How would you react if someone told you that he was going to bring a dead man back to life? When that happened to some of Jesus’s followers, as described in John chapter 11, there were a few differing reactions. Some of the disciples assumed that Lazarus was not really dead. Thomas thought that this was the end of the line, that Jesus was going to die, and he gloomily suggested that the disciples should go along and die with him.
Martha thought that Jesus was talking about the resurrection at the end of the world when Jesus said Lazarus would come back to life. Mary was focused on the past and just wanted to accuse Jesus for having let Lazarus die. Others would have thought that rolling the stone away from the tomb and yelling at the dead man as if he was going to respond was an act of desecration. Sleeping men should be allowed to lie.
Much to everyone’s amazement, Lazarus responded to Jesus’s call and walked out of the tomb, still wrapped up in bandages. This created a sensation in the local area, but not everyone was happy. The Son of God seemed to be ruining the plans of the religious establishment, disturbing their firm grip on how God was supposed to behave and what he was and was not allowed to do, and so they had to work out how to get rid of him.