Article February 18, 2013 Issue

Kids ask...

Answer offered by Chet Manchester

—Ricky, age 9

Every time I read the story of Lazarus in the Bible I’m amazed. It reads just like an action movie! Eyewitnesses, people who were actually there, must have told others what happened that day—there are so many precise details given. We hear what good friends Jesus and Lazarus and his family were. We learn how the sisters, Martha and Mary, responded differently when Jesus arrived. And then there are those amazing two words about Jesus that you can’t find anywhere else in the Gospel stories: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). This shows us that Jesus loved Lazarus so much that he cried. Or, was he maybe crying for another reason? Was he sad that people had so many doubts about who he was? But those doubts didn’t stop him. Even when everyone else saw Lazarus as dead, Jesus looked to God and thanked Him for hearing his prayer. Then Jesus called Lazarus out of his tomb—and out he came!

I think it would have been pretty hard for someone to make this story up! But there’s a more important reason I believe Jesus really did raise Lazarus—because his disciples were able to follow his example (see Acts 9:40;  20:9, 10). And this has been happening in Christian history ever since.