Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days.
What is this tomb space like? A time of total darkness, nothingness, a cessation of movement or even breathing. And Lazarus is wrapped with cloths around every part of his body. We have no context to understand, in a literal sense, this in-between space in which a person is dead but waiting to be brought back to life.
But perhaps we can understand something of it in other senses. Maybe you have felt immobilised by grief; trapped in a situation which feels suffocating and from which you cannot escape? It may be that you have experienced the tomb of depression when everything around you seems utterly dark and you cannot see. Maybe you find yourself in a tomb in your own life right now; alive but not free, not able
to breathe and move and engage with others, locked away in your own pain.
Lazarus can do nothing for himself in this moment. But Jesus, who loves him, is the one who gives the order for the stone to be rolled away. What was that experience like for Lazarus as the light and air began to pour into the tomb? Perhaps there is a sense of awakening or maybe there is only confusion.
Lazarus is called out of the tomb by the voice of one who loves him. He must choose to trust that familiar voice, to respond, and to step out of the tomb. It is not always easy to step out of a tomb. Sometimes the enclosed dark space has, in a strange way, started to feel safer than the risk of choosing life again.
Once he emerges from the tomb, Lazarus needs the help of others again. He is still bound by the cloths around his body, and unable to move freely. His eyes will need to adjust to the light. He needs to allow others to unwrap the cloths which bind him. There is a process here of acclimatising to being alive and outside the tomb again. For us, too, this process of being brought back to life and
freedom is often a process. It demands that we listen to the voice of Jesus and come out as has the stone rolled away. We must also allow others to unbind us so that we can become more and more free.
Talk with Jesus about your own tomb experiences – perhaps in the past – perhaps now.
How can you choose to hear the voice that calls you out of the tomb?
Can we trust that, even when we have been in the tomb for a long time, when we cannot free ourselves, Jesus, with the help of others, is able to call us back into life?
