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Lazarus and His Smelly Tomb

Dr. Larry Thorson
August 19, 2007

John 11:17-25; 38-44

17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

21 "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

24 Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die;

38 Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. 39 "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."

40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?"

41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 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." ." 43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44 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."

Ok, here’s the situation in our story. We’ve got a smelly tomb with the dead body of a close friend of Jesus. At this point it’s not so much that Lazarus has a smelly tomb as much as it is that when he originally got sick and his sisters called for Jesus to come heal him, it appears as if Jesus delayed coming and now the man is dead.

I thought it was an unspoken rule among good friends that when they need you, you drop whatever you’re doing to help them. So what happened here? Why didn’t Jesus come right away because John gives us no indication there is any urgency in what he was doing? Yet he stayed two more days after he heard that Lazarus was sick.

So after waiting two days Jesus traveled to Bethany and the first person to greet him was Lazarus’ sister Martha who greets him with these words, “If you had been here, Lazarus would not have died” (11:21), which are the same words Mary will use to welcome Jesus a few verses later (11:32). Wow, what an accusation or affirmation of faith.

“What if”. Have you ever played that game? What if my 51 year old uncle hadn’t come home from work one day and collapsed dead with a heart attack when I was four? Would my parents have ever started going to church if that hadn’t happened? Would I have ever heard or cared about Jesus Christ without that upbringing? Would I be standing here today if that heart attack hadn’t happened? Would his daughter who at 16 found her father lying dead in the bathroom not have the spiritual bitterness she has today?

But Jesus doesn’t play the “What if” game – he goes straight to the future. “Your brother will rise again” (11:23). On the night of my 30^th birthday I received a call from one of my church members that her 30 year old daughter-in-law had died. I sat with the family including her husband whose wedding I had officiated just a few years earlier. We sat all night waiting for her seven year old daughter to wake up so we could break the news to her of her mother. What I didn’t say to that daughter was “Your mother will rise again” because at that age she may have believed me literarily. When we get to be adults it’s harder to believe in the supernatural.

His sister Martha expressed what most Orthodox Jews believed at that time, “I know that he will rise again at the last day” (11:24). That’s what most of us would probably say.

I like how the King James Version Bible puts it: “Lord, by this time he stinketh”. Her concern here is significant. The Jewish people of Jesus’ day believed the spirit of the deceased hovered around the body for three days, seeking entrance into the body. But on the fourth day when decomposition sets in, when things start to “stinketh” they believed that the spirit leaves the body. In other words, the fourth day represents the absolute finality of death.

Death brings decomposition. It’s the opposite of what happens when we’re born. Instead of being composed, we’re being decomposed or taken apart.

My wife has gotten into making mulch. She recently took a seminar on using compost bins. There are huge amounts of garbage which can be put in this compost bin. As much as she was dumping in it I thought it would never work because it would overflow within weeks. I was wrong. Instead each the pile gets smaller as it turns into mulch. That’s decomposition. It’s the opposite of growth.

When we sin that act kills something within us because the Spirit of God can’t live alongside unconfessed sin. God’s Spirit hovers around for only God knows how long trying to reenter us until the decomposition of our soul starts to smell. Our soul becomes a smelly empty tomb where Christ once lived.

If you listen to me for enough weeks you know that I don’t like to talk about sin. I always figure that’s the Baptists’ job to talk about sin. We’re about forgiveness and grace. But don’t fool yourself. We Presbyterians are just as good as any Baptist in stinkin’ up the place.

The sin that I see good, clean church going folks commit the most is gossip; speaking negatively about someone else behind their back. “What’s wrong with him, if he’d come when we asked him, my brother wouldn’t have died.” The second sin I see over and over is a lack of forgiveness toward someone who has wronged us. We get away with it because we put a big, happy smile on our face and pretend that everything is fine. What’s really happening inside is that we’re killing off the spirit within us leaving an ugly smelly tomb. When it gets bad enough you don’t want to come to church for fear someone will smell the rot.

That’s when we need a resurrection of our soul. But we can’t resurrect our souls anymore than Lazarus could raise his smelly dead body out of that tomb. What happened to Lazarus has to happen for us.

40 Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?" 41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 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." 43 When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" 44 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."

First, Jesus never asked Lazarus to move the heavy tomb. Jesus asked his healthy followers to do it for him. You can’t resurrect yourself alone, that’s why God puts us together with other people.

Second, Jesus made one command of Lazarus “Lazarus, come out!” Lazarus didn’t lay there in his stink. He didn’t contemplate in his mind how embarrassing this might be to be seen in grave clothes and smelling like a dead rat. He didn’t say “I like being dead, leave me alone where I am.” What we read is that the “dead man came out”.

That’s very similar to how our soul gets new life in it. We’re spiritually dead, the spirit has left us, and Jesus calls us to come out from that sin. You can be so mad at God for not coming when you asked and stay right there in that smelly tomb. You can be so afraid that you’re going to fall when you leave that tomb and stay right there. But all that is going happen if you do that is the decomposition of your soul.

What I think Jesus was trying to tell us in this story is that he comes to give us life not take life away from us. In v.10 he says “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

The Poisonwood Bible is a 1998 best-selling novel which chronicles the story of a zealous missionary named Nathan Price, who, with his wife and four daughters, moves in 1959 from Georgia to the Congo to bring souls to Christ. Price was blind to the surrounding realities of the Congolese culture. He never bothered to learn the intricacies of their language. “Tata Jesus is Bangala” he shouted during his sermons. It never occurred to him that in the Congolese language everything hinges on intonation. Bangala can mean something precious and everlasting, but it also means poisonwood–a virulent local plant–when spoken in the flat accent of an American zealot. What he meant to say was that “Jesus is eternal life” but instead, what he actually said was, “Jesus is poisonwood.” Nathan Price spends his whole life believing he is proclaiming eternal life when, in fact, the people hear him say poisonwood.

Maybe that’s why people stay away from the church. They think Jesus is out to give them a hard time or spoil their fun rather than give them life. They think of Jesus, to use C. S. Lewis’s words, as some cosmic killjoy who wants to make sure no one is having a good time. This, of course, is terribly false. In reality, the devil is the great cosmic killjoy. Jesus wants to give us life: eternal life, abundant life, real life!

So the question today from Lazarus’ smelly tomb is this; is God calling you to repent of some sin today? Be honest. Have you gossiped about someone lately? Perhaps you need to be reconciled with someone. Have you held back your gifts to the Lord? I can’t go through all the lists of sins, you know we wouldn’t be out of here before bedtime. But you know what it is that separates you from God. Jesus is calling you to “Come out, now”.