Lenten Reflection – Day 41 of the Great Lent
Lazarus Saturday – Lazarus, Come Forth
The Day Before the Triumphal Entry: St. John 11:14-46
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?'” (11:25–26)
Yesterday was the 40th Friday. The forty days were completed. Christ defeated the devil in the wilderness with the Word of God. The Sedro prayer asked God to “make us worthy to fight in this battle, at the least as the workers of the eleventh hour.” The angels came and ministered. The training was over.
Today is the day between the training and the battle. Lazarus Saturday. The day the Church remembers the most dramatic miracle Christ ever performed. The raising of a man who had been dead for four days. Decomposing. Wrapped in burial cloths. Sealed in a tomb.
And Christ said: come out.
On Day 33, Christ raised a ruler’s daughter in a quiet room. He took her hand. He spoke gently. “Little girl, get up.” The room was private. The crowd was outside. The resurrection was domestic.
Today is different. Today the dead man has been dead for four days. Today the body has begun to rot. Today the tomb is sealed with a stone. Today the crowd is watching. Today Christ does not whisper. He shouts. And the shout is heard in the grave. And the grave obeys.
Lazarus Saturday sits between the completion of the fast and the beginning of the Passion. It is the bridge. The last miracle before the Cross. The raising that will trigger the plot to kill Jesus. The proof that Christ has authority over death that will make the authorities decide He must die. The resurrection of a friend that leads directly to the death of the Resurrector.
Lazarus Is Dead (vv. 14–16)
“Then Jesus said to them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.’ Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with Him.'” (11:14–16)
“Lazarus is dead.” Three words. No softening. No euphemism. Dead.
Jesus had been told that Lazarus was sick (v. 3). He had deliberately waited two more days before travelling (v. 6). He could have come earlier. He could have healed from a distance, the way He healed the centurion’s servant. He chose to wait. And in the waiting, Lazarus died.
“I am glad for your sakes that I was not there.”
This is one of the most difficult sentences Christ ever spoke. Glad. The friend is dead. The sisters are grieving. The body is rotting. And Jesus says: I am glad. Not glad about the death. Glad about what the death will reveal. Glad because what is about to happen in Bethany will teach the disciples something that a healing could not teach. A healing would have shown His power over disease. The raising will show His power over death itself. And the disciples need to see that. Because the Cross is coming. And at the Cross, death will appear to win. And they need to know, before Friday, that death does not have the final word.
“That you may believe.” The purpose of the delay. The purpose of the death. The purpose of the four days in the tomb. Not cruelty. Pedagogy. Christ is teaching through the worst possible classroom. A grave. And the lesson is the most important lesson the disciples will ever learn. The lesson they will need on Great Friday when the Teacher Himself is in the grave.
Thomas says: “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” Thomas the pessimist. Thomas the doubter (as he will later be called). But here Thomas is the bravest of the twelve. He knows going to Bethany near Jerusalem is dangerous. The authorities want to kill Jesus. And Thomas says: fine. Let us go die with Him. The courage is real even if the understanding is incomplete. Thomas thinks they are walking toward death. He is right. He just does not know what death will look like when Christ is finished with it.
I Am the Resurrection and the Life (vv. 17–27)
“So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days… Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said to Him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.'” (11:17–27)
Four days. In Jewish understanding of the period, four days was significant. By the fourth day, decomposition was advanced. The soul was believed by some traditions to linger near the body for three days. By the fourth day, even that hope was gone. Four days meant irreversibly dead. Completely dead. Dead beyond any ambiguity.
Martha comes out to meet Jesus. And her first words are the words of every grieving person who has ever prayed and felt the prayer was not answered.
“Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”
If. The most painful word in grief. If You had come sooner. If You had not delayed. If You had been here. The accusation is gentle but real. You could have prevented this. You chose not to. And now my brother is in the ground.
But Martha does not stop at the accusation. She adds something remarkable. “Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” Even now. After the death. After the four days. After the hope is gone. Even now, Martha believes that Christ has access to God’s power. She does not know what He will do with it. But she knows it is available.
Jesus says: “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha hears theology. Eschatology. The resurrection at the last day. The standard Jewish belief about the future resurrection of the dead. Yes, Lord, I know. Someday. At the end. When everything is made right. I know the doctrine.
And Jesus corrects her. Not by adding information. By changing the tense.
“I AM the resurrection and the life.”
