"18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”"
John 11:18-26
When Jesus said in 4 that 'this sickness is not unto death', He did not mean that Lazarus was not going to die, for Lazarus did die, but that the sickness was not such that death would have the last word in it, but that God might be glorified in it. And this we now see in the verses before us, which lead up to the climax of the miracle. But a number of questions arise as to why Jesus should have delayed so long in going to His friends. One can only say this: that He was intent on challenging and testing their faith in order to draw them out to believe utterly in Him. To speak as Martha did in 21 - and Mary later in 32 - was very natural - it is the sort of thing that a distressed sister would say. But we should note the presuppositions she is making. Both sisters, being disciples, must have known about the other miracles He had performed - known, for example, that there were occasions when Jesus performed miracles at a distance, and that His presence was not necessary in those cases for the miracle to take place; and yet they spoke as they did. Calvin very pertinently asks what grounds Martha had for speaking thus. How did she know that if Jesus had been there Lazarus would not have died? It is a debatable point. Nevertheless, although it was the literal presence of Jesus that she deemed necessary, she gives expression to a very wonderful attitude of faith in her very next words (22), and it was this doubtless that elicited Jesus' assurance to her in 23. Martha's reply to this in 24 states an entirely orthodox position theologically; she could hardly, however, have expected to hear the words of 25, 26. 'The last day?', Jesus says in effect, 'that day has come, you are now confronted with it, Martha, I am the Resurrection'.