Grahame Walker

Here we read the story of the most dramatic, provocative miracle in John’s Gospel. Death does not have the same finality for Jesus as it does for others. In John’s sign, this is certainly the most dramatic. Those who have difficulty with the miraculous find themselves stumbling here. However, John’s whole Gospel aims to affirm that God has indeed intervened in the history of the world. An incarnational theology at once makes room for a story like this where God has power over natural human events. Today we come to nothing less than the raising of a dead man back to life. Someone very dear to Jesus. His name was Lazarus, and he had two sisters, Mary and Martha. Jesus was very close to all three of them. He visited them often, stayed in their home; he would go there to rest, refuel, renew. When you read the New Testament, you find that among the disciples, Jesus was closest to Peter, James and John – and of them, he was closest to John. But outside of that circle, two people that seemed to put the most emotional energy into his tank, were Mary and Martha.