Not “I will bring the resurrection.” Not “I have the power to resurrect.” I AM. Present tense. Standing in front of you. Right now. The resurrection is not a future event. The resurrection is a Person. And the Person is here. At the tomb. On the fourth day. With the smell of death in the air.
“He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.”
Death is real. “Though he may die.” Christ does not deny death. He does not pretend it has not happened. Lazarus is dead. The body is in the tomb. The decomposition is advancing. Death is real.
“He shall live.” And death is not final. The death is real and the life is more real. The tomb is real and the resurrection is more real. The four days are real and the fifth day is coming.
“And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”
The deepest promise in the Gospel of John. Never die. Not “will die and then be resurrected.” Never die. The person who believes in Christ passes through what the world calls death but does not actually die. The thing that happens to the body is not the end of the person. The person continues. Lives. In Christ. Through death. Past death. Beyond death. Death becomes a door rather than a wall.
“Do you believe this?”
Christ asks Martha the same question He asked the blind men on Day 33. “Do you believe I am able?” Today the question is sharper. Do you believe this? Not in general. This. That I am the resurrection. That your brother will live. That death is not final. Do you believe this? Standing at the tomb. Smelling the decay. With your brother four days dead. Do you believe this?
“Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
Martha’s confession. As full and clear as Peter’s at Caesarea Philippi. You are the Christ. The Son of God. The One the prophets promised. The One the world has been waiting for. Martha makes this confession not in a moment of triumph but in a moment of grief. Not on a mountain but at a grave. Not after a miracle but before one. Her faith is not a response to the raising. It is the ground on which the raising will stand.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his Commentary on the Gospel of John, teaches that Christ’s statement “I am the resurrection and the life” is the single most important Christological declaration in the Fourth Gospel. He says Christ did not say “I bring resurrection” or “I have the power of resurrection.” He said “I AM the resurrection.” The resurrection is not an act Christ performs. It is who Christ is. His very Person is the resurrection. Where He is, death cannot remain. The tomb that contains Christ’s presence cannot contain death. Because the presence of Christ IS the resurrection. Death and the resurrection cannot occupy the same space. And Christ has just arrived at the tomb.1
Jesus Wept (vv. 28–37)
“When Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, ‘Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.’ Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to Him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept.” (11:32–35)
Mary says the same words as Martha. “Lord, if You had been here.” The same grief. The same gentle accusation. The same if.
But Mary adds something Martha did not. She falls at His feet. She weeps. And the crowd around her weeps with her.
And then the two shortest, most devastating words in the entire Bible.
“Jesus wept.” Edakrusen ho Iēsous.
The Son of God who has just declared Himself the resurrection and the life stands at the tomb of His friend and cries.
Why? He knows what He is about to do. He knows Lazarus will walk out of the tomb in minutes. He knows the death is temporary. He knows the weeping will turn to joy. Why does He weep?
Because the weeping is real. The grief is real. The death is an outrage even when it is about to be reversed. Christ does not stand at the grave of His friend and offer theology. He stands at the grave of His friend and weeps. The tears are not a performance. They are the response of a God who hates death. Who finds it offensive. Who is about to destroy it. But who first weeps at its presence because death was never supposed to be part of the creation He made.
On Day 37, the Spirit groaned with groanings too deep for words. Today Christ groans at a tomb. The same God. The same grief. The same hatred of death. The Spirit groans inside us. Christ groans outside the tomb. The groaning is the sound God makes when He encounters the thing He came to destroy.
“He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.” The word for “groaned” is enebrimēsato. It means to snort with anger. To be deeply agitated. This is not quiet sadness. This is fury. Christ is angry at the tomb. Angry at death. Angry at the enemy that has taken His friend and caused His friends to weep. The tears and the anger are not contradictory. They are the two faces of love in the presence of death. Love weeps because it has lost. Love rages because it will not accept the loss.
St. Ephrem the Syrian, in his Hymns on the Nativity and Commentary on the Diatessaron, writes that Christ wept at the tomb of Lazarus to prove that His humanity was not a disguise. The tears were real. The sorrow was real. The fully human Christ wept because His friend was dead. And the fully divine Christ was about to raise His friend from the dead. Both natures present. Both active. Both real. Ephrem says: if He had not wept, we would doubt His humanity. If He had not raised Lazarus, we would doubt His divinity. The tears and the command are equally essential. The weeping God and the commanding God are the same God.2
For us on Lazarus Saturday, this means something the fast has been teaching us for forty-one days. God does not stand outside our grief. He enters it. He weeps in it. He groans in it. The same God who will raise the dead first cries at the grave. Our tears during this fast have not been solo performances. God has been weeping with you. At every loss. At every failure. At every grave we have visited during these forty-one days. He was there. Weeping. Not because He could not fix it. Because the brokenness offends Him. And the weeping is what love does before the fixing begins.
