“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 had 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 clothes and let him go.”” John 11:41-44
With the stone rolled away, Jesus prays aloud—not for His own sake, but so those watching might believe. Then, with a loud voice, He commands: “Lazarus, come out!” And the man who had been dead walked out, still wrapped in burial clothes.
Jesus didn’t enter the tomb. He spoke life into it. His voice called Lazarus from death into life. It wasn’t a struggle. It wasn’t a battle. It was authority. The grave could not resist Him.
Yet Lazarus still came out bound—alive, but wrapped in what once held him. Jesus tells the people, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” Resurrection may be instant, but freedom is often a process.
“Well, just as long as we think this weird looking bandage affair is a real Christian, we will never do anything about it. And there are those who write books and even write songs in defense of the wrapped-up Lazarus. Lazarus, he’s alive, isn’t he? Praise the Lord. And in the judgment day or the day of Christ’s coming, we’ll all get unwrapped. No, sir, Jesus said unwrap him now, unwrap him now. Loose him, let him go now.” A.W. Tozer, from his sermon “Whatsoever He Shall Doeth Shall Prosper II”
Something to prayerfully consider: Are there “grave clothes” in my life—old patterns or fears—I need to let Jesus remove?
