Because that was what the still-present shroud signifies: Lazarus has been raised but not resurrected. He's been given a new lease on his old life; he hasn't been ushered yet into the life of heaven. What happened to him when Jesus called him from the grave is marvelous but is at most a foretaste or symbol of the rich, endless new life that Jesus promised. Lazarus is raised to live on earth again, with a death still in his future, and with the life of heaven still a promise.
Makes you want to run to the ringing promises of Isaiah: "And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples ... he will swallow up death forever" (Isaiah 25:7). That's more like it! Get rid of that shroud! Destroy death forever! That's what we should be hearing on All Saints' Day: a celebration of the Resurrection Life for God's saints, especially for those who have died. We want to hear that their grave-clothes and shrouds are replaced by festal robes and mantles of joy. Why not visualize glorified saints instead of resuscitated corpses?
It's not that we wouldn't like to have our loved ones restored to us, here on earth, in robust good health. We'd long and pray for just that restoration. Wouldn't you ache to embrace a beloved spouse who suddenly died of a heart attack or who wasted away from cancer? What parent wouldn't gladly give a king's ransom to cuddle a SIDS baby or happily endure hours of grunge rock for the chance to have a suicidal teenager back again? Things that had gone unsaid "before" could now be said. Unfinished business could be concluded. Milestones could be reached: an anniversary, the birth of a first grandchild, graduation from college. Perhaps even that forlorn phrase, "If only ..." could be given a proper burial! I'm sure Mary and Martha were just as overjoyed to welcome Lazarus back for all these reasons, for however long God granted them to share those lives again.
In the back of our minds, though, we know that those loved ones would die again, perhaps once again before us. More things might go unsaid, more business would dangle unfinished, more milestones would not be reached, more "if onlys" would be raised up. However wonderful a miracle of resuscitation might be, in the end it isn't miracle enough.
So this Gospel reading has a bittersweet tang to it. How much more comforting to turn to other words that fast-forward past death. How much less painful to leave behind all talk of the smell of death and the business of unwinding burial sheets. How much better to talk about saints at rest in the peace of God!
I'm not sure when it finally hit me. This story isn't just about the revival of Lazarus or what happens when one of God's saints dies. It's about what happens when God makes us his saints. It's about our own death and rising ... in Baptism.
We, like Lazarus, have contracted a deadly sickness. It's called sin; it festers in the soul and poisons the body. We, like Lazarus, have loved ones who call upon God for our deliverance. They're called parents and baptismal sponsors. We, like Lazarus, are drawn down into a death: a real one, even though it doesn't look as drastic (or smell as bad!) as Lazarus'. We, like Lazarus, emerge at the sound of our Lord's voice to live again.
What Lazarus didn't know; what Martha heard but only dimly understood -- and what we believe, teach, confess, and experience is this: that watery death of Baptism is joined to the suffering and death of Jesus himself. The tears and anguish of Jesus hint at this: in Lazarus' death, Jesus sees the preview of his own death and tomb. And that makes all the difference. It makes this more than a story about a miraculous resuscitation of one lucky man. It makes it more than a bittersweet meditation on a loved one's death. It even makes Lazarus' raising, and our Baptism, more than a mere restoration to ordinary, earthly life, with death still before us and the life of heaven still only a promise.
The only way to explain this properly is to step "outside the story" and look to that other tomb, that other set of grave clothes, that other death. The same Jesus whose voice called Lazarus from death into life, the One in whose presence no dead body could remain dead, because he was the Lord of Life -- this same Jesus shared our death. And on the third day his grave was opened, his burial clothes were laid neatly aside, once and for all, and he emerged not merely resuscitated, but resurrected. His human body and soul were raised to the rich, endless life the Son of God had from all eternity shared with his Father.
And this Jesus who shared the shame and sorrow of our death bids us share his life. Lazarus was returned to his family and friends, to the ordinary mortal light of his everyday world. But his fortunes were now forever joined to the One who commanded him to come out of the tomb. Even though a death still loomed before him (for one day Lazarus would grow old and die), in the most important way of all, death now stood behind him. Whatever he did or didn't know about "what lay beyond" was irrelevant. He knew, in the marrow of his re-enlivened bones, that because of Jesus, death would never, ever have the last word over him. He had heard Jesus' Last Word pronounced over him, and that word was, "Come Out! Live!"
So it is for us! When we emerge from the "tomb" of baptismal waters, blinking (and, if we're infants, probably wailing) in the ordinary light of our everyday world, we do so with our Lord's wounded but glorified arms embracing us. We're reborn not to escape from but to return to a world of doubts, disease, divorce, and death. In this life we'll always struggle with unspoken words, unfinished business, unmet milestones, and countless "what ifs." We do so, though, with Jesus' life filling and strengthening us. Like Lazarus, we live with the worst part of death behind us. Death will never have the last word over any who have been joined to Christ Jesus' death and resurrection.
Ultimately, that's what "being a saint" is all about -- not perfect, sinless, goody-two shoes existences, but lives bound to the life of Jesus Christ and lived in the messy, sometimes smelly realities of our sinful and broken world. When God goes about making us his saints, he doesn't make us immune from grief. Instead, he binds us to his risen Son and makes us people who grieve but who have a hope that cannot be shaken. When God makes a person one of his saints, he doesn't make life problem-free. Instead, he gives the rest of us saints Jesus' command to Lazarus' friends: "You unbind him, and let him go" (v. 44). He gives us, also, the grace and strength to do it!
We need to hear the words of Isaiah and Revelation about the fullness of eternal life that his saints will enjoy. But it's good to be reminded that our entry into sainthood, and our most devastating encounter with death, have already taken place. The only one whose words have final power and authority over us is one who speaks words of command and promise and hope: "Lazarus, come out. People of this place, come out." Come out, and live in the strength of his promise and his life, until all shrouds are destroyed and death is swallowed up forever. Amen.