Bethany 

The modern name for Bethany is Beit Ania and it is locally known as Al-Eizariya or al-Azariya. The town is located on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, less than 2 miles (3.2 km) from Jerusalem. It has a current population of 17,606 inhabitants.

Bethany was an important location in Jesus’ time. It was the home of Jesus’ life-long friends: Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary. Jesus met these three siblings when he was only 13, and thereafter, he visited their Bethany home many times. When he took his brothers to Passover in Jerusalem, it was his practice to visit his friends in Bethany for the Passover meal.

Bethany was the scene of the first bloodless Passover meal ever to be shared when Jesus was 19 years old. Jesus himself proposed it, and he and his three friends partook of it. Later in his public ministry, Jesus celebrated the first bloodless Passover with his twelve apostles here in Bethany.

When Jesus began his work with the apostles, they used the home of Lazarus in Bethany for their headquarters. In addition, Jesus delivered his discourse about the Rule of Living in Bethany and also the Lesson on the Family.

The most dramatic demonstration of Jesus’ power over life and death took place in Bethany, in the garden of the Bethany home where Lazarus’ tomb was located and where Jesus resurrected his friend from death.

At a public banquet in Bethany, Lazarus’ sister Mary anointed Jesus with a costly oil. And it was this act that so inflamed Judas Iscariot that he finally turned against Jesus.

After his crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus appeared in Bethany twice. Once, in his third resurrection appearance, to his brother James. And later that day, Jesus appeared to his whole earth family in his fourth resurrection appearance.

It was when Jesus was 13 years old that he met Lazarus, Mary, and Martha at their home in Bethany. Jesus and his mother and father happened to stop in Bethany to rest on their way to Jerusalem. The villagers came out to welcome the travelers, and Simon, Lazarus’ father, welcomed the little Nazareth family into his home. This began a life-long friendship between these two families and between Jesus and the three siblings. During this visit to Jerusalem, the Nazareth family celebrated the Passover meal with Simon and his family and Jesus was permitted to have sleepovers with Lazarus. When Jesus was left behind after Mary and Joseph departed Jerusalem for Nazareth, he went to the Bethany home each night and was welcomed there.

During the time when Jesus was raising his younger siblings, he took James and Joseph on separate trips to Jerusalem for Passover so that they could be consecrated as sons of the law. For these younger brothers, the Passover supper was celebrated at the Bethany home of Lazarus and his sisters.

In Jesus’ twentieth year, he, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary partook of the first Passover feast ever to be celebrated by devout Jews without the paschal lamb. The unleavened bread and the wine had been made ready for this Passover, and these emblems, which Jesus termed “the bread of life” and “the water of life,” he served to his companions, and they ate in solemn conformity with the teachings just imparted. It was his custom to engage in this sacramental ritual whenever he paid subsequent visits to Bethany.

Many years later, in the spring of 28 CE, Jesus and his twelve apostles quietly celebrated the Passover in Bethany. And this was the first time that Jesus and all of the twelve partook of the bloodless Passover feast.

Located fifteen miles away from Bethany, John preached four months at Bethany Ford before starting north up the Jordan. Tens of thousands of listeners, some curious but many earnest and serious, came to hear him from all parts of Judea, Perea, and Samaria.

In March, 27 CE, Lazarus of Bethany had been down to the Jordan River twice to see Jesus, and every arrangement had been made for the Master and his apostles to make their headquarters with Lazarus and his sisters at Bethany as long as they might desire to stay in Jerusalem. Since Bethany was so close to Jerusalem, this was a very convenient arrangement.

After a busy period of teaching and personal work during a Passover week (April, 27 CE), in Jerusalem, Jesus spent time at Bethany with his apostles, resting. During this period of rest, Thomas asked a question that elicited a long and instructive answer from Jesus that included a memorable discussion of the fundamental characteristics of family life and their application to the relationship existing between God and man.

Jesus said: “The people of another age will better understand the gospel of the kingdom when it is presented in terms expressive of the family relationship—when man understands religion as the teaching of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, sonship with God.” Then the Master discoursed at some length on the earthly family as an illustration of the heavenly family, restating the two fundamental laws of living: the first commandment of love for the father, the head of the family, and the second commandment of mutual love among the children, to love your brother as yourself. And then he explained that such a quality of brotherly affection would invariably manifest itself in unselfish and loving social service.

On the evening of the Sabbath day, April 10, 28 CE, at Bethany, while Jesus, the twelve, and a group of believers were assembled about the fire in Lazarus’s garden, Nathaniel asked Jesus a question that elicited this response: “Let me now teach you concerning the differing levels of meaning attached to the interpretation of this rule of living, this admonition to do to others that which you desire others to do to you.”

Jesus had feelings of profound affection for Bethany and its simple people. Nazareth, Capernaum, and Jerusalem had rejected him, but Bethany had accepted him and had believed in him. And it was in this small village, where almost every man, woman, and child were believers, that he chose to perform the mightiest work of his earth bestowal, the resurrection of Lazarus. He did not raise Lazarus so that the villagers might believe, but rather because they already believed.

Six days before the Passover, on the evening after the Sabbath on April 1, 30 CE, all Bethany and Bethpage joined in celebrating the arrival of Jesus by a public banquet at the home of Simon, of Bethany. This supper was in honor of both Jesus and Lazarus; it was tendered in defiance of the Sanhedrin. It was during this supper that Mary, sister of Lazarus, anointed Jesus’ head and feet with the costly oil, which cemented Judas Iscariot’s decision to abandon Jesus.

Subsequent to the arrest of Jesus following the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, David Zebedee sent word to Jesus’ family on Friday morning, April 7, 30 CE to gather at the house of Martha and Mary in Bethany and there await news which his messengers would bring them.

The third resurrection appearance of Jesus occurred at Bethany on Sunday, April 9, 30 CE at

noon. Jesus’ oldest brother, James, was standing in the garden of Lazarus before the empty tomb of the resurrected brother of Martha and Mary when Jesus appeared and spoke to him. They walked and conversed for a few minutes before Jesus vanished.

The fourth appearance of Jesus to mortal recognition also occurred in Bethany the same day at 2 pm at the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, when he appeared visibly before his earthly family and their friends, twenty in all.