It's subtle isn't it? Sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to say. But what is the underlying message here? Jesus, Lazarus is sick. You know, your friend. The one you love. So you need to come right away because if you love him, you will. You will do it the way I want you to because that is what love is.

Hmm. I do this alot, I fear. Lord, I trust you. Oh yeah? You trust me to what? Do it your way? What if I don't? Do you trust me then? Lord, I trust You, I know You can heal my brother. You are the Great Physician, and I trust You to heal him. What if I don't? Do you trust me then?

John wants us to know that Jesus loves them. Because what He is about to do doesn't seem like it.

So. The Greek can be translated then, therefore, accordingly, consequently, these things being so. It is inferential, denoting that what it introduces is the result of or an inference from what precedes. It means because Jesus loved them, He stayed two days longer where He was.

Jetty sent me a quote when we were studying Joseph:

"The deep fear behind every loss is that we have been abandoned by
the God who should have saved us. The transforming moment in
Christian conversion comes when we realize that even God has left us.
We then discover it was not God, but our image of God that abandoned
us.... Only then is change possible."

Mary and Martha were grieved at the loss of their brother, but they were also grieved that their friend, the one who healed the multitudes, did not heal Lazarus.  Mary and Martha had to abandon who thought they Jesus was and learn who He really was.  They find He isn't just the Great Physician, He is the Resurrection and the Life!  Henry Blackaby says it this way:  Truth is a person.  To the sisters, the truth was that Lazarus was dead.  But Truth was standing beside them and He raised Lazarus from the dead.

So then, what image of God do we have to let go of to learn who He truly is?