XXXIII

"When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him" and said:

Rabbi! if you had been here, my brother would not have died. (11, 20–21.)

Mary will say the same thing in the same words (11:32), because here Martha is Active Love, and Mary is Contemplative Love, two sisters, one being. "My brother would not have died," is the silent complaint of all creation, groaning from the beginning of the world and still not delivered. "If only Thou were" – a quiet reproach of love, as if in response to that incomprehensible, inhuman word:

I rejoice that I was not there, that you might believe.

Martha-Mary is still in this world, on the threshold separating that world from this one.

But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.

He knows only with his mind, not yet with his heart.

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

… I know that he will rise again in the resurrection (of the dead), on the last day.

Here is the threshold between time and eternity, not crossed by it, uncrossed for us. She stopped at it and cannot move. But the Lord moves it with miraculous power.

I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me, though he die, shall live.

And everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?

She said to Him, "So." Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, coming into the world. (11, 21–27.)

This is the power that has not yet endured, but will now carry it beyond the threshold – faith in Him Himself, as a miracle of miracles. He believes, but still cries.

When Jesus saw her weeping,

Martha-Mary – all the creature doomed to death – weeping,

He himself was grieved in spirit, and was angry;

And he said, Where have you laid him? They said to him, "Rabbi! Go and see.

Jesus began to weep.

Here is the boundary of two worlds: eternally feminine tears – eternally masculine anger. He cries like everyone else; Like no one else, he is indignant. Human tears – to the border, and beyond it – "indignation", "divine anger". In this feeling, all people are with Him – "sons of God", because death for all of them is unnatural, outrageous.