I had occasion to be in the funeral home across the street a few days ago. While inside, I noticed something. I noticed that they have a lot of Kleenex. Everywhere you look, Kleenex. You’re never more than a few feet from a box. Why is that? Because funeral homes have a higher than average number of people enter who are battling a cold or sinus issues? Of course not! It’s because they have a higher than average number of people enter who are sad. Oftentimes, people who are really sad! People who are dealing with the loss of a loved one. The sadness is sometimes compounded by the fact their loved one died an untimely, unexpected death. There’s going to be tears. Lots of them. So there needs to be Kleenex. Lots of them.

There are a number of incredibly profound sentences at the beginning of our text that we might miss if we’re not careful. In the very first verse, John tells us, Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. (v. 1) Jesus knew that the rescue mission that had begun with his conception in the womb of the virgin Mary was soon coming to an end and he would be returning to Father in heaven!

As we meet Mary and Martha in our text today, they are people living in “the land of in-between.” What do we mean by that? They are living after the death of a loved one. The wound is nervy and raw. As the story begins, the resurrection has not taken place yet. They are living in the middle, between death and resurrection.

God wanted people to be able to identify the Messiah when he came into the world. To help them know who the Messiah was, God made prophecies, or predictions, about what the Savior would be like. One of the identifying things about the coming of the Messiah was this, Then will the eyes of the blind be opened. (Isaiah 35:5)