It was in very truth and literality that the Lord meant it, when He told Martha her brother would rise again, although she understood His Words of the Resurrection at the Last Day. In answer, Christ pointed out to her the connection between Himself and the Resurrection; and, what He spoke, that He did when He raised Lazarus from the dead. The Resurrection and the Life are not special gifts either to the Church or to humanity, but are connected with the Christ - the outcome of Himself. The Resurrection of the Just and the General Resurrection are the consequence of the relation in which the Church and humanity in general stand to the Christ. Without the Christ there would have been no Resurrection. Most literally He is the Resurrection and the Life - and this, the new teaching about the Resurrection, was the object and the meaning of the raising of Lazarus. And thus is this raising of Lazarus the outlook, also, upon His own Resurrection, Who is the first-fruits from the dead.'
And though the special, then present, application, or rather manifestation of it, would be in the raising of Lazarus - yet this teaching, that accompanied it, is to all believers:' He that believeth in Me, even if [though] he die, shall live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall not die for ever' [4860] (unto the Æon) - where possibly we might, for commentation, mentally insert the sign of a pause ( - ) between the words die' and for ever,' or unto the Æon.' It is only when we think of the meaning of Christ's previous words, as implying that the Resurrection and the Life are the outcome of Himself, and come to us only through Him and in Him, that we can understand the answer of Martha to His question: Believest thou this?' Yea, Lord, I have believed that thou art the Christ, the Son of God [with special reference to the original message of Christ [4861] ], He that cometh into the world [the Coming One into the world' [4862] = the world's promised, expected, come Saviour].
What else passed between them we can only gather from the context. It seems that the Master called' for Mary. This message Martha now hasted to deliver, although secretly.' Mary was probably sitting in the chamber of mourning, with its upset chairs and couches, and other melancholy tokens of mourning, as was the custom; surrounded by many who had come to comfort them; herself, we can scarcely doubt, silent, her thoughts far away in that world to, and of which the Master was to her the Way, the Truth, and the Life.' As she heard of His coming and call, she rose quickly,' and the Jews followed her, under the impression that she was again going to visit, and to sweep at the tomb of her brother. For, it was the practice to visit the grave, especially during the first three days. [4863] When she came to Jesus, where He still stood, outside Bethany, she was forgetful of all around. It was, as if sight of Him melted what had frozen the tide of her feelings. She could only fall at His Feet, and repeat the poor words with which she and her sister had these four weary days tried to cover the nakedness of their sorrow: poor words of consolation, and poor words of faith, which she did not, like her sister, make still poorer of by adding the poverty of her hope to that of her faith - the poverty of the future to that of the past and present. To Martha that had been the maximum, to Mary it was the minimum of her faith; for the rest, it was far, far better to add nothing more, but simply to worship at His Feet.
It must have been a deeply touching scene: the outpouring of her sorrow, the absoluteness of her faith, the mute appeal of her tears. And the Jews who witnessed it were moved as she, and wept with her. What follows is difficult to understand; still more difficult to explain: not only from the choice of language, which is peculiarly difficult, but because its difficulty springs from the yet greater difficulty of expressing what it is intended to describe. The expression, groaned in spirit,' cannot mean that Christ was moved with indignation in the spirit,' since this could not have been the consequence of witnessing the tears of Mary and what, we feel sure, was the genuine emotion of the Jews. Of the various interpretations, [4864] that commends itself most to us, which would render the expression: He vehemently moved His Spirit and troubled Himself.' One, whose insight into such questions is peculiarly deep, has reminded us [4865] that the miracles of the Lord were not wrought by the simple word of power, but that in a mysterious way the element of sympathy entered into them. He took away the sufferings and diseases of men in some sense by taking them upon Himself.' If, with this most just view of His Condescension to, and union with, humanity as its Healer, by taking upon Himself its diseases, we combine the statement formerly made about the Resurrection, as not a gift or boon but the outcome of Himself - we may, in some way, not understand, but be able to gaze into, the unfathomed depth of that The anthropic fellow-suffering which was both vicarious and redemptive, and which, before He became the Resurrection to Lazarus, shook His whole inner Being, when, in the words of St. John, He vehemently moved His Spirit and troubled Himself.'