Lazarus, Come Out!

Five Reflections on the Tomb and the Closet

Photo by Valentin Lacoste on Unsplash

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go” (John 11:38-44 NRSVUE).

The Tomb

Up to this point in the Gospel of John, Jesus has already performed miracles (turned water to wine, fed five the five thousand, walked on water, and healed several people) and spoken about his unique authority through a series of “I am” statements (the “Bread of Life,” the “Light of the World,” the “Good Shepherd,” the “Resurrection and the Life”). So it is jolting—and humanizing—that the tomb provokes such a strong emotional response in Jesus. He weeps and is “greatly disturbed”. One of my friends called it “a deep, agonizing wail.”¹ His beloved Lazarus is dead; he is grief-stricken.

The tears of Jesus give us permission to be “greatly disturbed” by our own encounters with death, which flies in the face of much conventional wisdom about death as a natural and necessary part of life. We are reminded here of what all of us know intuitively: the wrongness, the unnaturalness, of death. Our discomfort with it is not merely due to our naive optimism or rose-colored glasses; it is in tune with reality. Lazarus, and all the loved ones whom we have lost over the years, should still be alive. There should be no graves, no tombs. Death is not as it should be.

And death not only appear to us at the end of our lives, but in devastatingly various forms throughout the length of our lives as well: the end of a season of life, of a relationship, of a community, of a dream—all “little deaths” that haunt us. And it is in this respect we can think of the closet as a representation of death: all the small deceptions it requires, all the words of vulnerability it demands to be swallowed rather than spoken, the fear and shame that casts out love and intimacy. The closet is a “little tomb” that should not exist. This, too, is not as it should be.

“Take Away the Stone.”

Jesus was surely able to move the stone miraculously all by himself, but chooses to involve the community, commanding them to roll the stone away. As social beings, our salvation and liberation are never purely individual, but always also communal. Lazarus will not be brought back from the dead to an individual life separate from the mourners assembled at the tomb, but to a life as a member of a community, and so Jesus involves that community in making way for his emergence from the tomb. 

Martha expresses the hesitation of many when she mentions the possibility of a “stench”. The body of Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days, and would have been far along in the process of decomposition. Martha fears what has become of it, and doubts anything good will emerge when the stone is rolled away. But Jesus dismisses this objection, reminding her of his earlier promise: “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

Even as we are haunted both by our mortality and all our “little deaths,” we are also encouraged by a glorious future resurrection and various “little resuscitations,” moments when we experience new life from the unlikeliest of places: a new season of life, a friendship, community, or dream renewed. If the closet is a “little tomb,” then Jesus’ invitation for the community to “take the stone away” represents an invitation for our communities to participate in his miraculous work, removing any obstacles that stand in the way of those in the closet coming out.

In response to this invitation our communities may, like Martha, fear an unpleasant “stench”: disgrace, a blow to reputation, all the painful and necessary adjustments. But Jesus might dismiss this objection as well and tell us, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” Jesus invites us to see the “glory of God” emerge from the unlikeliest of places: the closet.

“Lazarus, Come Out!”

The next command Jesus gives is for Lazarus: come out! But something else is implied alongside it: the power and authority of Jesus over death. With the great stone rolled away, Jesus stands before the open tomb and demands that Lazarus be released, knowing that death must obey him. If Jesus has this power and authority over death itself, then he surely has power and authority over all our “little deaths,” and we can be certain that the closet itself must obey and release us.

“Unbind Him, and Let Him Go.”

This the “glory of God” about which Jesus was referring when he answered Martha’s concern about the “stench”: Lazarus, alive again. When Lazarus heeds the command of Jesus and emerges from the tomb, he is still bound—hands, feet, face—with grave clothes. And the third and final command Jesus gives at the site of the tomb is once again for the community, not the resuscitated one: “unbind him, and let him go!”

Lazarus is still called “the dead man” here, perhaps to emphasize that the process is not yet complete: he has emerged from the tomb, but is still wrapped in the trappings of the tomb. He is unable to free himself and needs assistance. Again, Jesus could surely have released him from the grave clothes miraculously all at once, but chooses to involve the community. Just as Jesus calls upon the community to make way for the raising of Lazarus, he also calls upon them to welcome Lazarus into life again.

Once a community has removed obstacles to people coming out, those who emerge from the closet are often still bound by closet clothes that require communal assistance to remove: guilt and shame, internalized hatred, mourning over a life that will never be, relational strife. If the closet is a “little tomb” and coming out a “little resuscitation,” then the command to the community to “unbind [Lazarus], and let him go” represents another invitation for our communities to participate in the miraculous work of Jesus: to tenderly, compassionately unbind them.

He Is Risen!

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself (John 20:1, 6-7 NRSVUE).

When readers of the Gospel of John come to the final chapter, they will likely notice a similarity between the raising of Lazarus and the resurrection of Jesus. Clearly, the former is a foreshadowing of the latter, and the latter a fulfillment of the former. This is revealed in two specific details in the latter account: first, the stone in front of the entrance to the tomb where Jesus was laid has already been rolled away before mourners arrive, and second, the grave clothes that had bound the body of Jesus are already piled within, those which bound his face neatly folded.

Both the tomb and the closet ideally contain only clothes, not people.

Though he commanded the community to assist Lazarus in taking the stone away and unbinding him, Jesus needed no assistance to free himself. Jesus rolls the stone away, rises from the dead, and removes the grave clothes on his own. Lazarus was resuscitated, raised again to a life that ended again in death, but Jesus has defeated the grave by entering into it and destroying it from the inside out. Jesus was resurrected to an eternal life, one that he promises to all those who follow him.

In a similar way, we can say Jesus has defeated all our “little deaths,” including those represented by the “little tomb” of the closet. He has entered the closet and destroyed it from the inside out, breaking down the door and leaving the clothes on the hangers. He has proven his power and authority over the closet, proven that it must obey him. In his resurrection, Jesus comes out—and enables us to do the same. Because Jesus has defeated death, we no longer have to fear it, and can be assured that one day it will be destroyed. Because Jesus has defeated the power of the closet, we can stand fearlessly against it and fight to deconstruct it, strengthened with the assurance that we are free of its power now, and one glorious day we will be free of its presence entirely.

On Good Friday, the Church proclaims a Savior who entered into the tomb, and on Easter and every Lord’s Day we proclaim a Savior who emerged victorious from it.

On Good Friday, the Church proclaims a Savior who entered into the closet, and on Easter and every Lord’s Day we proclaim a Savior who came out victoriously.

Though we followers of Christ may find ourselves in a tomb, a Holy Saturday of sorts, we can be assured that we will follow our victorious Savior as he leads us into an eternal, abundant life that will never end. The stone will be permanently rolled away, the tomb opened, the grave clothes will no longer keep us bound, and we will emerge into the light of a new, eternal day.

1. Thank you, Vic Yang, for this, and for everything you gave to so many. In the message from which this phrase was drawn, you asked, “How would you see God differently if you believed that God wailed for you? For your grief?” You encouraged us to believe that God does grieve with us, that God has grieved with us—and one day, I know that grief at our separation will give way to joyful celebration and reunion. Love you, and see you then.