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Lazarus and Bethany: the place, the tomb and the miracle

Bethany, burial customs, the fourth day, Martha and Mary, "Jesus wept", and why raising Lazarus led to the cross and points to Christ's resurrection.

John 11 records one of the greatest miracles of Jesus' ministry: the raising of Lazarus, four days dead, in the village of Bethany. Here is the background: the place, the family, the customs of the time, and why it mattered so much.

Bethany, then and now

John tells us exactly where it happened: "Now Bethany was nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off" (John 11:18). A furlong is about an eighth of a mile, so that is just under two miles. Bethany sat on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, and Jesus came back to it again and again.

The village is still there. Its Arabic name today, al-Eizariya (also written al-Azariya), grew out of "Lazarium", the place of Lazarus, the name Christians gave it in the Byzantine period. Pilgrims were visiting a tomb of Lazarus there by the 300s; Eusebius mentions it around AD 330. Today visitors go down 24 steps into a small rock-cut tomb, much altered over the centuries. No one can prove it is the very tomb of John 11, but the tradition is old and the setting fits the Gospel.

Burial in the time of Jesus

Jews in Judea usually buried their dead in family tombs cut into the rock outside the town. John describes Lazarus's grave plainly: "It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it" (John 11:38). Most of the 900-plus burial caves of this period studied around Jerusalem were closed with a heavy square blocking stone; round rolling stones were rare and belonged to the wealthiest families.

The body was wrapped in linen with spices, "as the manner of the Jews is to bury" (John 19:40), and a separate cloth covered the face. So Lazarus came out "bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin" (John 11:44).

Why the fourth day mattered

When Jesus arrived, Lazarus "had lain in the grave four days already" (John 11:17). GotQuestions.org notes a Jewish tradition that the soul stayed with the body for three days and then departed. By the fourth day no one could say Lazarus had only fainted. As Martha said, "Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days" (John 11:39). The delay was deliberate: "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God" (John 11:4).

Martha, Mary and Lazarus

In Luke 10:38-42, Martha "was cumbered about much serving", while Mary "sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word." Jesus gently told Martha, "But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:42).

In John 12, six days before the Passover, they made Jesus a supper at Bethany: "Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him" (John 12:2). Mary anointed Jesus' feet with costly spikenard, and He said, "Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this" (John 12:7).

"I am the resurrection, and the life"

Martha believed her brother would "rise again in the resurrection at the last day" (John 11:24). Jesus answered her:

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:25-26)

As GotQuestions.org explains, the resurrection is not only an event at the end of time; it is a Person, and He was standing in front of her. Martha answered, "Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world" (John 11:27).

"Jesus wept"

"Jesus wept" (John 11:35) is the shortest verse in the English Bible. GotQuestions.org explains that He was moved with compassion for Mary, Martha and their friends in their grief. His tears show that He is truly man as well as truly God, and that He is not distant from our sorrow.

The miracle that led to the cross

When the chief priests and Pharisees heard, they gathered a council: "If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation" (John 11:48). Caiaphas the high priest said it was "expedient for us, that one man should die for the people" (John 11:50). He meant it as cold politics, but John says he was unknowingly prophesying "that Jesus should die for that nation" (John 11:51). "Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death" (John 11:53).

They even turned on Lazarus: "But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus" (John 12:10-11).

Lazarus raised, Christ risen

Lazarus came back to ordinary life, and in time he died again. Scripture does not say when or how, and as GotQuestions.org notes, the later church traditions about his life cannot be confirmed.

The resurrection of Jesus was different. Others had been raised before Him, but as GotQuestions.org explains, He was the first to rise never to die again: "Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him" (Romans 6:9). Even the grave clothes show the difference. Lazarus came out still bound, and others had to loose him. In Jesus' empty tomb, Peter found the linen clothes lying, "And the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself" (John 20:7).

So Bethany points beyond itself, to the empty tomb outside Jerusalem. "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Corinthians 15:20). The One who called Lazarus by name will one day call all who belong to Him, and the question He asked Martha is still His question to us: "Believest thou this?"

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