Note 25 — Part I

The account of Luke's miracle is so vague as to be very unsatisfactory. The dead man is unnamed and unknown, neither his dwelling nor any of his relatives are identified, no one solicits Jesus to perform the miracle, but the bier is met casually on the street or country road, and none of the witnesses are named, as in the case of Jairus' daughter. The narrator of such an unprecedented event, as the raising of one from the dead, ought at least to furnish some means of identifying the resurrected person. It is small wonder that Matthew, Mark and John know nothing of this miracle.

A "doubting Thomas" might explain all three of these resurrection miracles on the hypothesis of unexpert diagnosis of death, a trance, a cataleptic fit, or other form of suspended animation. This would not be possible in the case of Lazarus, if he had been buried in the ground without the provision of some means of respiration. But he was laid in a cave covered only by a stone, so that ample means of respiration are not excluded.

But in the case of Lazarus, the most unexplainable matter is the silence of Matthew, Mark and Luke on the subject of this miracle. Lazarus and his two sisters were well known to Jesus and His disciples, and the sisters are mentioned by all three of the evangelists. Shortly after the miracle, Jesus comes to Bethany and "there they made Him a supper" (John XII:2), and Lazarus sat at the table and Martha served. "Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard very costly and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair" (John XII:3). The disciples were apparently present, because Judas Iscariot objects to the waste of the ointment (John XII:4, 5, 6). Both Matthew and Mark relate this event as occurring in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, except that the ointment is poured over Jesus' head, and neither the name of Mary or of Judas Iscariot is mentioned (Matt. XXVI:6-13; Mark XIV:3-9). Luke speaks of both Martha and Mary on the occasion when Jesus rebukes Martha for being "troubled about many things" (Luke X:38). The raising of Lazarus from the dead was not kept secret but was noised abroad, and was known to many of the Jews in Jerusalem and to the chief priests (John XI:45, 46; XII:9, 10, 11, 17, 18).

Considering the notoriety of this miracle, the intimacy existing between Lazarus' family and Jesus and His disciples, the relation by all the evangelists of other incidents in Jesus' life in which Martha and Mary appear, it is hard to understand why Matthew, Mark and Luke have not a word to say of this, the most marvelous of all of Jesus' deeds.