We may now, undisturbed by preliminary objections, surrender ourselves to the sublimeness and solemnity of this narrative. Perhaps the more briefly we comment on it the better.
It was while in Peræa, that this message suddenly reached the Master from the well-remembered home at Bethany, the village of Mary' - who, although the younger, is for obvious reasons first mentioned in this history - and her sister Martha,' concerning their (younger) brother Lazarus: Lord, behold he whom Thou lovest is sick!' They are apparently the very words which the sisters' bade their messenger tell. We note as an important fact to be stored in our memory, that the Lazarus, who had not even been mentioned in the only account preserved to us of a previous visit of Christ to Bethany, [4782] is described as he whom Christ loved.' What a gap of untold events between the two visits of Christ to Bethany - and what modesty should it teach us as regards inferences from the circumstance that certain events are not recorded in the Gospels! The messenger was apparently dismissed by Christ with this reply: This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, in order that the Son of God may be glorified thereby.' We must here bear in mind, that this answer was heard by such of the Apostles as were present at the time. [4783] They would naturally infer from it that Lazarus would not die, and that his restoration would glorify Christ, either as having foretold it, or prayed for it, or effected it by His Will. Yet its true meaning - even, as we now see, its literal interpretation, was, that its final upshot was not to be the death of Lazarus, but that it was to be for the glory of God, in order that Christ as the Son of God might be made manifest. And we learn, how much more full are the Words of Christ than they often appear to us; and how truly, and even literally, they may bear quite another meaning than appears to our honest misapprehension of them - a meaning which only the event, the future, will disclose.
And yet, probably at the very time when the messenger received his answer, and ere he could have brought it to the sisters, Lazarus was already dead! Nor - and this should be especially marked - did this awaken doubt in the minds of the sisters. We seem to hear the very words which at the time they said to each other when each of them afterwards repeated it to the Lord: Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother would not have died.' [4784] They probably thought the message had reached Him too late, that Lazarus would have lived if Christ had been appealed to in time, or had been able to come - at any rate, if He had been there. Even in their keenest anguish, there was no failure of trust, no doubt, no close weighing of words on their part - only the confidence of love. Yet all this while Christ knew that Lazarus had died, and still He continued two whole days where He was, finishing His work. And yet - and this is significantly noted before anything else, alike in regard to His delay and to His after-conduct - He loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.' Had there been no after-history, or had it not been known to us, or before it became known, it might have seemed otherwise - and in similar circumstances it often does seem otherwise to us. And again, what majestic calm, what Self-restraint of Human affections and sublime consciousness of Divine Power in this delay: it is once more Christ asleep, while the disciples are despairing, in the bark almost swamped in the storm! Christ is never in haste: least of all, on His errands of love. And He is never in haste, because He is always sure.