Take Away the Stone (vv. 38–40)
“Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, ‘Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?'” (11:38–40)
“Take away the stone.”
Christ could have removed the stone Himself. He is about to command a dead man to walk out of a grave. Moving a stone would be trivial. But He does not move it. He asks the people to move it. The miracle is His. The stone is theirs.
This is the pattern of every miracle in the series. Christ does the impossible thing. The people do the possible thing. Fill the water jars (Cana). Let down the paralytic through the roof. Stretch out the withered hand. Go wash in the pool of Siloam. Take away the stone. The human contribution is always the small, manageable, non-miraculous part. And Christ does the rest.
Martha objects. “Lord, by this time there is a stench.” Ēdē ozei. He already stinks. The objection is physical. Practical. Real. Opening a four-day-old tomb is not pleasant. The smell will be overwhelming. The decay will be visible. Martha is protecting everyone from the reality of what death does to a body.
“Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”
If you would believe. Faith again. The same faith that made the bleeding woman well (Day 33). The same faith that opened the blind men’s eyes (Day 33). The same faith the blind man on Samiyo Sunday grew into step by step (Day 35). Faith is the precondition. Not the cause. But the condition without which the glory remains hidden.
“You would see the glory of God.” The glory is about to be revealed. Not in the temple. Not on a mountain. At a tomb. In front of a stone that has just been rolled away. With the stench of death in the air. The glory of God appears in the most unglamorous place imaginable. A graveyard. Because the glory of this God is not the glory of display. It is the glory of life conquering death. And that glory can only appear where death is present.
Lazarus, Come Forth (vv. 41–44)
“Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.’ Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Loose him, and let him go.'” (11:41–44)
Christ prays. Not for power. For witness. “I know that You always hear Me.” The relationship between the Father and the Son is unbroken. The prayer is not a request. It is a thanksgiving. A public acknowledgment that what is about to happen comes from the Father through the Son.
Then the voice. Loud. A cry. Not a whisper like “Talitha cumi” at the bedside of the ruler’s daughter. A shout. Loud enough to penetrate stone. Loud enough to reach through four days of death. Loud enough to wake the dead.
“Lazarus, come forth!”
Two words in Greek. Lazare, deuro exō. Lazarus, come out. The command addresses a dead man by name. Christ does not shout into the void. He shouts into the tomb. At a specific person. With a specific name. And the dead man hears his name and obeys.
St. John Chrysostom, in his Homily 63 on John, observes that Christ used the name deliberately. He says if Christ had simply shouted “come forth” without the name, every dead body in every tomb in the cemetery would have risen. The command was specific because the power was unlimited. The name was the limit. Without the name, the resurrection would have been universal. With the name, it was particular. One man. One tomb. One command. Chrysostom says: Christ called Lazarus by name to show that He knows each of the dead by name. And at the last day, when the command is given without a name, every tomb will open. And every dead person will hear the voice that called Lazarus and will obey it.3
“And he who had died came out.”
The dead man walked. Wrapped in burial cloths. Face covered. Hands bound. Feet bound. He shuffled out of the tomb the way a mummy moves. Awkward. Restricted. But moving. Alive. Breathing. The lungs that had been empty for four days were full of air. The heart that had stopped was beating. The brain that had gone dark was awake. Death had been reversed. Not at the edges. At the centre. A man four days dead was walking out of his own grave.
“Loose him, and let him go.”
Again: Christ does the miracle. The people do the practical thing. Unwrap him. Remove the burial cloths. Free his hands so he can embrace his sisters. Free his face so he can see the sunlight. Free his feet so he can walk home.
The graveclothes are the last evidence of death. The body is alive but still wrapped in death’s uniform. And Christ tells the community to remove them. Because the community’s job is not to raise the dead. That is Christ’s work. The community’s job is to unwrap the living. To remove the cloths that death put on. To help the raised person rejoin the world.
