For Lazarus by that time, for the glory of God, and for the glory of the Son of God, had fallen into a fatal sickness. And He so loved Lazarus back again, and so expected all His disciples to love Lazarus also, that He was wont to call Lazarus their universal friend. Only, Lazarus's love could not elude His eyes Who knows what is in man without man testifying what is in him. But his love had this defect about it that it was a silent love. Lazarus loved his Lord far more than they all. This evangelist, that bare record according as he saw, had seen his Master's love to Martha and Mary many a time but it was only now and then that he had the opportunity of seeing either Lazarus's love to his Lord, or his Lord's love to Lazarus. Martha and Mary always come in before their brother in our Lord's love, as in everything else. But, even in our Lord's love to His friend, Lazarus is pushed back almost out of sight. And Lazarus was one of the most eminent of those men. But there were some men that He loved with a quite special and peculiar love. Our Lord had this happiness, that He loved all men whether they loved Him or no. So much so, that the world would never have heard so much as Lazarus's name unless the glory of God had been bound up with Lazarus's sickness, and death, and resurrection. Let Martha sweat and scold let Mary sit still and listen and let Lazarus only be of some use to them, that he would never believe he was, and that was Lazarus's meat and drink. They laughed him to scorn, they shot out the lip at him, and he never saw it. All Bethany was quite right, Lazarus was a perfect sheep. For, when Jesus of Nazareth and His twelve disciples came to Martha's house, Lazarus hewed wood, fetched water, and washed the feet of the whole discipleship and then, when they were all asleep, 'though he was the staff and sustentation of the family,' he supped out of sight on the fragments that remained. 'He is a sheep,' said the men and the women of Bethany. They do not give him the place of a man in his own house. The very evangelists pass over Lazarus as if he were a worm and no man. But where Lazarus laid his head at such times no one ever asked. Our Lord and His twelve disciples often found where to lay their head in Martha's house, as it was called. You could have taken any liberty you pleased with Lazarus with the most perfect impunity. Lazarus's name is never to be read in the New Testament till the appointed time comes when he is to fall sick, and to die, and to be raised from the dead, for the glory of God. LAZARUS of Bethany comes as near to Jesus of Nazareth, both in his character, and in his services, and in his unparalleled experiences, as mortal man can ever come.
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