Speculating about Lazarus

Today's gospel reading, John's account in Chapter 11 of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, is one of my favorites.  In one of his books (Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John), Jean Vanier speculates that Lazarus was perhaps mentally retarded.  Why else would a grown man in those days be living with his two grown sisters?  Might that explain the special love that Jesus clearly had for Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha? 

I also love that reading because it continues the story of Jesus' fascinating relationship with Mary and Martha.  This story always seems to me a sort of vindication of busy-bee Martha.  Remember, this is the same Martha who was rebuked by Jesus for spending too much time with the housework, and not enough time just listening to his words, like her sister Mary.  In this story, Martha is bustling around as usual, going out to meet Jesus on the road when she hears he's on his way, while Mary stays home, weeping.  When Martha finds Jesus, she rebukes him for dawdling, telling him he's too late.  In response, we get what John Paul Paul II in Mulieris Dignitatem called one of the most important exchanges in the Gospel.  It is to Martha that Jesus utters these words "I am the resurrection and the life: whoever believes in me, though he should die, will come to life; and whoever is alive and believes in me will never die."  And it is busy-bee Martha who is the first person who the Gospels have saying something like this: "I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God: he who is to come into the world."