Jesus had friends like everybody else and one of them died

When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?” Jesus was still angry as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance. “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them. (John 11:33-40)

Jesus had friends like everybody else. And Lazarus was probably his best friend, along with Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha. And it hurt him for his friends to be hurt just like it would anyone.

But he also had a problem. His problem was that he was not hire. People didn’t just tell him what to do, even if they were good friends. He was his own man and was doing what he felt God wanted him to do, no matter what other people may have thought.

When they came and told Jesus that Lazarus had died, Jesus was busy with something else. So he didn’t just drop everything and go. Besides, unless he flew, he couldn’t get there in time. So he went on with what he was doing, which was preaching and teaching and healing. Then he left.

But then when he got there, everybody blamed him for Lazarus’ death. If he had been here, they said. He can heal blind people and all. He could have healed Lazarus.

And he could have. But he didn’t. Instead he came to the funeral and brought Lazarus back from the dead. He used Lazarus as a teaching tool just like he used the man born blind in John 9. Everybody there saw the tremendous power of God and there were a lot of people there that day who believed in him as the Son of God, the Messiah.

I have often thought what it must have been like for Lazarus. He was dead and in heaven (if he was Jesus’ friend, he had to have been a devout person) and Jesus yanks him back to earth and inside a smelly tomb. Did the grave clothes still smell like a four day old corpse in the heat? Did the tomb still smell? Was he happy? Was he mad?

Whatever he was, he was back in the world and the center of attention. His sisters were all over him, happy to see him alive. All the crowd was looking at him. And there was his friend, Jesus. So things worked out okay.

But I do wonder how he felt.

One thing for sure, a lot of people were scared of Jesus now and they started looking for a plan to get him out of their way. He was ruining their plans.

There have always been people who feel like they know what God wants better than God does.