Lazarus, Come Out

Fifth Sunday of Lent (Year A) March 22, 2026

Readings: Ezekiel 37:12-14 | Psalm 130 | Romans 8:8-11 | John 11:1-45

Lazarus is dead. Four days in the tomb. The stone is rolled across the entrance. The mourners have gathered. It's over.

Martha meets Jesus on the road and says what we've all said in our darkest moments: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

If only You'd come sooner. If only You'd been paying attention. If only You cared enough to show up when it mattered.

And Jesus—knowing exactly what He's about to do—says something that changes everything:

"I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."

Then He asks the most important question in the Gospel:

"Do you believe this?"

Before we get to the miracle, stay with that question for a moment. Because your answer to it determines everything.

Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Not as a theological concept. Not as a nice idea for funerals. But right now, in the middle of whatever feels dead in your life—do you believe He has the power to bring it back to life?

Maybe it's a relationship that's broken beyond repair. Maybe it's a faith that went cold years ago. Maybe it's hope itself—buried under disappointment and cynicism, four days in the tomb, starting to stink.

Martha believed. Even through her grief, even through her confusion about why Jesus hadn't come sooner, she said: "Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world."

That's faith. Not the absence of doubt or grief. But a decision to trust Jesus even when the situation looks absolutely hopeless.

Two words in this Gospel wreck me every time.

"Jesus wept."

He already knows He's about to raise Lazarus. He knows the end of the story. And yet, standing in front of the tomb, seeing Mary weeping, seeing the mourners weeping—He weeps.

God weeps with you.

He's not distant. He's not indifferent. He's not watching your suffering from far away, calculating the right moment to intervene.

He enters into it. He feels it. He grieves with those who grieve.

This matters for your own faith, and it matters for evangelization. Because the people you're called to reach aren't looking for someone who has all the answers. They're looking for someone who understands their pain.

And Jesus does. Fully. Completely. With tears.

When you've experienced the compassion of Christ in your own suffering—when you know what it's like to have Him weep with you—you carry something that no argument or apologetic can replace. You carry the witness of someone who has been in the tomb and been called out of it.

Ezekiel's prophecy in the first reading is stunning: "O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them...I will put my spirit in you that you may live."

God specializes in opening graves. In breathing life into what's dead. In doing the thing that everyone else has given up on.

The Israelites in exile thought it was over. Their nation was destroyed. Their temple was in ruins. They were as good as dead.

And God says: I will open your graves. I will put my spirit in you. You will live.

That's the same promise He makes to you.

Whatever is dead—He can raise it. Whatever is buried—He can call it out. Whatever feels hopeless—He is the resurrection and the life.

Paul says in the second reading: "If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you."

The same Spirit. The same power. The one who raised Christ from the dead dwells in you.

You are not powerless. You are not hopeless. You carry resurrection power.

Now watch what Jesus does at the tomb.

He says: "Take away the stone."

Martha protests: "Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days."

She's not wrong. It's been four days. Decomposition has set in. Opening that tomb means confronting the full reality of death—the ugliness, the smell, the finality of it.

But Jesus says: take it away.

There's something in your life that Jesus is asking you to unseal. A wound you've covered over. A sin you've buried. A grief you've sealed behind a stone because it's too painful to face.

And Jesus is saying: Take away the stone. Let me in. Yes, it will be uncomfortable. Yes, it might stink. But I can't raise what you won't let me reach.

Lent is the season for rolling away stones. For opening up the sealed places and letting Jesus speak life into them.

Then Jesus prays. And then He cries out in a loud voice: "Lazarus, come out!"

And the dead man comes out. Still bound in burial cloths, still wrapped up—but alive.

Then Jesus says something that's easy to miss: "Untie him and let him go."

Jesus raises Lazarus. But He asks the community to unbind him.

There's a role for you here. There are people around you who have been raised by Christ—who have encountered Him, who have new life stirring in them—but they're still bound. Still wrapped in the old grave clothes of shame, of addiction, of isolation, of fear.

And Jesus is asking you to help untie them.

Not to save them—that's His job. But to walk alongside them. To help them shed the old bindings. To welcome them into the community of the living.

That's evangelization at its deepest: helping people who've been touched by Christ become fully free.

The story ends with this: "Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him."

They saw what Jesus did. And they believed.

Your life—your coming-out-of-the-tomb story—is the same kind of witness. When people see what Jesus has done in you, when they watch Him bring dead things back to life in your marriage, your sobriety, your hope, your joy—they believe.

Not because of your arguments. Because of your resurrection.

Reflect

• What feels dead in your life right now? Do you believe Jesus has the power to raise it?
• Is there a stone you need to roll away this Lent—a wound, a sin, a grief you've sealed off from Jesus?
• Have you experienced Jesus weeping with you in your suffering? How does that change the way you walk with others in theirs?
• Who in your life is still bound in grave clothes, even though Christ has already begun to give them new life? How can you help "untie them"?

Pray

Lord Jesus, You are the resurrection and the life. I believe it—even when my life looks like a sealed tomb, even when hope feels four days dead. Roll away my stones this Lent. Speak my name the way You spoke Lazarus's. Call me out of the darkness and into the light. And then use me to unbind others—to help the people around me step fully into the new life You're offering them. You wept at the tomb. You weep with me now. And You have the power to raise the dead. I trust You. Amen.

Next week is Palm Sunday, and the journey to the Cross begins.

But today, hear the voice of Jesus echoing at every tomb, every sealed-off place, every dead end:

"Come out."

He's not finished with you. He's not finished with the people you love.

The one who raises the dead is calling your name.