John 11:28-37 - Homiletics

Jesus and Mary.

Our Lord deals with Mary according to her nature and temperament.

I. THE SECRET MESSAGE TO MARY . "She went away, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Master is come, and calleth for thee."

1. Jesus, though he would not fly from danger, does not seek it . He did not care to attract the notice of the Jews who were with Mary. Otherwise he would at once have gone to the house of mourning.

2. How promptly but silently Mary acts upon the invitation! The true Comforter is at hand. She may well shake off her depression.

3. How blessed it is to meet Christ anywhere, but especially at his own invitation!

II. MARY 'S DECLARATION TO HER LORD , AND HER LORD 'S ANSWER . "Lord, if thou hadst been here, our brother had not died."

1. The same thought occupied the minds of the two sisters, and perhaps that of Lazarus in his dying hour . But she adds not a word more, either in the way of faith or hope—unlike Martha—but falls prostrate at his feet, the place where she delighted to lie.

2. Mark how differently Jesus treats Mary . He does not minister to her faith by discourse like that which he addressed to Martha, but he shares silently in her grief. What a Friend! What a Brother is here! Yea, more than a brother.

3. He is profoundly agitated in spirit, partly by his sympathy with the sorrowing sisters, partly by the check that he puts upon the manifestation by his emotions, and partly by the hypocrisy of the Jews. "He shuddered in his spirit, and troubled himself, and said, Where have ye laid him?"

4. He at last gives way to his emotion . "Jesus wept." What tears are these which the spirit of inspiration has crystallized and set like gems in the diadem of truth! Strange to find the Lord, who is just about to put forth Divine power, standing a weeper at a Jewish grave.

5. The hostile Jews found in it cause for sneering irony . "Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?"