The Sorrowing Sisters of Bethany
William John Hocking
Table of Contents
The Sorrowing Sisters of Bethany: Part 1
No comfort can be true and divine and consequently effectual, that concerns itself alone with the trial and sorrow. It is truly a welcome relief to the aching heart to find another heart entering into its grief; but this is sympathy rather than comfort.
The characteristic of comfort is that it strengthens the soul to bear its burden with fortitude as well as resignation; and it accomplishes this result by considering the trial in the light of the glory of God. When sorrows overtake and overwhelm the soul, it gives itself many a bitter pang by reiterating the question—Why do I suffer this? Why has this come upon me? And under these circumstances there can be no real comfort, until such a one lays hold by faith upon the fact which scripture abundantly reveals, that the clouds and storms are but agents in the development of the beneficent purposes of God. All things are working together for the accomplishment of good; and this to those who love God and who are the called according to purpose. This we had not known but for the word of God; but He has given it for our comfort, and that we may thereby trace His hand in each event, minute or mighty, which befalls us. Leave God out, and all is confusion and anarchy: a crowd of pitiless misfortunes grinding man to the very dust of the ground from whence he was formed. Bring God in, and the man of faith can rejoice in tribulations also.
The incident at Bethany (John 11) with its touching and pathetic details illustrates how the golden threads of divine purpose are interwoven with the darkest texture of the lives of God's saints. It was undoubtedly written for the comfort of those of His own who are called to face what is perhaps the bitterest of all the sorrows of this vale of tears.
Bethany was a place of particularly sweet and precious associations in the life of our Lord. It Was in Bethany, the home of Lazarus and Martha and Mary, that the Lord found a retreat from Jerusalem where He was hated and despised of all. It was there that Blessed One found the excellent of the earth, the saints in whom was all His delight (Psa. 16:3). So that we read “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5).
It is of great moment to note this last fact, stated as it is at the very outset of the narrative. This family was not simply a part of those of “His own” to whom He came, but they were of those who received Him and believed on His name (John 1:11, 12), and who thus became “His own” in a higher sense. And in that circle of favor and blessedness the trio of Bethany, had by their faith and love, their piety and devotion, advanced to such eminence that they are described like a certain other disciple, as those whom “Jesus loved.”
It might be supposed that such a favored household would enjoy a complete. immunity from the ravages of sorrow, sickness, and death. So they would think who knew not that Messiah the Prince was also the Man of Sorrows. And where He is the Guest, it should be no matter of surprise if afflictions attend in His train.
And so it came about at Bethany. A mortal disease laid hold on Lazarus, who doubtless was the least to be spared of any in that household. To him the sisters clung in womanly affection; on him they rested in womanly dependence.
In their distress they appeal to Jesus. He was not in their vicinity, but they send a message, brief but full of faith and implicit confidence. “Lord,” they say, “behold he whom thou (dearly) lovest is sick.” It was not an importunate passionate petition, but calm and restful in the assurance that the Lord's interest would be at once awakened. It rose above the prayer of the leper— “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” Assuredly the leper had not reached beyond faith in the Lord's power, while the sisters knew and believed His love as well as His power. And it was this sense of the love of the Lord that imparted to them a firm trust that He would speedily and effectually help them. They put it to themselves whether, supposing they had the power to heal their brother, they would not fly to his deliverance. How much more then would Jesus, seeing His love for Lazarus exceeded even their own!
Yet although the Lord loved the sick man (so much that even the unimpressionable Jews said when they saw Him weep at the grave, “Behold, how he loved him),” and although the message from the sisters displayed such reliance on His loving interest, the Lord abode two days longer in the place where He was. It was not His wont so to receive the petitions for aid addressed to Him. Usually the answers came swift, and sure, and abounding. The touch of a woman in the crowd, the message of a Roman centurion, the cry of a Syro-Phænician woman, all received an immediate and suitable reply. But the desire of these, His very dear friends, received no direct response.
Truly His thoughts are not as our thoughts, neither His ways as our ways. For while the Lord's ways were human they were at the same time superhuman; while they were natural, they were also supernatural. Right affections have swayed servants of God into wrong paths; but never the perfect Servant. Patriotism might take Jonah to Joppa instead of to Nineveh, and human relationship along with kindly benevolence might influence Barnabas to choose his nephew John Mark, in spite of the apostle Paul's judgment; but close friendship did not open the lips of the Lord to speak a word of healing on behalf of dying Lazarus. There was no honey in the meat-offering (Lev. 2).
One consideration alone regulated the movements of the blessed Son here below. As the glory-cloud was the guide of the ancient people of God through the wilderness, so the glory of God was ever before the Lord Jesus. Hence the word spoken on this occasion, showing what was governing His actions then as at all other times. “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God.” And it was essential for the due accomplishment of that glory, that He should sojourn two days longer where He was. And nothing, whether obstacles or enticements, could swerve Him from the path of perfect obedience.
And here we see the perfection of the Lord. Who but He could maintain intact the rights and claims of God at such a moment of deep sorrow? Who could love and perfectly sympathize with the aching hearts at Bethany and yet calmly await the slow approach of the moment when, and not before, the glory of God might be accomplished along with the restoration of Lazarus to his bereaved sisters? There was but One, and He, the Son of God.
And as He was perfect in His subjection to the glory of God, so may we not say He knew perfectly the administration of comfort to His soul. As He says in the Psalms, “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul.” May the contemplation of His excellence produce a counterpart within us.
(To be continued, D.V.).
