John 11 By Emily Pallo
John chapter 11 is where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. This is a story I heard over and over growing up, but it never really stuck out to me. Rereading it, and really meditating on it, it struck me how much we are like Lazarus.
John 11:38-44
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said. “But Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “ by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them. “Take off the grave cloths and let him go.”
When we are in our sin, we are dead. So often, we let our sin fester, and it creates this “smell” on our lives. We keep living the way we want, knowing better, and choosing to be dead in our sin anyway. If I have a sin in my life that I haven’t confessed and given to God, I feel the effects of it in my life. I feel the stink that is coming off of me, and it affects how I interact with others. Maybe sometimes it makes people not want to be around me because of the “smell.”
Lazarus was dead for four days before Jesus went to his tomb. Jesus waited until his body had started to decompose, to show that there was nothing that God couldn’t bring back.
When we accept Christ, we get to come out of the tomb. We get to take off our grave clothes and go. The stink of our sin disappears under the cross. We get to confess our sin, give it over to the Lord, and have the burden and the smell of our life go away. There is nothing that Christ cannot redeem us from, and there is nothing we can do that washes away what he did for us on the cross. Lazarus was dead, just like we are dead in our sin, and we get to come out of our graves the same way he came out of his physical grave.