Evening, November 21
Go To Morning Reading
“Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.”
John 12:2
He is to be envied . It was well to be Martha and serve, but better to be Lazarus and
commune. There are times for each purpose, and each is comely in its
season, but none of the trees of the garden yield such clusters as
the vine of fellowship. To sit with Jesus, to hear his words, to mark
his acts, and receive his smiles, was such a favour as must have made
Lazarus as happy as the angels. When it has been our happy lot to
feast with our Beloved in his banqueting-hall, we would not have given
half a sigh for all the kingdoms of the world, if so much breath could
have bought them.
He is to be imitated . It would have been a strange thing if Lazarus had not been at the
table where Jesus was, for he had been dead, and Jesus had raised
him. For the risen one to be absent when the Lord who gave him life
was at his house, would have been ungrateful indeed. We too were once
dead, yea, and like Lazarus stinking in the grave of sin; Jesus raised
us, and by his life we live—can we be content to live at a distance from him? Do we omit to remember
him at his table, where he deigns to feast with his brethren? Oh,
this is cruel! It behoves us to repent, and do as he has bidden us, for his least wish should be law to us. To have lived
without constant intercourse with one of whom the Jews said, “Behold how he loved him,” would have been disgraceful to Lazarus; is it excusable in us whom
Jesus has loved with an everlasting love? To have been cold to him
who wept over his lifeless corpse, would have argued great brutishness
in Lazarus. What does it argue in us over whom the Saviour has not
only wept, but bled? Come, brethren, who read this portion, let us
return unto our heavenly Bridegroom, and ask for his Spirit that we
may be on terms of closer intimacy with him, and henceforth sit at
the table with him.