John Chapter 11

(Tap footnote to read it.  Old Testament quotations are underlined.  "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.¹"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love".  However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior.  It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings.  (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".)  Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé".  Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing.  It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )

Lazarus dies

1. Now a man was sick; Lazarus from Bethany, from the village of Mary and Martha her sister.
2. (And Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was the woman who anointed the Lord with scented oil and wiped His feet with her hair.)
3. So the sisters sent word to Him saying: “Behold Lord, he whom you love is sick.”
4. But having heard this, Jesus said: “This sickness isn’t leading to death, but for the sake of God’s glory, so the Son of God might be glorified through it.”
5. (And Jesus ^loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.)
6. So when He heard that Lazarus is sick, He then remained in the place that He was staying two more days.
7. Then after that, He tells the disciples: “Let us go into Judea again.”
8. The disciples tell Him: “Rabbi, the Jews were seeking to stone you just now, and you go there again?”
9. Jesus answered: “Aren’t there twelve hours of the day?  If someone walks in the day he doesn’t stumble because he sees this world’s light.
10. “But if someone walks in the night, he stumbles because the light isn’t in him.”
11. He said these things, and after that tells them: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go so I might wake him up.”
12. So His disciples said: “Lord, he will be healed if he has fallen asleep.”
13. And Jesus had spoken about his death, but those men thought that He speaks about a restful sleep.
14. So Jesus then told them plainly: “Lazarus died.”
15. “And I rejoice that I wasn’t there for your sake, so you might believe.  But let us go to him.”
16. So Thomas (called “the twin”) told his fellow disciples: “Let us go too, so we might die with Him.”
17. So having arrived, Jesus found him already having four days in the tomb.

Lazarus is raised

18. And Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia¹“fifteen stadia”.  “Stadia” is the plural of “stadium”, which is a unit of distance equal to 607 feet.  Thus, fifteen stadia is 9105 feet or 1.72 miles, placing Bethany at just under two miles from Jerusalem. away.
19. Now, many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary so they might comfort them concerning their brother.
20. So when Martha heard that Jesus is coming, she met Him, but Mary was sitting in the house.
21. So Martha told Jesus: “Lord, if you were here, my brother wouldn’t have died.
22. “But even now, I *know that whatever you ask God, God will give it to you.”
23. Jesus tells her: “Your brother will rise.”
24. Martha tells Him: “I *know that he will rise in the resurrection at the last day.”
25. Jesus told her: “I am the resurrection and the life.  The man believing in Me will live even if he dies.”
26. “And every man living and believing in Me definitely won’t die through the age.  Do you believe this?”
27. She tells Him: “Yes Lord; I *believe that you are the Anointed; the Son of God, the One coming into the world.
28. And having said this, she departed and called her sister Mary privately, saying: “The Teacher is coming and He is summoning you.”
29. And when that woman heard, she quickly stood and was going to Him.
30. And Jesus hadn’t yet come into the village, but was still at the place where Martha met Him.
31. So having seen that Mary quickly stood and went out, the Jews being with her in the house and comforting her followed her, thinking that she goes to the tomb so she might weep there.
32. So when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet, telling Him: “Lord, if you were here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”
33. Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He was indignant in His spirit and agitated in Himself.
34. And He said: “Where have you laid him?”  They tell Him: “Lord, come and see.”
35. Jesus wept.
36. So the Jews were saying: “See how He loved him.”
37. But some of them said: “Wasn’t this man able to open the eyes of the blind man?  He’s able to do that, so also this man shouldn’t have died.”
38. So again being indignant in Himself, Jesus  comes to the tomb.  Now, it was a cave and a stone was lying against it.
39. Jesus says: “Remove the stone.”  Martha, the sister of the man who has died, tells Him: “Lord, he must already stink, for it’s been four days.”
40. Jesus tells her: “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you will see the glory of God?”
41. So they removed the stone.  And Jesus lifted His eyes up and said: “Father, I thank you that you heard Me.
42. “And I had known that you always hear Me, but I said it because of the crowd *standing around, so they might believe that you sent Me.”
43. And having said these things, He cried out in a loud voice: “Lazarus, come out!”
44. The man who was *dead came out, *bound feet and hands with graveclothes,²“graveclothes” usually strips of linen cloth wound around the body. and his head had been wrapped with a head cloth.   Jesus tells them: “Unbind him and allow him to go.”
45. So many of the Jews who came to Mary and observed what He did believed in Him.
46. But some of them departed to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus did.

The Pharisees plot against Jesus.  Again.

47. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council together and were saying: “What should we do, because this man does many signs.”
48. “If we allow Him to continue this way, all will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take both our place and the nation away.”
49. But one of them – Caiaphas, being the high priest that year – told them: “You don’t *know anything.
50. “Nor do you consider that it’s more profitable for you that one man might die for the sake of the people, and not have the whole nation perish.”
51. And he didn’t say this from himself, but being the high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was intending to die for the sake of the nation.
52. And not only for the sake of the nation, but also so He might assemble together into one the children of God who have been dispersed.
53. So they took counsel from that day on so they might kill Him.
54. So Jesus was no longer walking openly among the Jews, but departed from that place into the region near the wilderness, into a city named Ephraim.  And He remained there with the disciples.
55. Now, the Passover of the Jews was drawing near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the region before the Passover so they might purify themselves.
56. So they were seeking Jesus, and while *standing with one another in the temple were saying: “What do you think?  That He definitely won’t come to the feast?”
57. And the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where He is, he should report it so that they might arrest Him.

 

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