A Meditation on Lazarus

On a recent Sunday morning in church, one of our texts was the resurrection of Lazarus. The story of Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha of Bethany, is rich with seemingly endless layers of meaning. I have spent a disproportionate amount of time studying it, and I have not yet exhausted it.

Most recently, it occurred to me to ask the question: Why was it Martha’s house?

“Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house” (Luke 10:38). Notice that it’s her house—and yet, this is the only home ever associated with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. If the three of them live together in a house, in the first century, shouldn’t it be Lazarus’ house? Shouldn’t he, as their male relative, be the one extending hospitality? Shouldn’t he be the in the forefront of the narrative?

But Lazarus is not in the forefront of anything. He never speaks. He is present, he is loved by Jesus, but unlike his sisters, who engage in important conversations with Jesus, he never has a line of dialog. We never hear about the great faith of Lazarus, the way we do about Mary and Martha.

When Martha feels that Mary is not fulfilling her responsibilities to the household and needs to be rebuked, she does not go to their brother, Lazarus. Instead, she goes to Jesus himself. “She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’” (Luke 10:40)

What we do hear about is Lazarus’ death. Lazarus grows sick, and dies; Jesus, who knows of Lazarus’ illness, and who loves Lazarus, does not come. Instead, he comes when Lazarus has died. He weeps for Lazarus. He speaks at length with Martha, then Mary. He tells the mourners that they will see the Glory of God. He raises Lazarus from the dead.

Still, Lazarus does not speak.

The mourners who had been with Mary and Martha believed, because of Jesus’s miracle. People came to see Lazarus, who had been raised from the dead. Lazarus sat at a table with Jesus, and the Pharisees plotted to kill him.

Still, Lazarus himself remains inscrutable.

Why?

Why does Lazarus never speak?

Why do we know only that Lazarus had two sisters, and that his sisters and his Savior loved him?

Why are Lazarus and both of his sisters, to all appearances, unmarried?

Why isn’t it Lazarus’s house?

In a place and time when a brother’s duty would have been to care for his unwed sisters, why isn’t Lazarus doing so? Why, instead, does the opposite appear to be true?

Is it possible that Lazarus was, in some way, unsuited to lead a household? Is it possible that the reason Lazarus lived with his sisters, who were not married, is that Lazarus had an intellectual disability?

It would explain so much. It would explain why it is not Lazarus’s house. It would explain why neither Lazarus nor his sisters were married. It would explain why Jesus has extensive conversations with Mary and Martha, but never with Lazarus. There are other possibilities, of course, and in the end we cannot know—but are there any other possibilities that offer a best-fit line quite as compelling as this one?

And…if Lazarus were indeed intellectually disabled in some way (Down’s syndrome? Severe autism? Something else?), there is an implicit answer to another question in the story.

If Lazarus did, in fact, suffer from an intellectual disability that made it necessary for him to live in the care of his sisters (and perhaps caused him to grow ill and die untimely), then Jesus, Mary and Martha did not consider Lazarus’ condition something that required “healing.” They accepted him, loved him, cared for him, and grieved him just as he was. Jesus raised him from death just as he was.

How very Christ-like of them.