For we are told, verse 29. “When she heard that, she rose quickly, and came to JESUS.” Sinners, when will you do so? Or why do you not do so? How know you whether JESUS will call for you any more, before he calls you by death to judgment? Linger, O linger no longer. Fly, fly for your lives. Arise quickly, and with _Mary_ come to JESUS. She obeyed the call so very speedily, that her haste was taken notice of by her visitors. “The _Jews_ then, who were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw _Mary_ that she rose up hastily (without any ceremony at all) and went out, followed her, saying, she goeth to the grave, to weep there.” How wisely does our LORD permit and order all this, to bring the _Jews_ out to behold the wonderful miracle that he was about to perform! Little did _Mary_ and the _Jews_ think for what end they were thus providentially led out. But when JESUS hath work to be done, he will bring souls to the place where he intends to call them, in spite of men or devils. But how does _Mary_ behave when she comes to JESUS? We may be assured, not without great humility. No wonder then we are told, verse 32. that “when she saw him, she immediately fell down at his feet (a place _Mary_ had been used to, and in an agony of grief, says, as her sister had done before her) LORD, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” Poor _Mary_! Her concern was great indeed. Though she was a holy woman, she could not well bear the loss of her brother. She knew very well, that the world would miss him, and no doubt he had been a kind and tender brother to her. But I am afraid she was sinfully overcome with overmuch sorrow. However, had we been there, the sight must have affected us. It seems to have affected the visitors, especially the blessed JESUS. He, instead of blaming her, for her tacitly accusing him of unkindness, and for not coming to her brother’s relief, pities and sympathizes both with _Mary_ and her weeping friends! “When JESUS saw her weep, and the _Jews_ also weeping, he groaned in his Spirit, and was troubled.” Troubled: Not with any sinful perturbation we may be assured: nothing of that nature could possibly be in his sinless soul. And, therefore, some have judiciously enough compared the trouble our LORD now felt, to some chrystal water shaken in a glass or bottle; you may shake it, but there will be no sediment: it will be chrystal water still. “He groaned in his spirit.” I do not see why this may not be understood of his praying in the spirit, which maketh intercession for the saints, with ἀλαλητοις στεναγμοις “groanings that cannot be uttered.” Methinks I see the immaculate Lamb of GOD, secretly, but powerfully agonizing with his Father; his heart is big with sympathy! At length, out of the fulness of it, he said, verse 34. “Where have ye laid him? They (I suppose _Mary_ and _Martha_) say unto him, LORD, come and see.” He came, he saw, “He wept,” verse 35. It is put in a verse by itself, that we might pause a while, and ask, why JESUS wept?
He wept, to shew us, that it was no sin to shed a tear of love and resignation at the grave of a deceased friend; he wept, to see what havock sin had made in the world, and how it had reduced man, who was originally little lower than the angels, (by making him subject to death) to a level with the beasts that perish: but above all, he wept at the foresight of the people’s unbelief; he wept, to think how many then present, would not only not believe on, but would be hardened, and have their prejudices increased more and more against him, though he should raise _Lazarus_ from the dead before their eyes. Well then may ministers be excused, who, whilst they are preaching, now and then drop a few tears, at the consideration of their sermons being, through the perverseness and unbelief of many of their audience, a savour of death unto death, instead of a savour of life unto life. Upon a like occasion JESUS wept. What an affecting sight was here! Let us for a while suppose ourselves placed amidst these holy mourners; let us imagine that we see the sepulchre just before us, and the _Jews_, and _Mary_, and the blessed JESUS weeping round it. Surely, the most obdurate of us all must drop a tear, or at least be affected with the sight; we find that it affected those who were really by-standers: for then said the _Jews_, verse 36. “Behold, how he loved him.” And did they say, Behold, how he loved him, when JESUS only shed a few tears over the grave of his departed _Lazarus_? Come then, O sinners, and view CHRIST dying and pouring out his precious heart’s blood for you upon an accursed tree, and then surely you must needs cry out, Behold, how he loved us!