Lazarus

Lazarus was a close friend of Jesus, brother of Martha and Mary of Bethany, whose death and subsequent resurrection stands as one of the most significant miracles recorded in John's Gospel, performed shortly before Jesus' own crucifixion.

When Lazarus falls seriously ill, his sisters send word to Jesus, yet John 11:6 records a puzzling delay: Jesus, despite loving Lazarus and his sisters, stays where He is two more days before finally traveling to Bethany, by which point Lazarus has already died.

Martha meets Jesus on the road, expressing both grief and continued faith, telling Him that even now she believes God would give Him whatever He asked. Jesus responds with one of His most direct self-declarations: "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

John 11:35, the Bible's shortest verse, records Jesus' own visible grief upon seeing Mary and the mourners weeping: "Jesus wept." This detail is often noted as significant since Jesus already knew He was about to raise Lazarus, yet still shared genuinely in the grief surrounding his death.

Jesus goes to the tomb, has the stone rolled away despite Martha's concern about the smell after four days, and calls Lazarus out by name. Lazarus emerges still bound in graveclothes, and Jesus instructs the crowd to loose him and let him go, a dramatic, undeniable public demonstration of resurrection power.

This miracle becomes a significant turning point in the Gospel narrative, with John recording that many who witnessed it believed in Jesus, while the religious authorities, alarmed by His growing following, begin actively plotting His death from this point forward.

Lazarus himself becomes something of a target afterward, with the chief priests reportedly plotting to kill him as well, since his continued, visible presence as a living witness to the miracle was drawing many people to believe in Jesus specifically because of it.

Lazarus appears again at a dinner in Bethany shortly before Jesus' crucifixion, where Mary anoints Jesus' feet with expensive perfume, Lazarus's own presence at the table serving as ongoing, living testimony to what Jesus had done for their family.