Lazarus, Come Out

So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that You sent Me.” When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what He did, believed in Him, but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this Man performs many signs. If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they made plans to put Him to death.

Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and there He stayed with the disciples.

John 11:41-54

Have we considered the power of God’s voice? In the beginning, God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. What the Creator did on the first day becomes the pattern for the remainder of the week: God simply speaks, and by the power of His word creates the heavens and the earth. Much later David exclaims, “The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty” (Psalm 29:4). All of Scripture testifies to this truth, but few stories compare to the day when Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “LAZARUS, COME OUT!”—and the dead man came out (John 11:43). Our Lord Jesus raised Lazarus from real, physical death. He had been in the tomb long enough for his sister to worry about the smell (John 11:39). His heart had stopped beating. His blood had stopped pumping. His skin had grown cold. But then the words, “Lazarus, come out,” and everything changed. A heartbeat…a rising chest…blood began to flow…color returned…and Lazarus came out of the grave. He was still wearing the clothes that signified death, but not for long. Soon, he would see with his own eyes the One who raised him up. Soon they would share a meal together (John 12:1-2). Lazarus knew uniquely that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25-26), and his story invites us to consider the power of God’s voice in our own lives.

Lazarus was physically dead, but God had other plans for His glory (John 11:4). The Bible says that we are spiritually dead in our sins, but God makes us alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:1-5, Colossians 2:13). By grace we have been saved through faith (Ephesians 2:8). So every one of us who has been brought from death to life has experienced the death-defying power of Jesus Christ. There was a day—or a season—in which we heard Him cry with a loud voice, “COME OUT!” and we couldn’t help but respond to His irresistible grace. We came out of death into life, out of sin into holiness, out of despair into hope, and out of loneliness into love. We may still be wearing some of the clothes that signify death, but Jesus gives the command to unbind us and let us go. He replaces our grave clothes with His own robe of righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). Have we ever imagined what life was like for Lazarus in the days and weeks after Jesus raised him up? Truly, he was a dead man walking for all the world to see! Do we realize that in Christ our own story is no less staggering? God “raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6). We are men and women, once dead, now alive in Jesus Christ. “The voice of the LORD is powerful.” Have we heard it? Do we hear it today? How is the Lord calling us to come out of death and walk in the power of His resurrection life?