St. Macarius the Great, in his Spiritual Homilies, teaches that Lazarus walking out of the tomb still wrapped in graveclothes is the image of every person who has been spiritually raised by Christ but still carries the habits of the old life. The resurrection has happened. The life is new. But the graveclothes are still on. The old patterns. The old fears. The old sins that cling like burial wrappings. And Christ does not remove them Himself. He tells the community to do it. “Loose him and let him go.” The community of faith unwraps the graveclothes. The church helps the raised person shed the old life. Not the resurrection. That is Christ’s work. But the unwrapping. That is ours.4
What Lazarus Saturday Means
Lazarus Saturday is the day the Church rehearses the Resurrection before experiencing the Cross.
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday. The crowds will wave branches. The donkey will carry the King. The hosannas will ring. And the same city that shouts “blessed is He who comes” will shout “crucify Him” by Friday.
Lazarus Saturday is the reminder that holds us through the Passion. The One who is about to die is the One who just raised the dead. The One who will be placed in a tomb on Friday is the One who just commanded a tomb to open on Saturday. The One who will be wrapped in burial cloths is the One who just said “loose him and let him go.”
The raising of Lazarus is the preview of the preview. On Day 33, the ruler’s daughter was the first preview. Today Lazarus is the second. And the final fulfilment is Pascha morning. When the tomb is empty. When the graveclothes are folded. When the stone is rolled away. And when the voice that said “Lazarus, come forth” is heard saying: “I am the resurrection and the life.”
The fast has been forty-one days of walking toward this moment. Every day of stripping, confessing, fasting, praying, stretching withered hands, climbing sycamore trees, walking toward pools in the dark, being shaped on the potter’s wheel has been preparation for what is ahead. The Cross. The tomb. And the empty tomb.
Lazarus Saturday says: do not be afraid of the Cross. The One who walks toward it has just opened a four-day-old grave. Death cannot hold Him. Death cannot hold Lazarus. And death cannot hold you.
For Our Journey Today
Roll away your stone. Christ asked the people to move the stone before He performed the miracle. What is the stone in our life that needs to be moved? Not the miracle. That is Christ’s work. The stone. The practical obstacle. The thing we can do that will create the space for Christ to do what only He can do. Roll it away. Even if there is a stench behind it. Even if four days of decay are waiting. Roll the stone. Christ will do the rest.
Hear your name. Christ did not shout into the void. He called Lazarus by name. Today, listen for your name. In the Scripture. In the prayer. In the silence between the words. Christ is calling us out of whatever tomb we have been lying in. Not “hey, you.” Our names. The specific, personal, irreplaceable name that only the One who made us knows fully. He is calling it. Today. In the middle of the Lenten fast. On the threshold of the Passion. Come forth.
Unwrap the graveclothes. If someone in our community has been raised by Christ during this fast, help them shed the old life. Do not leave them wrapped in the grave’s uniform. The resurrection is Christ’s work. The unwrapping is ours. The word of encouragement. The practical help. The patient friendship that says: you are alive now. Let me help you remove what death put on you. Loose them. Let them go.
Lord Jesus Christ, who stood at the tomb of Your friend and wept, and then shouted with a voice that the dead could hear, stand at our tombs today. We have tombs. Places inside us where things have been dead for days. For years. For decades. Things we have sealed with stones and covered with grief and accepted as permanent. You wept at Lazarus’s tomb. Weep at ours. Your tears are not weakness. They are the sound love makes before it acts. And then shout. Call us by name. The specific name You gave us before the foundation of the world. The name no one else knows. Shout it into the grave where the dead thing is lying and command it to come out. And when it comes out, wrapped in the old cloths, the old patterns, the old fears, send Your Church to unwrap us. To loose us. To let us go. Because the resurrection is Your work. But the unwrapping is theirs. And we need both. Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world. And I believe that even now, whatever You ask of God, God will give You. Even now. After four days. After four decades. Even now. By the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, the holy Evangelist John, Martha and Mary of Bethany, and all the saints, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
A blessed Lazarus Saturday. The day the Church rehearses the Resurrection before experiencing the Cross. A man four days dead. A tomb sealed with a stone. A voice that shouts a name. And the dead man walks out. Still wrapped. Still bound. But alive. “I am the resurrection and the life.” Not a future event. A present Person. Standing at your tomb. Calling your name. Come forth.
Patristic References
- St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444). Commentary on the Gospel of John, on John 11:25–26. ↩︎
- St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306–373). Commentary on the Diatessaron and Hymns on the Nativity. ↩︎
- St. John Chrysostom (c. 349–407). Homily 63 on John, on John 11:41–44. ↩︎
- St. Macarius the Great (c. 300–391). Spiritual Homilies (Homiliae Spirituales), particularly Homilies 5, 11, and 15. ↩︎
