John 11:37Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Even in misfortune they did not abandon their malice. Yet Christ is about to perform a work still more wondrous. To drive away death that has already come and taken possession of a man is far greater than to stop death as it approaches.

Thus they reproach Him over the very thing for which they ought to have marveled at His power. For the moment, they admit that He opened the eyes of the blind man.

But instead of marveling at Him for this, they use Lazarus's death to slander even that miracle, as though it had not happened.

It is not only from this that their corruption is clear. It is also clear from the fact that before He had even come and manifested His power, they were already anticipating Him with accusations, without waiting for the end of the matter.

The wicked Jews, even though a great misfortune was before their eyes, still did not leave aside their malice. They say, "Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" They say this to belittle the miracle performed on the man born blind; Jn 9:6. They should have marveled at that miracle. Instead, on the occasion of Lazarus's death, they cast doubt even on its reality. Without waiting for the end of the matter, they pronounce an offensive judgment beforehand. Thus envy corrupted their minds.

The Evangelist is struck with wonder as he sees the tearless Nature weeping, though suffering belonged to the flesh and was not fitting to the Godhead. The Lord weeps because He sees man, created according to His own image, subjected to corruption.

He does this in order to take away our tears, for He died for this very reason: to free us also from death. He had only just wept, and immediately He restrained the tear.

He did this so that He might not seem harsh and inhuman, while also teaching us not to grow weak through excessive grief for the dead. The first is a sign of compassion. The second is a mark of effeminacy and weakness.

He who did not will to keep him from dying willed to do something greater: to make him rise from the dead.

On the one hand, they wished to reject Him. On the other, against their will, they confessed Him. "He raised Lazarus; let Him save Himself" (cf. Mk 15:30). By these words also, those who rejected Him confessed the Lord.

The Lord wept over Lazarus as though showing that He could not raise him. When they actually thought this about Him, He revealed to all the hidden blasphemy of those who said, "Could not this man... have kept this man from dying?"

Perhaps you will say, "But they did not say that He could not raise him." Yet they uttered something directed against His Godhead.

The Jews reproach the powerlessness of Jesus Christ and say ironically, "He who opened the eyes of the blind man," considering that miracle false on the ground that He did not now keep Lazarus from dying. They do not know that Jesus Christ will perform a greater miracle. For to drive death away when it has already come and taken possession of a man is a far greater miracle than to restrain it when it is approaching.

These words in v. 36 came in some measure from wonder, but also from envy. Therefore some said, "Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have caused that even this man should not die?"

But if He opened the eyes of the blind man, why did you not believe then, and why did you revile Him? Why did you present an unbroken chain of questions to the man who had received sight?

You asked and interrogated him: who healed you, where is He from, what sort of man is He, and by what means did He open your eyes? Now, as though against your will, you confess that He opened the eyes of the blind man.

After this she hastened to her sister and said to her, “The Teacher is asking for you,” though He had not asked for her at all.

Mary was immersed in her grief. Only love for Him whose words she was accustomed to receive with calm devotion was strong enough to draw her from her place.

She hastened to Jesus, who was still outside the village. Her first words were the same as Martha’s. One could see how much this thought had occupied them until then.

But these words, spoken with tears by Mary as she fell at Jesus’ feet, were filled with deeper feeling than when they were on Martha’s lips.

There was no reproach in them. Yet both sorrow and devotion were expressed more fully than in Martha. After uttering them, Mary could say nothing more.

After this conversation with the Lord, Martha went to the house and secretly told Mary that the Teacher was there and was calling her. She did this secretly because there were also people in the house who were hostile to the Lord.

When Mary, gladdened by this news, rose quickly and went, the Jews who were in her house thought she was going to Lazarus’ tomb. They followed her.

When she came to the Lord, Mary fell at His feet and expressed to Him the same sorrow with which Martha had met Jesus.

When He saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her weeping, He Himself sorrowed in spirit and was troubled. In answer to Mary He asked, “Where have you laid him?”

Others, however, spoke maliciously: "Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" If He could, then, since He loved Lazarus, He certainly would not have allowed him to die. Yet Lazarus died. Therefore, He could not do this, and that is why He weeps in vexation. The embittered enemies of Christ avoided calling Him by name. Therefore even now they spoke of Him contemptuously as "this man."

These tears did not go unnoticed. While some Jews, with reverent sympathy, saw in them proof of His love for the deceased, others asked with doubt and almost mockery: could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept His friend from dying? They had not heard how He raised a dead man in a distant town of Galilee. But they knew that in Jerusalem He had opened the eyes of the man born blind, and this appeared to them no less astonishing a miracle.

The Jews said, and some said, and so forth. Here the same division appeared in the dispositions of the Jews toward the Lord. The Evangelist continually points to this among the Jews who surrounded Him in Jerusalem.

In some there appeared a certain good feeling toward Him. In others there was hostility, even malice. The former saw in the Lord’s tears a sign of His sincere and deep love for Lazarus during his life.

The latter misinterpreted these tears. They tried to draw from this circumstance a new proof against the purity of the Lord’s character, intentions, and actions.

The meaning of their words is this. Why does He weep? If He truly opened the eyes of the man born blind, could He not also have healed Lazarus while he was still sick and had not died?

Verses 31-38. “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He rebuked in spirit and troubled Himself.” Ενεβριμησατο τω πνευματι και εταραξεν εαυτόν. Ενεβριμ may mean either “He was indignant” or “He sorrowed.”

Those who accepted the first meaning thought that Jesus was displeased either by the unbelief of the Jews, as Theodore of Mopsuestia and Leontius say, or by the disturbance of His own soul, as Chrysostom, Apollinaris, and Euthymius say.

But this is not justified by the connection of the discourse. The ancient translations, Coptic and Arabic, read: “He was grieved in soul and troubled Himself.”

At the sight of the Lord weeping, even the hardened heart of the Jews was apparently touched. Despite their earlier malice over the Lord's miracles, they began to ask one another about the Lord's wonderworking power, which could have saved from death the man loved by Him. In this weak manifestation of faith there nevertheless lay a seed that could have grown in their souls unto salvation. This indeed happened for many, as we see from verse 45. But in others, verse 46, the malice of the devil overcame faith.