In his best-selling book, God’s Favorite Place on Earth, Frank Viola author retells the story of Lazarus’ death and rising from Lazarus’ own perspective. Here’s an adapted article from the book. The sequel to this book is called The Day I Met Jesus.

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Mary and Martha were crestfallen.

The messenger arrived that evening. My sisters wept heavily in my room. My father ordered that my body be taken to the grave.

The messenger told Mary and Martha that Jesus’ only response to their message was: “The ultimate end of this sickness is not death. It is for God’s glory so that the Son of God may be glorified.”

Feeling that this was callous disregard on the Teacher’s part, Martha’s weeping grew louder, and she said to Mary, “I feel lied to. Jesus said that Lazarus would not die. Why … why did this happen!? How could He let it happen!?”

Mary, weeping in bewilderment, hugged Martha and said, “I’m perplexed too, but don’t let bitterness grip your heart. There must be an explanation. The Teacher will come and tell us why. I know He will.”

Martha’s disappointment moved to bossiness: “If He doesn’t show up for the burial tonight, I am not sure if I can forgive Him. That will be too much for me to bear.”

Martha oversaw the funeral arrangements that evening. She covered my body in myrrh and aloes to fight off the stench of death. Strips of fine linen wrapped my body. They placed me in a sealed tomb, closed off from the world of the living.

Our friends and family from Jerusalem gave their loving support. Mourners were hired. Mary and Martha were grieved beyond measure.

Three days passed. Our home was filled with friends and family, all weeping, grieving, and mourning their loss.

Martha was in the courtyard when one of our friends ran to her with a message. Out of breath, our friend said, “Jesus is on His way to Bethany! His disciples are with Him, and they are just outside the village!”

Martha’s pan clattered to the floor. She ran out of the courtyard to greet Jesus at the outskirts of Bethany.

Martha slid to a stop. With tears running down her cheeks, she cried violently, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died! Yet even now that he is dead, I know that God will grant You whatever You ask.”

Jesus responded, “Your brother will rise again from the dead.”

Martha shook her head and recoiled. “I know he will rise on the last day when the dead are resurrected.”

Not breaking His gaze from hers, Jesus replied, “You believe the dead will rise again. That is right. But I am the Resurrection and the Life. The person who believes in Me, though he or she dies, shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never taste death. Do you believe this?”

Martha stood silent. She raised her head and said, “I believe You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the promised One to come.”

Martha’s shoulders slumped. Her sorrow-stricken spirit was not able to digest the fact that Jesus claimed to hold the keys of death in His hands. Not just for the future, but for the present.

Jesus asked, “Where is Mary? I would like to speak with her.” Martha replied, “I will get her for You.”

Martha quickly ran back to the house, where Mary sat on the floor, weeping under the weight of her grief.

Hoping not to be heard by the others, Martha whispered into Mary’s ear, “The Teacher is outside the village, and He is asking for you.”

Surprised, Mary straightened and ran out to meet Him. Friends and neighbors trailed after her. They assumed she was running to visit my tomb.

When Mary saw Jesus, she wilted to her knees and dissolved into tears. Broken with hopeless grief, she echoed Martha’s words: “If You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Jesus took her hand and lifted her to her feet. Deeply stirred by the sight of Mary’s sorrow, He sighed. With deep shuddering emotion, Jesus asked her, “Where have you laid his body?”

The Teacher visibly shook. Then He burst into tears.

The sight of Mary’s tears brought tears to the face of God’s Son.

No words could give comfort to Mary. Only the gesture of a weeping Messiah would suffice.

***

Groaning inwardly and weeping outwardly, Jesus made His way to the tomb. Mary and the Teacher’s disciples accompanied Him. Those who followed Mary to where Jesus was walked behind.

Upon seeing His tears, one of the Jews who followed murmured, “See how He loved Lazarus. He opened the eyes of the blind. So couldn’t He have kept Lazarus from dying?”

They entered the village, and Mary fetched both Martha and my father. They all approached the tomb together.

With majestic composure, Jesus commanded that the stone be removed from the tomb.

Martha, who had prepared me for burial, gasped in surprise. “Lord, he has been dead four days. By this time his body will stink,” she anxiously protested.

Trusting the Teacher, Mary was silent.

