Biblion Bible Commentary
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This Sickness Is Not to Death
John 11:1-16
1 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. · WEB
He is told his friend is dying and stays where he is for two days.
The sisters therefore sent to him, saying, "Lord, behold, he for whom you have great affection is sick" John 11:3.
The message is a model of restraint. They ask for nothing and make no demand; they state a fact and a relationship, and leave him to draw the conclusion. It is how people who know someone well ask for help.
"This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that God's Son may be glorified by it" John 11:4.
The first clause is true in a way that will require a funeral to become true. Lazarus dies, and the sickness is still not to death — because death is not where it ends, which is this book's whole handling of the word.
Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When therefore he heard that he was sick, he stayed two days in the place where he was John 11:5–6.
The two verses are joined by therefore, and it is the most difficult conjunction in the Gospel. He loved them; therefore he delayed. The account refuses to let the delay be read as indifference or as a scheduling problem, and offers no other comfort than that word.
Anything said about unanswered prayer has to reckon with this verse. The delay was neither absence nor reluctance. It was love acting on information the family did not have.
"Let's go into Judea again." The disciples asked him, "Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you. Are you going there again?" John 11:7–8.
Their objection is factual — it happened twice in three chapters John 8:59 John 10:31 — and it is the sane response.
"Aren't there twelve hours of daylight? If a man walks in the day, he doesn't stumble" John 11:9. The answer is about a working day with a fixed length. There is time allotted, and until it runs out no stone will land.
"Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep" John 11:11.
The word is deliberate, and the disciples take it flatly — if he has fallen asleep, he will recover John 11:12 — which is a reasonable and hopeful thing to say about a sick man resting.
Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he spoke of taking rest in sleep. So Jesus said to them plainly then, "Lazarus is dead" John 11:13–14.
The writer's explanation and the plain restatement together are one of the clearest passages in Scripture on how death is spoken of. Sleep is not a euphemism for something worse and not a denial that he had died; it is the word chosen by the one person present who could say what the state actually is, and the qualification he attaches to it is that he is going to wake him.
The usage is not unique here. Scripture speaks the same way of Jairus's daughter, of Stephen, and of believers who have died 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14 — and always with a waking attached.
"I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe" John 11:15.
A startling thing to say about a friend's death, and it names who the delay was for. Not Lazarus, who is past helping; not the sisters, who have had four bad days. The disciples, who are about to see something.
Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, "Let's also go, that we may die with him" John 11:16.
Thomas is remembered for one later scene, and this is worth setting beside it. His assessment is gloomy and completely wrong about the outcome, and he proposes going anyway. Loyalty without optimism is still loyalty, and nobody else in the group says anything.
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