“Take away the stone,” he said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days.”
Why did Jesus order the stone to be taken away? He could have miraculously moved it Himself, but really didn’t need to even do that to facilitate the raising of Lazarus. A stone is no stop against the working of God. So why did Jesus order the moving of the stone? Probably to make more certain the death of Lazarus to those around and to those who would hear of this event. It would take several men to move the stone and the heat of the climate would most certainly have caused the rapidly decomposing body to have developed a noticeably strong odor which would become immediately evident to those men who moved the stone, thus verifying the death of Lazarus.
What response is Jesus looking for in Martha? Simple obedience. She had just indicated a trust in Jesus as being from God and operating with the power of God, so what is hindering her from quickly and unquestioningly obeying? Lazarus is dead; he is really dead; he is stinking dead; and she knows it! How many times have we, like Martha, relied upon our own knowledge or thoughts or (let’s call it what it is) lack of faith, and responded to the command of Jesus with, “But, Lord…”?
“four days” = Martha can only think of one reason for Jesus to order the opening of the tomb, and that is for Him to look one last time at His friend who has irrevocably died. True, Jesus has raised the dead before. He raised Jairus’s daughter (Luke 8:40-56) and the son of the widow from the town of Nain (Luke 7:11-17) but both of them had been dead just a short time and it was possible that He had raised them from a coma or from a death that had not placed its final stranglehold on the body, but not so here. Lazarus has been dead and buried for four days. Literally the Greek reads that Lazarus was “a fourth day man”. The Jews believed that the spirit of a deceased man hung around his grave seeking to re-enter the body, but finally had to give up and depart after the third day because the body had by then so decomposed that its face was no longer recognizable. Lazarus was a fourth day man; he had been dead so long that Martha could not legally bear witness that his body was indeed the body of her brother. It was inconceivable to Martha that Jesus could now raise Lazarus from the dead. She had heard the declaration of Jesus that He was the resurrection and the life (#25-26) but she certainly had not understood it or its ramifications. Jesus was about to expand her knowledge of Him, her knowledge of the unlimited power of God, and her faith.
Luke 8:52-55 Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. “Stop wailing,” Jesus said. “She is not dead but asleep.” They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat.
Luke 7:11-15 Soon afterwards, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him.
As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.” Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
How do you limit God from accomplishing what He wants in and through you? How big is God in your eyes?
God loves to do new things (Isaiah 43:18-19). How receptive are you to being used by Him to do them?
Isaiah 43:18-19 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
Notice the analogies here between the raising of Lazarus and the new life we receive when we decide to follow Christ. There are many hindrances to this new life in Christ. The stone represents a finality which seemingly cannot be overcome. We were dead in our sin and it seemed that nothing could change that. The stench represents our old life and its results. They stunk to God! The cloth which had to be removed after Lazarus was raised to life looks to our emotions and leftover baggage we retain from our previous life in sin. It takes time to remove all of them after we are saved.