Many Show Interest in Jesus and Lazarus (John 12:9-11).
‘When the great crowd of the Judaisers learned that he was there, they came, not only because of Jesus, but also in order to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus also to death because, on account of him, many of the Jews were leaving and believing in Jesus'.
Once again John speaks of ‘the Judaisers'. Here now He is back in Judea and Jerusalem. Earlier ‘the Judaisers' had represented those who were antagonistic to Jesus, whether in Judea or in Galilee, but the expression has expanded gradually to include those of Judea who, while sceptical, were willing to give Him a hearing. They thus represented the more educated Jews, the intelligentsia, those who were or had been sceptical of Him.
The disciples were mainly Galileans and the Galileans looked on the Judeans as contemptuously as the Judeans looked on them. John, however, does not call the Judeans as a whole ‘the Judaisers', but rather the more prominent people whom he saw as being suspicious of Jesus. On them he directed some of what was once his feeling against the Judeans.
Jesus had been absent from Jerusalem and now the news filtered through that He had arrived at Bethany. The fact that crowds thronged to Bethany when they learned that He was there, both in order to see Jesus and in order to see Lazarus, demonstrates how powerfully what had happened to Lazarus had affected people. It was something of a sensation.
The ‘Judaisers' who came were not necessarily directly believers, but they were interested. They had heard of the miracle of the raising of Lazarus, and other stories about Jesus, and they had come to see for themselves, and even possibly to question Lazarus. And by this some of them were becoming convinced. This angered the authorities, especially the chief priests who would be Sadducees and rejected belief in the resurrection. This was hitting at one of their firmly held tenets and weakening their position. Thus they decide they must somehow get rid of Lazarus as well. It would not be easy. The Romans jealously retained the right to use the death penalty for themselves except in cases of open blasphemy. (In contrast to the Sadducees the Pharisees, who firmly believed in the general resurrection, are not mentioned here. It was the Chief Priests who were acting).
What a contrast there is between the coming of Mary and the coming of the Judaisers. On the one hand pure love, on the other questioning, curiosity and even some enmity. And that is how the world will ever be until the final regeneration.