarus was their brother.

Some people understandably ask why the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is not in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), and there are two possible reasons for this. The first reason is that because the synoptic gospels were written earlier, during the lifetime of Lazarus, the authors did not want to stir up the anger of the Jewish authorities against him because it was after this miraculous raising of him from the dead that the religious leaders enacted their plan to arrest and kill Jesus in earnest. John’s gospel account was written a bit later and therefore Lazarus was either dead by then or the “heat” surrounding this event had died down so to speak. The second possible reason put forward is that Peter was perhaps in a different region of Galilee at this time, and because he is likely the primary witness consulted in writing the synoptic gospels, he was not able to give an eyewitness account of this event like John was, but another resurrection is reported in Mark 5:21-43. Either way, this story’s inclusion and the use of specific people and place names by John, as with everything in this gospel, bear the undeniable marks of eyewitness testimony.

Continuing on to verse 2, we read that “It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill.” This family was very close to Jesus, so it makes perfect sense for the sisters to have sent to Him for help. Furthermore, Lazarus is the Greek rendering of “Eleazar” which means, “God is my help,” making it all the more appropriate that the sisters asked Jesus, God in the flesh, to help their ailing brother.

Interestingly, John presents them here in a way that presupposes most of his readers have already heard of them. He even mentions the time when Mary anointed Jesus feet with expensive ointment and wiped them with her hair before His arrest and crucifixion when that event is not mentioned until chapter 12 (John 12:1-8). According to the Biblical commentator D.A. Carson, this is likely because the story of Mary and Martha from Luke 10:38, and the oral account of their resurrected brother Lazarus, had been widely spread around by early Christians eager to share the good news about Jesus with everyone, and theirs is a powerful story that shows the power Jesus has over death.

However, even for readers who have not heard of Mary before, it is not bad form for John to mention someone they may not have heard of. The mention of Mary here would naturally arouse the curiosity of the one who reads or hears this story which would then be satisfied shortly after in chapter 12. Besides this, it seems reasonable to think John intended for this gospel account to be read more than once. This means, for the first time reader, the mention of Mary provides reason to keep reading and find out who she is, and for the seasoned, returning reader the mention of Mary helps bring these parts of the book together.

In verse 3 the sisters say, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” Mary, Martha and Lazarus loved Jesus, and Jesus loved them. This being the case the sisters did not need to specifically ask Jesus to come and heal their brother. Simply telling Jesus he was ill was enough. When we read the word “Lord” in this verse, it is likely they said, “Rabbi” in Aramaic, which was the primary language spoken in 1st century Palestine, but the sisters address Jesus as “Lord” or “Kyrie” in the original Greek text of this book. “Kyrie” can and does often mean “Lord God” when it is used in the New Testament, but it was also commonly used as a term of respect in the Greco-Roman world in the same way we use “Sir” in English. In this case it is reasonable to assume the use of this word identifies Jesus as their Master and themselves as His disciples, but it probably stops short of a confession of deity at this point.

It is also quite profound to see Lazarus referred to as someone Jesus loved. From this we can assume a close, personal friendship existed between Jesus and this family. The story of their relationship is not expanded upon further in the gospels, but it shows us Jesus had personal, loving relationships with people, and they in turn loved Him.

As Jesus received word of His ailing friend, in verse 4 He said, “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.” By this Jesus did not mean that the illness of  Lazarus would not kill him, but rather, death would not be the ultimate result, because, as we will read later, Jesus will raise Lazarus from the dead. And perhaps most importantly, it would result in God being glorified.

This statement about the illness of Lazarus leading to God’s glory is very similar to the beginning of chapter 9 when Jesus said a man’s blindness was not because of the man’s sin or his parent’s, but so that the works of God might be displayed in him. Importantly this is not so God can gain glory, He is infinitely glorious, but so that His glory will be revealed. “Glory” in John’s gospel primarily speaks of the revelation of God to people, primarily through revealing His glory in Jesus, God the Son. Just as the healing of the blind man in John 9 revealed God’s glory in Jesus when He healed the man, the glory of God in Christ will be revealed when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead later in this chapter. The Father and the Son are mutually committed to honoring and glorifying each other. This essentially means, revealing who each other is to persons such as ourselves. And of course, the crowning moment of this glorious revelation will come through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

