Lazarus is to be envied. Yes, it was good to be Martha, busy serving. But it was better to be Lazarus, sitting and communing. There's a time for both, and each has its beauty. But no tree in the garden yields fruit like the vine of fellowship! To sit with Jesus, to hear his words, to watch his acts, to receive his smiles—such a privilege must have made Lazarus as happy as the angels themselves.

When we have had the joy of feasting with our Beloved in his banqueting hall, we wouldn't have given half a sigh for all the kingdoms of the world—not if that much breath could have bought them.

But Lazarus is also to be imitated. Think about it: How strange it would have been if Lazarus hadn't been at that table! The man had been dead. Jesus had raised him. For someone who had been given life by the Lord to be absent when that same Lord sat at his table? That would have been ungrateful indeed.

We too were once dead—yes, and like Lazarus, stinking in the grave of sin. Jesus raised us. By his life, we live. So how can we be content to live at a distance from him? Do we skip his table, where he stoops to feast with his people? Oh, this is cruel! We must repent and do what he asks, for his smallest wish should be law to us.

For Lazarus to have lived without constant fellowship with the one of whom people said, "Look how he loved him!"—that would have been disgraceful. Is it any more excusable for us, whom Jesus has loved with an everlasting love? For Lazarus to be cold toward the one who wept over his lifeless corpse would have shown great brutishness. What does it show in us, over whom the Savior has not only wept but bled?

Come, friends who are reading this. Let us return to our heavenly Bridegroom. Let us ask for his Spirit to draw us into closer intimacy with him. From this day forward, let us sit at the table with him.