Fifth Sunday of Lent: Gospel A

So the sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying, "Master, the one you love is ill." When Jesus heard this he said, "This illness is not to end in death,  but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.
Lazarus will in fact die. But his will not be his ultimate fate because Jesus will raise him to new life, affording an opportunity for others to glorify God by means of the miracle.

" Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."
The delay of Jesus proves fatal for Lazarus at the moment. This period of waiting is not a              mistake or miscalculation, but part of Jesus’ plan to generate faith in the disciples. Raising the dead to new life will have a more profound effect on them than raising the sick to health.

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 
Jews during NT times customarily wrapped the dead with a shroud, tied strip of cloth around their extremities and anointed their bodies with fragrant oils and spices..

Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles  away. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. (But) even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise." Martha said to him, "I know he will rise, in the resurrection on the last day." 
The resurrection of the dead on the last day was currently held by all in Judaism except  the Sadducees.

Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world."
• Martha professes her faith in Jesus.

He became perturbed  and deeply troubled, and said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to him, "Sir, come and see." And Jesus wept. 
• The humanity of Jesus is very clear in this event, even knowing what he was about to do.

So the Jews said, "See how he loved him." But some of them said, "Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?" So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, "Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days." Jesus said to her, "Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?" 
• Though Martha professed faith earlier, now when Jesus called her to exercise that faith, she faltered. The reality of death was too real.

So they took away the stone. And Jesus raised his eyes and said, "Father,  I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me." And when he had said this, he cried out in a loud voice,  "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, "Untie him and let him go." 
• Jesus’ love for Lazarus was real and visible. Do we recognize that same love for us? How have I experienced in the past this unconditional love?

Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him
• When and where has my faith in Jesus as “the Resurrection of the Life” been tested in the past?
• When I face the death of a loved one, does my faith in the above promises of Jesus sustain and comfort me?