Can these Bones Live?

Can these Bones Live?  - John 11:1–45 & Romans 8:6–11 & Ezekiel 37:1-14 

In this week where we have just passed the Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere, our Gospel reading from the Gospel of John the raising of Lazarus  interestingly, symbolically reflects themes related to the season of Spring… new life where before the darkness of winter had seemingly prevailed. 

As we have seen in recent weeks, John’s stories tend to be much longer and more involved than the shorter stories of Matthew, Mark and Luke. And so he story unfolds slowly and dramatically. Jesus receives word that his friend Lazarus is ill, yet he delays his journey. By the time he arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days. Martha and Mary come out to meet him with words that echo the grief many people have felt: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Even the names in this story invite us to look a little deeper. The name Lazarus comes from the Hebrew Eleazar, which means “God has helped.” And the village of Bethany is often understood to mean “house of the poor” or “house of affliction.”

If John’s Gospel is speaking symbolically, as it so often does, then already the story is hinting at something deeper. In the house of affliction, in the place where human vulnerability and suffering are most visible, we meet the one whose name means “God has helped.”

Jesus is deeply moved when he encounters the grief of Mary and Martha and the sorrow of the crowd. In the shortest verse in the Bible we read simply: “Jesus wept.”

These two words reveal something profound about the heart of Christ. His heart is moved wherever he sees humanity bound in the tombs of suffering, wherever people are wrapped in the grave cloths of grief, fear, injustice, or despair. The tears of Jesus remind us that divine compassion is not distant or detached. It enters fully into the sorrow of the human condition.

Then Jesus walks to the tomb and asks that the stone be rolled away. Standing before the grave, he cries out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus emerges, still wrapped in the grave cloths. Jesus then says to those standing nearby, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

It is a story that has stirred faith and imagination for centuries.

Yet many thoughtful readers naturally find themselves asking a question: Did this literally happen? Did Jesus physically raise a man who had been dead for four days? Or might this story be meant to point beyond itself, to convey a deeper spiritual truth?

It is an honest question, and it is worth asking.

One thing we notice when reading the Gospel of John is that it often speaks in a deliberately symbolic way. Again and again people misunderstand Jesus because they take his words too literally.

When Jesus tells Nicodemus that one must be born again, Nicodemus imagines a literal second birth. When Jesus tells the woman at the well about living water, she imagines a magical water that would remove the need to draw from the well ever again.

In both cases Jesus gently leads them away from literalism toward a deeper meaning.

And the stories in John’s Gospel often work in the same way. They carry layers of symbolic significance.

Some readers have also noticed that if the raising of Lazarus were simply a historical miracle, it seems curious that it does not appear in the other Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Mark, or the Gospel of Luke. One might expect such a dramatic event to appear in all the early accounts.

This has led some scholars to wonder whether Lazarus in John’s Gospel may function symbolically.

If that is the case, the question becomes fascinating: what, or who, might Lazarus represent?

Some have noticed a possible connection with a story in the Gospel of Luke: the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. In that parable, Lazarus represents the poor of the world, the forgotten ones lying outside the gates of wealth and comfort.

Seen in that light, the setting of Bethany, the house of the poor, becomes even more suggestive. The story may be pointing us toward those places in the world where suffering and exclusion are most visible. In such places the voice of Christ calls life out of what the world has written off as hopeless.

But the symbolism may reach even further than that.

Perhaps Lazarus represents all those who feel entombed in some way.

People who feel trapped by fear, addiction, grief, anger, resentment, or despair. People whose lives feel stuck, whose spirits feel numb, whose sense of purpose has faded.

And sometimes this can include people who appear outwardly successful. Even wealth or status cannot answer the deeper question of meaning. Anxiety about preserving what we have can itself become a kind of tomb.

In that sense Lazarus may represent the human condition itself, the way we can become bound up and confined in ways that slowly drain the life out of us.

The Hebrew Scriptures often speak about this kind of spiritual death using vivid imagery. One of the most powerful examples is the vision of the valley of dry bones in the Book of Ezekiel, described in Ezekiel 37.

In that vision the prophet sees a valley filled with dry bones, lifeless, scattered bones. When the breath of God moves over them, they come together and rise into living beings again.

No one imagines this was meant to describe a literal resurrection of skeletons. It is a symbolic vision of a people who felt spiritually dead being restored to life by the Spirit of God.

And this brings us to today’s lectionary reading from the Epistle to the Romans.

In Romans 8, the apostle Paul the speaks about death and life in a way that clearly points beyond physical death. He writes:

“To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

Paul is not talking here about people physically dying and rising again. He is speaking about a spiritual condition that exists even in the present moment.  

A life dominated by fear, ego, anxiety, or self-absorption can feel like a kind of death. But when the Spirit awakens within us, something new begins to emerge, life, freedom, peace.

Paul even says that the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is already dwelling within believers, giving life here and now, giving life to our mortal bodies through the divine breath breathed into us.

Seen in that light, the story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John begins to look very much like a story-shaped illustration of the same spiritual truth Paul describes.

Lazarus lies bound in the tomb.

Then the voice of Christ calls him out into life.

But notice something very important in the story: the community around Lazarus has a role to play.

Jesus tells them, “Take away the stone.”

They must roll back the barrier that seals the tomb.

And when Lazarus emerges, Jesus tells them again: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

The people gathered there become participants in the miracle. They help remove the things that bind Lazarus to death.

Seen symbolically, this becomes a powerful picture of spiritual awakening, not just for individuals but for communities.

The voice of Christ calls people out of the tombs in which they have become trapped. But others help remove the stones. Others help loosen the grave cloths.

Communities of compassion, understanding, and support help people rediscover life.

And perhaps that is why the tears of Jesus matter so much in this story. They reveal a love that refuses to walk past human suffering. Wherever humanity is trapped in tombs of despair or wrapped in the grave cloths of fear, the heart of Christ is moved with compassion.

Perhaps that is what the Spirit of God is always doing, calling life out of death, hope out of despair, freedom out of whatever binds us.

The voice that called Lazarus from the tomb still speaks today.

It speaks into the quiet tombs we inhabit: fear, regret, bitterness, exhaustion, the loss of meaning.

And it calls gently but firmly:

Come out.

And then the community hears another command:

“Unbind him, and let him go.”

Amen.