Jesus mildly yet firmly reproved Martha, reminding her of something He had said previously. “Did I not tell you that you would see God’s glory if you only believed?”

Martha, not understanding, hung her head and fell silent.

Nathan, Samuel, and several other men put their hands on the large stone that covered the mouth of the tomb. They pushed upon it until it was unseated from the groove in the ground that held it in place. The mouth of the tomb stood open and exposed.

Everyone watched with anticipation. Some pinched their noses, thinking that Jesus would ask that my body be brought out into the open.

Jesus tilted His head back, raised His eyes to the heavens, and prayed.

Speaking to His Father in heaven, He said that He did not need to pray out loud. But for the sake of those around Him, He wanted everyone to know that the Father had sent Him.

With those words, He lowered His head and fixed His gaze on the tomb where I lay. Jesus was now ready to bare His arm of insuperable power and unsurpassed grandeur to a crowd hushed with breathless expectation.

I heard the voice of the Teacher shouting to me … that voice that I knew so well. His piercing cry jolted me back to consciousness. I felt as though I were in a deep sleep, but the sound of His voice … a voice that I instantly recognized … woke me out of it.

“Lazarus, come forth!”

I suddenly gasped for breath.

When I realized I was conscious, I tried to open my eyes. But it was too difficult because the headcloth was wound so tightly around my face.

I had feeling in my entire body, but I was still bandaged from head to toe. The bandages around my legs were loose enough for me to manipulate them slightly. So I managed to wiggle and worm until I could get on my feet. Lurching toward the light, the noise of the crowd helped me find my way toward the entrance.

As soon as I was in view of the crowd, I could hear the shrieks and screams of those who saw me.

“It’s a ghost!” some gasped.

“That’s not … that’s not Lazarus … it’s impossible!” another yelled.

Gripped by awe, they were mortified.

A dead man had been raised to life right before their eyes.

It was a scene of peerless wonder and unrivaled glory.

I heard the voice of Jesus again. This time He commanded that I be unwrapped and set free.

Nathan and Samuel rushed over to me and began unwrapping my bandages. Nathan shouted, “There’s no stench! Jesus caused the corruption to move into reverse.”

The insufferable heat warmed my cold body. Beads of sweat began to form on my arms and forehead.

Once they removed the headcloth, I tried to open my eyes. But I could only squint as the blinding sun seared my eyes. My body ached, but the illness was gone. The pain had vanished.

Mary, Martha, and my father embraced one another, weeping. Joyful amazement was written upon their faces. I turned my hands over, unable to comprehend the gift I had just been given.

Martha ran over to me, grasped my arms, and stared wide-eyed at me. “Lazarus!” she said. I replied, “Yes, sister, it is me. I am alive!”

Martha looked a little different. The sorrow had transfigured her face.

Jesus remained unruffled and composed. I walked over to Him, and we embraced one another. “Lord,” I said, “thank You. I believe You are the Son of God, the Promised Messiah.”

Still arrested by the spectacle, many of the people surged forward, reaching out their hands to touch me. Some of them ran to Jerusalem to report what they had witnessed.

We retreated back to our home in Bethany. Jesus and His disciples remained with us for a few days. A steady stream of people came to visit us. They wanted to see me with their own eyes, proving to themselves that I was in fact alive.

***

“Lazarus, we have to leave today.”

The early sun peaked through the olive tree, caressing the Teacher’s face as he announced the news. “There is a plot afoot to kill Me. The Jews want me dead. So I can no longer move freely. We will travel to the countryside near Ephraim. But I will return.”

I nodded my head. Disappointed that He was leaving, I said, “I will look forward to Your return. We all will.”

The following weeks were unforgettable. People visited Bethany just to gaze at me. Some would ask me for favors so they could observe me carefully, perhaps to make sure that I was real and not a spirit.

As I reflected on the events of that day, I not only witnessed the power of Jesus’ resurrection life. But also His brilliance. He asked for others to remove the stone in order to prove that what He was about to do was neither a fraud nor a fake.

I am thankful that He brought me back to life. Not only so that I could witness His own resurrected body. But so that I could also witness something that happened just before He died. The immortal act that my sister Mary would perform …

The Sacred Text

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”

Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”

After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

Then Thomas (also known as Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.

“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.”

Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin … So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples. John 11:1–47, 53–54 NIV 2011

by Frank Viola, author