And now every trait is in accord. Where have ye laid him?' So truly human - as if He, Who was about to raise the dead, needed the information where he had been laid; so truly human, also, in the underlying tenderness of the personal address, and in the absorption of the whole Theanthropic energy on the mighty burden about to be lifted and lifted away. So, also, as they bade Him come and see, were the tears that fell from Him (dkrusen), not like the violent lamentation (klausen) that burst from Him at sight and prophetic view of doomed Jerusalem. [4866] Yet we can scarcely think that the Jews rightly interpreted it, when they ascribed it only to His love for Lazarus. But surely there was not a touch either of malevolence or of irony, only what we feel to be quite natural in the circumstances, when some of them asked it aloud: Could not this One, Which opened the eyes of the blind, have wrought so that [in order] this one also should not die?' Scarcely was it even unbelief. They had so lately witnessed in Jerusalem that Miracle, such as had not been heard' since the world began;' [4867] that it seemed difficult to understand how, seeing there was the will (in His affection for Lazarus), there was not the power - not to raise him from the dead, for that did not occur to them, but to prevent his dying. Was there, then, a barrier in death? And it was this, and not indignation, which once more caused that Theanthropic recurrence upon Himself, when again He vehemently moved His Spirit.'
And now they were at the cave which was Lazarus' tomb. He bade them roll aside the great stone which covered its entrance. [4868] Amidst the awful pause which preceded obedience, one voice only was raised. It was that of Martha. Jesus had not spoken of raising Lazarus. But what was about to be done? She could scarcely have thought that He merely wished to gaze once more upon the face of the dead. Something nameless had seized her. She dared not believe; she dared not disbelieve. Did she, perhaps, not dread a failure, but feel misgivings, when thinking of Christ as in presence of commencing corruption before these Jews - and yet, as we so often, still love Him even in unbelief? It was the common Jewish idea that corruption commenced on the fourth day, that the drop of gall, which had fallen from the sword of the Angel and caused death, was then working its effect, and that, as the face changed, the soul took its final leave from the resting-place of the body. [4869] Only one sentence Jesus spake of gentle reproof, of reminder of what He had said to her just before, and of the message He had sent when first He heard of Lazarus' illness, [4870] but, oh so full of calm majesty and consciousness of Divine strength. And now the stone was rolled away. We all feel that the fitting thing here was prayer - yet not petition, but thanksgiving that the Father heard' Him, not as regarded the raising of Lazarus, which was His Own Work, but in the ordering and arranging of all the circumstances - alike the petition and the thanksgiving having for their object them that stood by, for He knew that the Father always heard Him: that so they might believe, that the Father had sent Him. Sent of the Father - not come of Himself, not sent of Satan - and sent to do His Will!
And in doing this Will, He was the Resurrection and the Life. One loud command spoken into that silence; one loud call to that sleeper; one flash of God's Own Light into that darkness, and the wheels of life again moved at the outgoing of The Life. And, still bound hand and foot with graveclothes [bands,' Takhrikhin], and his face with the napkin, Lazarus stood forth, shuddering and silent, in the cold light of earth's day. In that multitude, now more pale and shuddering than the man bound in the graveclothes, the Only One majestically calm was He, Who before had been so deeply moved and troubled Himself, as He now bade them Loose him, and let him go.'