No Need for Grave Clothes

Read: John 11.1-57

“’Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother (Lazarus) would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”

At the sight of Martha’s sister Mary weeping, along with the weeping of those around her, Jesus wept.

At Lazarus’ tomb, “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.’”

In “The Gospel of John: When Love Comes to Town,” Dr. Paul Louis Metzger writes: “Have you been victimized in life by death? Are you like Martha who wants a miracle to occur – but on her own terms? Martha wishes Jesus would have come before her brother had died and healed him in his sick bed…But as Jesus said to Martha, so He says to you, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ I’m not saying Jesus will raise you or your loved one from the grave just now, but that He’ll raise you spiritually from the dead and give you new life in the face of victimization. That’s one of the greatest miracles imaginable. The bodily resurrection from the dead will surely follow, when God makes all things new. But now is the time to respond to His call, as He performs the present miracle of removing the stone that seals your heart and raises your soul to new life.”

“Jesus calls to you now. Take off your grave clothes and go.”

Comment Share