The Sorrowing Sisters of Bethany: Part 2
WHEN the Lord arrived at Bethany the body of Lazarus had lain four days in the grave. For those four days the sisters had been mourning the loss of their beloved. brother. And not the least bitter ingredient in their cup of sorrow was the thought that He who could most and best help and comfort them remained absent. Why did He not appear to their relief? What made Him disregard the message sent Him? Could His love really be so great for them as they had supposed? Others had been blessed, strangers and sinners alike, all classes of sick and infirm. The widow's son and Jairus' daughter had been raised to life. But for those in Bethany there appeared neither word or deed.
Such doubts might unbelief suggest, but how dishonoring would they be to Him whose love is as unchanging as His power! His heart was with them all the while, carrying their sorrows, and at the proper moment He would come and give them back their brother from the very tomb. And while these sisters were waiting for the coming of the Lord, they had His own word to comfort their souls during the interval of His absence. They might not have known that Lazarus in his grave would even then hear the voice of the Son of God and come forth before their very eyes. But at any rate they had the Lord's own message sent by Him to sustain their souls: “This sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby.”
In what way was this calculated to comfort their hearts? By lifting them above themselves and directing their attention to what they and we are so prone to forget, viz.—that our God and our Father controls and guides all things to bring about His own wise ends which include our ultimate and ineffable bliss. They were not to think therefore that they were the victims of a “fortuitous concourse” of untoward events, but on the contrary the chosen instrument in God's hands for the display of His glory.
It is such a consideration as this that ever imparts strength to bear and nerve to endure under similar circumstances. It gives what truly deserves the name of “solid comfort.” And it is to be observed further how closely the glory of God was bound up with their relief. For it was the quickening of dead Lazarus that was the occasion whereby God was glorified in His Son. Here was a man not only dead but corrupt: at the word of Jesus he issues from the, tomb perfectly restored to life and health. Who but One could so speak and bring it to pass? It was none other than the Lord from heaven; for the resurrection of Lazarus clearly marked Him out as the Son of God. But this very act, which so redounded to the glory of God and His Son was the very act needed to remove the burden from the hearts of Mary and Martha. To raise Lazarus from the dead was the most effectual way of wiping the tears from their eyes. And thus the one act ensured at one and the same time the high claims of God and the relief of the mourners.
But we are not to suppose that because the Lord did not hasten (as we might speak) to the help of Mary and Martha, that He was on that account insensible to their anguish of heart. There is enough in the scripture before us to indicate that the Lord entered into the sorrow in a far deeper way than they did or could. It was not His purpose to remove the sorrow, but He would fit them to bear it by assuring them it was for the glory of God, and also by the display of His tender compassion and perfect sympathy. He sent them His word from the first (chap. 11:4). And when He came He showed His loving interest which He had felt all the while. “When Jesus therefore saw her (Mary) weeping and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled, and said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord come and see. Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how He loved him Jesus therefore groaning in Himself cometh to the grave” (chap. 11:3-38).
How beautiful is this! Had they allowed themselves to suspect the Master? The groans and the tears were the answer. His tender question of the broken-hearted sister, Where have ye laid him? shows how gently the Lord lightened the burden of the sorrowing heart by causing her to see that His heart was just where hers was—at the tomb of Lazarus. To the widow of Nain the Lord said, Weep not. To Jairus He said, Thy daughter is not dead but sleepeth. In each case His purpose was to wipe away the tears. But in Bethany the Lord weeps with His saints. The grandest display of the power of the Lord to quicken the dead was accompanied by the greatest witness to His profound sympathy with the bereaved.
When both Mary and Martha see the Lord, they both express the same thought, “Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” Both were right in believing there could be no death in the presence of Jesus; but they both erred in common with many more of God's saints in assuming it would have been better for them if their sorrow had been prevented. If the Lord had come, they reasoned, they would have been spared their bereavement. But if so, they would not have seen the glory of God: as the Lord said to Martha, “Said I not to thee if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the glory of God” (John 11:40)?
And at His coming they surely saw the glory of God. Lazarus came forth at the call of the Lord from corruption and the grave. What a triumph of the Lord's power was thus displayed in sleeping Lazarus! Jairus' daughter was raised from the bed, the widow's son from the bier, but Lazarus from the grave.
We can now see the gracious purpose of God in that which happened to this family. And what we see so distinctly portrayed in the history of these events might have been grasped beforehand by faith. But without blaming Martha and Mary for being weak in faith, let us remember we shall be more to blame in like circumstances than they, if we do not benefit by the record of what befell them and how God wrought by Christ for His own glory and their ultimate blessing.
The Thessalonian saints were similarly troubled about those who had fallen asleep before the Lord came. What sorrow would have been spared them, if the Lord had come from heaven before their loved ones passed away! But the apostle shows them that, when the Lord does descend from heaven with a shout, even those in the graves shall hear His voice and come forth. Therefore they were not to sorrow as those that had no hope. Their dear ones had not taken a leap in the dark. The power of the Lord would gather up to Himself both the living and the sleeping saints at His coming.
And while we like Mary and Martha at Bethany await the Master's coming, we have the unspeakable privilege of His present sympathy as well as the comfort of His word. For He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He Who wept and groaned at the sepulcher of Lazarus is not insensible to the tears and cries of His bereaved saints to-day.
May we therefore seek to meet our sorrows with the unalterable persuasion that they must inevitably work out the glory of God and that we also have with us in the midst of the trial none less than the Blessed Son of God Himself!
W. J. H.
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