Death and sleep.
Here we have another instance of what is so frequent in John's Gospel, Jesus using common words in special and unexpected meanings. The disciples did not understand Jesus—how were they likely to do so? Their rejoinder was a very natural one. Why, then, should Jesus speak of the reality of death under the form of sleep?
I. ALL DEATH WOULD BE PECULIARLY REPUGNANT TO JESUS. JESUS, we may take it, had in him a fullness and healthiness of natural life which would lie at the very antipodes of death. Many live on the verge of death, as it were, for a long time. They have just enough of the vital principle in them to keep the organism going. But Jesus, in his own natural life, was far away from death. He had no occasion to look upon it in the despairing, bewildered way which the common run of men must adopt. To have spoken of Lazarus as dead, without being forced so to speak, would have suggested thoughts to the disciples which he wished to be swallowed up in the inspiring discoveries of a new revelation.
II. DEATH WAS TO GET A NEW AND SPECIAL MEANING. Contrast the way in which Jesus speaks of Lazarus here with the language he uses in Luke 9:60. Here he speaks of the dead Lazarus as only sleeping; there he speaks of living unbelievers in himself as being dead. This is the true death, to be
casts on the relations of Jesus to the family at Bethany! How it corresponds with what we are told elsewhere of the docile attitude of Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to his Word! Martha, lacking as she seems to have been in spiritual insight and sympathy, could not have known the significance and propriety of her description; but we speak ofttimes better than we know, and the description was very significant and appropriate. The time had come when Jesus had a very practical lesson for both Martha and Mary, but Mary would learn the most. The service of Jesus to mankind, always essentially the same, has many aspects, many ways of beginning. Jesus began his work in some by bodily healing, but in very many—more, probably, than we imagine—by dropping into their ears marvelous utterances which attracted and charmed them. And of this number Mary seems to have been one. Jesus was a Friend of the household, and Martha might have said, "Our Friend is come, and calleth for thee;" but some happy providence ruled her tongue, and she spoke just the word that set prominently forward the teaching mission of Jesus.
II. THE LESSONS THE TEACHER HAD COME TO TEACH. Jesus, indeed, was always teaching, always shedding fresh light on dark places. Not one of his wonderful deeds but was full of instruction. His miracles were instructive, and his teaching was miraculous. His miracles were great object lessons, and here surely is one of the richest. How it stops the men who want to map out the laws of life and death with scientific precision! No wonder they deny the validity of such a record. Jesus comes in here, as elsewhere, with a truth greater than any our senses can tell us. Mere human experience points out the sequence thus: life, death, corruption, and so union with mother earth. Jesus comes with his power, and makes the sequence thus: life, death, incipient corruption, life again. Our experience tells us the actual, not the necessary. Then another great lesson Mary bad to learn was that of absolute trust in Jesus. Jesus was using the dead decomposing body of Lazarus for nobler purposes than one would have thought possible to reside in a corpse. Jesus can make use of the dead not less than of the living.
III. WE SHOULD FEEL THAT THE TEACHER IS CALLING FOR US CONSTANTLY. Not a day but what we can apply the great leading principles of the truth as it is in Jesus. Not a day but what we can find illustrations of his laws kept and his laws broken. The very daily newspaper should be read with Jesus to explain its bearing on his great purpose. He can show us what is really great and what is really little. Without him to guide, we are very likely to overlook things of the greatest moment, and dwell admiringly on things of little worth; and especially, amid the frequent inroads of death, we need to be thoroughly taught the lesson that there is One greater than death. Jesus never points to more glorious and inspiring truth than when he points to himself.—Y.