But this can be a hard truth for us to swallow; Jesus is still doing this everyday. That is, using sickness and suffering in this world to reveal His glory, or in other words, make Himself in all of His supreme majesty and goodness known to us and others. But we don’t always get the miraculous healing the blind man received or the resurrection Lazarus will experience. When someone close to us or we ourselves are in a situation similar to the man born blind or the ailing Lazarus, we want Jesus to be glorified through a miraculous healing. But sometimes Jesus’ plan is to be glorified as we continue to exhibit our belief that He is better than anything in this world by continuing to hold fast to Him in faith through the fiercest storms and most painful of trials. Yes, it would be good if we and our loved ones could all rise up from our beds of sickness fully healed to glorify God, but when God’s plan is different than that it is because He is doing something better. Ultimate, lasting healing will come to every follower of Jesus in eternity, but it is not promised to us in this broken world (John 16:33).

The opportunity to hold tightly to God when the healing or rescue does not come is an opportunity to grow in our relationship with and reliance on Jesus, and it is an opportunity to show the world that Jesus is better. Jesus is more valuable than health, wealth or anything else in this world. This world is passing away and it is not our home. This world is under the curse of sin and the comforts and delights of this world can and have blinded so many of us to the desperate need to be saved from the penalty due for our sin.

One good thing, among many others, that God shows us through suffering in this world, is that all is not as it should be. We are frail and we will all die, so then what? What happens next? Suffering can help bring us to a place where we are willing to contemplate this important question, and in so doing, draw us to God where we can find the solution to our greatest problem; our sin which leads to eternal death and suffering. God graciously allows a limited amount of temporary suffering to get our attention so that we will notice the eternal problem we have, and how He has provided a solution, a way to be saved, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And by doing this, His glory is revealed through our illness and the illness around us.

There is of course so much more to be said about the problem of suffering, but this is a good start. God is not the author of illness, death and evil, but He is able to bring eternal good out of our temporary suffering. As we hold fast to Jesus in faith during difficult times, we do so knowing the suffering does have an expiration date. When believers in Jesus die, we immediately go to be with Him in paradise where we and all who believe will live in full and overflowing joy and pleasure forever (Psalm 16:11, 2 Corinthians 5:8, Revelation 21:1-6). And, as we keep trusting in Jesus and remain loyal to Him by continuing to believe in Him as our Lord and God even and especially in difficult times, His glory is revealed in unique ways to the people around us so that perhaps they too might come to know the hope, joy and peace Jesus gives to those who trust Him.

Our illness and infirmities are passing things, but God’s glory is forever. We who trust Jesus will live forever with Him in absolute splendor, so let us now make use of time we have here, whether ill or healthy, to reveal our good God’s glory to everyone around so that they too might be saved and know the immeasurable joy of knowing Him in a close, loving relationship for evermore.

Response (How does this change how I think, act and pray?):

This passage should cause us to see our suffering the way Jesus does. Temporary suffering in this world, while bad in and of itself, also provides a unique opportunity to glorify God in a way that we will never again have in eternity. When we go to be with Jesus after we pass on from this world we will never suffer again, and praise God for that, but that means we will never again have the opportunity to glorify Him by holding fast to Him in faith during a severe trial.

Jesus has promised us that our suffering here will end one day forever, but in the meantime He has saved us and placed us where we are in this world to glorify Him by revealing who He is to other people who He loves and wants to save too. One way Jesus does this is by showing them a suffering Christian who holds fast to Him in faith even in painful circumstances. This helps us grow in our own faith and character, but it also helps show the power and grace of Jesus to those who witness our steadfast faith. It is not easy, but we need to see our difficulties the way Jesus does; as painful, but also as opportunities to glorify our God who we love and trust.

Self Reflection:

1. How have I been viewing my personal, painful circumstances? What kind of labels have I put on them?
2. How can I view my circumstances with a more Christ-like perspective? What does Jesus say about my difficulty? (John 9:3; Hebrews 12:5-11)
3. How has Jesus been sustaining me through these trials (Yet not I, but through Christ in me)? How does the certain and joyful hope for a future I have in Christ help me carry on in the difficult “here and now”?