Home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha 

Lazarus, Mary, and Martha’s home was located in Bethany, on the eastern slopes of Mount Olivet. Bethany was a small village less than two miles from Jerusalem, making it a convenient location for subsequent visits. It was on their trip to Jerusalem during Jesus' thirteenth year that Mary and Joseph stopped in Bethany for rest. There, they first met Simon and his children, Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, who were all close in age to Jesus. Simon invited the little family into his home for refreshment, and the two families struck up a friendship that lasted throughout Jesus’ life.

During Jesus' first trip to Jerusalem, he and his parents celebrated Passover in this home. Later in that Passover week, Jesus was given permission to spend the night at the Bethany home. When his parents left for Nazareth and unwittingly left Jesus behind for three days, Jesus went each night to the Bethany home to eat dinner, fellowship with Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, and sleep overnight.

Years later, when his younger brothers, James, Simon, and Jude, reached the appropriate age, Jesus took them to Jerusalem for their Passover rituals, and they were welcomed at the Bethany home during their visits.

When Jesus was twenty years old, he visited the Bethany home for Passover. During this visit, Jesus and the three friends celebrated the first bloodless Passover ever to be celebrated by devout Jews – a Passover without the traditional sacrificial lamb. Using only bread and wine as offerings to God, Jesus and his friends inaugurated a sacramental Sabbath ritual, which they celebrated many times in this Bethany home.

When Jesus began his ministry with the apostles, Lazarus opened his home to all of them, and this home became a headquarters for the apostolic party where they stored their belongings and often spent Sabbath days resting. During his public ministry, Jesus and the twelve visited Bethany frequently, often staying with Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, their gracious hosts.

When Lazarus died, he was laid to rest in the private tomb on the premises of the Bethany home. It was here that Jesus performed the most amazing demonstration of his power over life and death when he raised Lazarus from the tomb after being dead for four days. This was the first and last instance on our world where a mortal creature had been resurrected in the likeness of the physical body of death.

On the day of his resurrection, at about noon, Jesus made his third appearance in his transitional form in Bethany. He appeared to his brother James in the garden of the Bethany home, near the tomb where Lazarus had once been interred. Two hours later, Jesus appeared in his fourth resurrection appearance to about twenty people inside the Bethany home.