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JOHN 11:41 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
John 11:40John 11:42
Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, 'Father, I thank you that you have heard me — Jesus' prayer of gratitude begins by thanking the Father for already having heard His petition, expressing absolute assurance that the Father grants what Jesus asks. The looking up (anableps, lifting the eyes toward heaven) is a gesture of prayer and communion with God. The thanksgiving suggests that Jesus prayed for Lazarus's resurrection before arriving at the tomb, and that prayer has already been granted in the Father's mind.

Church Fathers on John 11:41

Christ did not answer Mary, as He had her; sister, on account of the people present. In condescension to them He humbled Himself, and let His human nature be seen, in order to gain them as witnesses to the miracle: When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in His spirit, and was troubled.

Chrysostom · 4th century

For who but Himself could trouble Him? Christ was troubled, because it pleased Him to be troubled; He hungered, because it pleased Him to hunger. It was in His own power to be affected in this or that way or not. The Word took up soul and flesh, and whole man, and fitted it to Himself in unity of person. And thus according to the nod and will of that higher nature in Him, in which the sovereign power resides, He becomes weak and troubled.

Augustine · 4th century

To prove His human nature He sometimes gives it free vent, while at other times He commands, and restrains it by, the power of the Holy Ghost. Our Lord allows His nature to be affected in these ways both to prove that He is very Man, not Man in appearance only; and also to teach us by His own example the due measures of joy and grief. For the absence altogether of sympathy and sorrow is brutal, the excess of them is womanly.

Theophylact · 11th century
Read all 51 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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