What Lazarus Still Smelled Like: The Mess God Chooses to Walk Into
There is something almost uncomfortable about the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead — and that discomfort is precisely where the hope lives.
Key Scripture
“When he had said this, 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.'” John 11:43–44
Reflection
Four days. The Gospel writer does not include that detail by accident. In the first-century Jewish world, four days in a tomb meant one thing: it was finished. There was a common belief that the soul hovered near the body for three days, holding out some hope of return. By day four, even that fragile hope had departed. Martha knew it. She said plainly, “Lord, by this time there is a bad odour, for he has been there four days” (John 11:39). She was not being dramatic. She was being honest. Lazarus did not merely look dead — he smelled like it. And Jesus walked toward that tomb anyway.
This is the part of the story we rush past in our eagerness to get to the miracle. But do not rush. Sit with the detail that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead not from a sickbed, not from the roadside, not from the moment of passing — but from the stench of four days’ decay. God is not deterred by how far gone something appears. He is not put off by the smell of your situation. Whatever you have mentally buried, grieved over, and marked as finished — Jesus is already walking toward it.
It is also worth noting that Jesus delayed deliberately. He received word that Lazarus was ill, and He stayed where He was two more days (John 11:6). This was not distraction, not indifference, and certainly not neglect. It was a calculated act of love. Jesus told His disciples plainly: “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). A healing would have been wonderful. A resurrection was something else entirely. The delay was not the absence of God’s power — it was the preparation for a greater display of it. Sometimes what feels like God’s silence is actually God’s staging.
Perhaps you are reading this carrying something that has long since passed the “sick room” stage in your heart. A marriage that feels entombed. A prodigal child you have quietly stopped expecting to return. A dream you wrapped in grave clothes and mourned. A version of yourself you believe is simply gone. The story of Lazarus is not a gentle nudge toward optimism — it is a thunderous declaration that Jesus specialises in tombs, not just sick rooms. He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), and that title does not become void when things smell like they are over. The very situations we present to God with an apologetic “Lord, by this time…” are the ones He walks toward without flinching.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, You are the resurrection and the life, and I confess that I have sometimes buried things in my heart that I no longer brought to You — because they felt too far gone, too long dead, too embarrassing to present. Forgive me for deciding what You can and cannot do. You walked into a four-day tomb without hesitation, and You can walk into every corner of my life I have sealed off. I give You the situations I have quietly grieved. I give You the hopes I have stopped voicing. Speak into those places, Lord. Call them out. Strip away the grave clothes. I trust that Your delays are not denials, and that Your silence is not absence. Have Your way in me, for Your glory. Amen.
Today’s Action Step
Identify one situation in your life you have mentally marked as “too far gone” — and bring it back to Jesus in prayer today. Write it down, speak it aloud to Him, and ask Him to do what only a resurrection God can do. You are not being naïve; you are being obedient to a God who specialises in tombs.