IN the former lesson, ye remember, the Lord
escaped from the hands of them who wished to stone him: and went away beyond
Jordan, where John was once baptizing. Well, the Lord being there, Lazarus was
taken sick at Bethany which was a town very near Jerusalem. It was that Mary
which anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose
brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore, the sisters sent unto him, saying—We
already understand to what place they sent, the place where the Lord was:
because he was absent, beyond Jordan, to wit. They sent to the Lord, to
announce the illness of their brother: in order that, if he should vouchsafe,
he should come and release him of his sickness. The Lord delayed to heal, that
he might raise to life again.
WELL, what was the message the sisters sent? Lord,
behold he whom thou lovest is sick. They said not, Come: to one that loved, it
needed but to send tidings. They did not say, Command there, and it shall be
done here. For why should not these women have said this, if the faith of that
centurion is praised on this very account? For he said, I am not worthy that
thou shouldest come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant shall
be healed. Nothing of the sort did these women say, but only, Lord, behold, he
whom thou lovest is sick. Enough that thou know it: for thou dost not love and
forsake.
SOME man will say, How should it be that by
Lazarus a sinner was denoted, and yet he was so loved by the Lord? Let him hear
him saying, I am not come to call the just, but sinners. For if God loved not
sinners, he had not descended from heaven to earth. When Jesus heard that, he
said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son
of God might be glorified thereby. That he should be thus glorified was no gain
to him, but only for our good. That he saith then, Is not unto death, is this,
that the death itself was not for death, but rather for a miracle, which being
wrought, men should believe in Christ, and avoid the true death. See, withal,
how, by a kind of side hint, the Lord hath intimated that he is God: because of
certain who deny the Son to be God.
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