Passage
So the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”
John 11:3 (LSB)
Nearby Context
John 11:1 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
John 11:2 And it was the Mary who anointed the Lord with perfume, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.
John 11:3 So the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.”
John 11:4 But when Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.”
John 11:5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
Study Lenses
The verse centers on "sisters", "sent", "saying", "lord", "behold", "love", and "sick". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "sisters" and "sent", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 2's "And it was the Mary who anointed..." into verse 4's "But when Jesus heard this He said...", so "sisters" and "sent" belong inside that flow. In John context, the local focus is the identity of Jesus, new birth, eternal life, and belief and unbelief.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "sisters" and "sent" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.