I was well aware of the significance of the Raising of Lazarus, prefiguring as it did, Jesus’ own Resurrection and causing the Sanhedrin to determine that he must die. As I read through the Gospel of John on Good Friday, however, I noted a line that had never before caught my eye, “So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him, many were going over to Jesus and believing in him.” (John 12:10)Martha serving Jesus
Suddenly I began, as Martha, to imagine what might be my response to the news of that Good Friday. When and what did Martha, Mary and Laraus first hear? Of the arrest? Of Pilate’s sentence of death? Of the crucifixion itself? Were they still in the upper room when Jesus’ followers fled the garden arrest and, perhaps, returned to the scene with early news? Or did his followers wait for first morning light and run with racing hearts the three miles to Bethany to warn them that Lazarus would be next? Perhaps they straggled in, dazed and horrified, at the close of that gruesome day for Martha and Mary to embrace.
“They fled.”That’s what the gospel accounts say of Jesus’ most trusted friends. But where and why? Out of fear, yes, but might they also have gone to warn the others? What did Martha and Mary do to ensure the safety of their brother and, perhaps, the followers who’d come to them? Did they, like Rahab of old, hide the men to protect them? What turmoil of thought and feeling churned inside them? Their brother had been restored to them—but at what cost? Their beloved friend, Jesus, the one Martha had come to recognize as the Christ—how could this have happened to him? Were they now to lose Lazarus a second time?