There’s a detail in the story of Lazarus that usually gets skipped over in sermons or Sunday school lessons. It’s not the weeping, and it’s definitely not the shouting of “Come out.” It’s the silence.
Jesus arrived in Bethany four days after Lazarus died.
Let that sink in. In the ancient Near East, death was fast. The smell of decay set in quickly, and by day four, the body wasn’t just cold; it was changing. The tomb had been sealed with a stone. The air inside would have been thick, stale, and terrifyingly real. When the neighbors saw Jesus coming, they didn’t cheer. They murmured. “Didn’t this man heal the blind? Why couldn’t he do something for Lazarus?” ().
And Jesus? He waited. He didn’t rush to the tomb. He wept first. Then he prayed. Then he shouted.
I’ve read this passage a hundred times, and for years, I felt like the audience. I expected an instant fix. A miracle on demand. But as I’ve grown older—and honestly, as life has gotten messier—that pause in the story starts to feel less like a delay and more like an invitation.
We live in a culture that hates waiting. We want the answer before we finish asking the question. We want the healing before we’ve fully admitted we’re broken. So, here are a few questions I’ve asked myself about this story, and the answers that have stuck with me.
Why Did Jesus Stay in Bethany When He Heard Lazarus Was Sick?
When Martha and Mary sent word to Jesus that their brother was ill, the text says He “stayed where he was two more days” ().
It feels inefficient. It feels uncaring. If I knew my parent was in the hospital, would I spend two days relaxing at a friend’s house? Probably not.
I used to read that verse and feel a bit of sting. I wanted Jesus to be the guy who checked his phone, saw the urgent text, and immediately hailed a cab. I wanted efficiency.
But then I started looking at why He stayed. And the truth is, we don’t know for sure. The Bible doesn’t always hand us a theological footnote explaining every micro-decision of Jesus’s life. But context matters. This story happens right before the Passion. Jesus is heading toward Jerusalem, toward the cross. He knows what’s coming.
Maybe He stayed because He was preparing His disciples for the hardest truth of all: that God’s timing isn’t always our comfort.
I’ll be honest, I’ve struggled with this too. There are seasons in my life where I feel like God is dragging His feet. When I pray for a breakthrough—whether it’s in my marriage, my health, or my purpose—it feels like the answer is coming at a snail’s pace. I want to shake the sky and say, “Now!”
But Jesus stayed. And in that staying, He was teaching us something about presence. Sometimes God doesn’t move the mountain immediately because He is in the valley with you, tending to what’s not yet visible. The “two days” weren’t wasted time. They were the quiet, unglamorous work of preparation.
Why Did Jesus Weep If He Was Going to Raise Lazarus?
This is the one that gets me every time.
— “Jesus wept.”
Two words. The shortest verse in the English Bible, but arguably the heaviest.
If Jesus knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, why cry? Was it performative? Did he feel bad for making a scene?
No. I don’t think so.
I think He wept because death is still an enemy, even for the God who defeats it.
Think about it. When you lose someone you love, do you stop grieving just because you know there’s a hereafter? Do you stop crying because you believe in resurrection? I don’t think so. The grief is real. The loss is real. The pain of separation is real.
Jesus wept because He loved Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. He grieved with them. He didn’t stand on the hilltop looking down; He got in the dirt with them.
I remember a friend of mine losing her father last year. We knew he had cancer for months. We all “knew” what was coming, intellectually. But when the phone call came at 2:00 AM on a Tuesday in October, the reality hit like a truck. The intellectual knowledge of death didn’t spare us from the emotional shock of its presence.
Jesus wept because He refused to sanitize our sorrow. He didn’t say, “Well, he’s coming back in an hour, so let’s not get too emotional.” He met their pain where it was.
That’s a kind of presence I’m trying to learn how to offer others. Not fixing it. Just sitting in the mess with them.
How Does This Change How We View Suffering and Delay?
Here’s the thing about the tomb. Lazarus was in there for four days. That’s a long time to be sealed off from the world, breathing stale air.
We often think that if we just pray hard enough, suffer less, or be “good” enough, God will keep us out of the tomb. We want a life without death, without decay, without that heavy stone rolling across the entrance.
But Jesus let Lazarus go through it.
Why? Because the resurrection is more powerful when it comes after the full reality of death has settled in.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this as autumn settles in. The leaves are falling. The days are getting shorter. It’s a natural time for us to look at the decay in our own lives—the projects that died, the relationships that ended, the dreams that didn’t pan out. It’s a time of harvest, yes, but also of letting go.
We tend to fear that period of silence. We fear the stretch where nothing seems to be happening. Where we’re sealed in a tomb of circumstance, and despite our shouting, the stone doesn’t move.
But the story tells us that Jesus is coming to the tomb. He’s on His way. And when He gets there, He doesn’t ask us to be perfect. He doesn’t ask us to have held our breath for four days. He asks us to step back.
— “Then Jesus called out 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.”
The miracle didn’t happen in the prayer. It happened in the obedience to Jesus’s voice. Lazarus had to come out. He had to untangle himself from the burial clothes.
This is where it gets practical, and a bit scary for me. We often pray, “Lord, take this burden off me.” But sometimes, God’s answer is, “Stay in it. Let me meet you here. And when I say come out, you take the first step.”
It’s not passive faith. It’s active trust.
What Does This Mean for the “New Beginnings” of Autumn?
Autumn is often sold to us as a time for cozy sweaters, pumpkin spice, and reflection. But spiritually? It’s a period of transition. The new school year has started. New routines have set in. The summer energy is fading, replaced by the crisp, harder air of fall.
We’re all in our own tombs right now, aren’t we? Maybe it’s a career that feels dead. A health issue that’s sealed off parts of our lives. A stretch of grief we haven’t fully processed yet.
The story of Lazarus isn’t just about the dramatic shout at the end. It’s about those days in between.
It’s about trusting that Jesus is aware of your sealed life. He knows you’re in the shadows. He knows it smells bad in there. And He’s coming.
But here’s the twist that I still wrestle with: The stone has to be removed before He can say, “Come out.”
— “‘Take away the stone,’ said Jesus. … ‘Lord, by now he smells bad, because he has been there four days.’”
Martha knew the reality. The smell was real. The decay was undeniable. And yet, she still moved the stone.
That’s the practice for us this season. We don’t have to pretend it doesn’t smell like decay in our lives. We don’t have to fake enthusiasm or pretend the stone isn’t there. But we move it. Not because we’re sure Lazarus is going to walk out (well, we are sure, but the point is, we move it).
We take off the burial clothes ourselves. We stop letting our past failures, our current pain, or our old identities wrap us up in strips of linen. We let the life that’s still in us—however small, however hidden—start to breathe again.
I look at my own life, and I see a lot of linen wraps. Habits I’ve held onto for years. Expectations that have suffocated my joy. I’m moving the stone this month. Not because it’s easy. But because He’s waiting right outside, ready to say my name.
Those days are over for Lazarus. And I think they’re ready to be over for me, too.
So here we are, in the quiet of fall, listening. Not for the shout yet, maybe. But for the presence. For the tears that show He’s with us in the mess. And then, when the voice comes—clear and loud and unmistakable—we’ll step out of the shadows.
We’ll drag our feet, maybe stumble a bit in the linen strips. But we’ll come out.
Because that’s what He does.
