It is worth our while to note the comfort which Jesus gave to these sorrowing sisters. First, he lifted the veil, and gave them a glimpse of what lies beyond death. "Thy brother shall rise again." "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die." Thus he opened a great window into the other world. It is plainer to us than it could be to Martha and Mary; for a little while after he spoke these words, Jesus himself passed through death, coming again from the grave in immortal life. It is a wonderful comfort to those who sorrow over the departure of a Christian friend to know the true teaching of the New Testament on the subject of dying. Death is not the end; it is a door which leads into fulness of life.
Perhaps many in bereavement, though believing the doctrine of a future resurrection, fail to get present comfort from it. Jesus assured Martha that her brother should rise again. "Yes, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Her words show that this hope was too distant to give her much comfort. Her sense of present loss outweighed every other thought and feeling. She craved back again the companionship she had lost. Who that has stood by the grave of a precious friend has not experienced the same feeling of inadequateness in the consolation that comes from even the strongest belief in a far-off rising again of all who are in their graves?
The reply of Jesus to Martha's hungry heart-cry was very rich in its comfort. "I am the resurrection." This is one of the wonderful present tenses of Christian hope. Martha had spoken of a resurrection far away. "I am the resurrection," Jesus declared. It was something present, not remote. His words embrace the whole blessed truth of immortal life. "Whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die." There is no death for those who are in Christ. The body dies, but the person lives on. The resurrection may be in the future, but really there is no break in the life of a believer in Christ. He is not here; our eyes see him not, our ears hear not his voice, we cannot touch him with our hands, but he still lives and thinks and feels and loves. No power in his being has been quenched by dying, no beauty dimmed, no faculty destroyed.
This is a part of the comfort which Jesus gave to his friends in their bereavement. He assured them that there is no death, that all who believe in him have eternal life. There remains for those who stay here the pain of separation and of loneliness, but for those who have passed over we need have no fear.
How does Jesus comfort his friends who are left? As we read over the story of the sorrow of the Bethany home we find the answer to our question. You say, "He brought back their dead, thus comforting them with the literal undoing of the work of death and grief. If only he would do this now, in every case where love cries to him, that would be comfort indeed." But we must remember that the return of Lazarus to his home was only a temporary restoration. He came back to the old life of mortality, of temptation, of sickness and pain and death. He came back only for a season. It was not a resurrection to immortal life; it was only a restoration to mortal life. He must pass again through the mystery of dying, and his sisters must a second time experience the agony of separation and loneliness. We can scarcely call it comfort; it was merely a postponement for a little while of the final separation.