In the Gospel of Luke there is no further mention of Mary or Martha and it is only from the Gospel of John that we learn that they had a brother, and that, as it would seem, he formed part of the highly-favored household at Bethany. This we judge to be clear from verse 5, where it says, “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” In verse 1 it is only said, “Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.” The three are so grouped together in verse 5 as the objects of the Lord’s affection, and they were evidently so knit together also, as seen from the grief of the sisters in their bereavement, by such tender love one to the other, that the conclusion is forced upon us that they formed one family and one household. It should likewise be remarked that the typical teaching of the chapter circles mainly around Lazarus, for he sets forth Israel in a future day, when, as Daniel teaches, “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake”— indicating doubtless the moral resurrection of the remnant of Israel in a future day, of which the raising of Lazarus in our chapter was a type or figure. Into this however we do not enter on this occasion, as our concern is chiefly with Mary, the sister of Lazarus. But the three, Martha, Mary and Lazarus, are so bound up together in the narrative that it will be necessary to consider Mary in the relationships in which she was found, for indeed it is through these relationships and the circumstances of the moment that her character is displayed.
The prominence of Mary in the mind of the Spirit, even before the narrative commences, is seen from verse 2: “It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.” It is a loving reference to this act of Mary, teaching her how acceptable it was before God, that its fragrance after the lapse of sixty years was still rising up before His throne. (If the Gospel of John were not written before A.D. 90, as is generally thought, it was sixty years since the Lord ascended up to heaven.) After this touching and fragrant parenthesis, the history begins with the statement that the sisters of Lazarus sent unto Jesus saying, “Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.” It was clearly no common sickness, but one that awakened in the hearts of Mary and her sister the gravest forebodings. If so, they were not without resource, for they knew Him who had cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick, and it was to Him they turned in their extremity. A common sorrow constrained a common appeal. It is often so with the people of God, and even with families, and the united supplication is ever fraught with richest blessing through the realization of a common dependence, and being kept before God with a longing expectancy. In the case before us, the response to the prayer was delayed, and delayed for purposes of deeper blessing, as the Lord, by no means dimly, indicated when He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (vs. 4). These words afford the key to the otherwise mysterious statement that when Jesus had heard therefore that Lazarus was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was (vs. 6).