When Jesus Wept

In a well-known scene in the Gospels, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, and, famously, Lazarus is the only person in the Gospels for whom Jesus wept. This first book of the award-winning Thoenes’ new series, Jerusalem Chronicles, offers a well-paced, page-turning prequel to the story of Jesus and Lazarus. Mourning the death of his wife and his newborn child, Lazarus, a well-respected vintner, searches anxiously for ways beyond the darkness of despair. When his best friend, Judah, hears about a man traveling the countryside preaching a message of hope and light, he and Lazarus set off in search of him, and soon Lazarus witnesses John baptizing Jesus. Eventually Judah and Lazarus, along with Lazarus’s sisters, Mary and Martha, recognize Jesus as the anointed one of God who’s come to challenge the hated Roman government in Jerusalem, and they become his close disciples. Set against the political and religious turmoil of the times, the Thoenes’ story vividly reimagines the evolving friendship between Jesus and Lazarus and the life-changing effect it has on Lazarus. (Mar. 19)