"Then Jesus ..Came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, who had been dead, whom He raised from the dead." John 12:1

"We read of a supper at Bethany, where Lazarus, who had been publicly raised from the dead, after lying four days in the grave. No one could pretend to say that his resurrection was a mere optical delusion, and that the eyes of the bystanders must have been deceived by a ghost or vision. Here was the very same Lazarus, after several weeks, sitting among his fellow-men with a real material body, and eating and drinking real material food. It is hard to understand what stronger evidence of a fact could be supplied. He that is not convinced by such evidence as this may well say that he is determined to believe nothing at all.

It is a comfortable thought, that the very same proofs which exist about the resurrection of Lazarus are the proofs which surround that still mightier fact, the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Was Lazarus seen for several weeks by people of Bethany, going in and coming out among them? So was the Lord Jesus seen by His disciples.--Did Lazarus take material food before the eyes of his friends? So did the Lord Jesus eat and drink before His ascension.--No one, in his sober senses, who saw Jesus take "broiled fish and a honeycomb," and eat it before several witnesses, would doubt that He had a real body. (Luke xxiv. 42)

We shall do well to remember this. In an age of abounding unbelief and scepticism, we shall find that the resurrection of Christ will bear any weight that we can lay upon it." John Charles Ryle, Bishop.



How would it have been to be eating with your brother, who you had seen breath his last breath and then die? Who you had put in a grave, and mourned for four days? Who you saw walk forth from the grave as Jesus called his name? It must have been exhilarating beyond compare!
But even more so, how would it have been to sit at supper with the One who raise your dear brother from the grave? The One who never spoke without love behind each and every thought and word? The One who was pure, and perfect in righteousness and truth? There was a greater One than Lazarus there at the supper table! The Messiah of the universe was sitting, eating and drinking, and smiling, in your home. Wow. There's absolutely no higher, nor greater exhilaration then this. How I wish i could have been there.