Jesus therefore again groaning in himself came to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Jesus therefore, again groaning in Himself, &c. Note that Christ was here thrice greatly distressed, and wept. First, when He sees Mary and the Jews weeping (ver33). Secondly, when He saw the sepulchre of Lazarus (ver34). Thirdly, here, when He came to it, to show how pitiable was the lot of Lazarus when dead, and typically of sinners spiritually dead by their sins, and hereafter to die perpetually in the torments of hell. For it was they who drew forth from Him in the agony of His Passion tears of blood (Luke xxii44).
It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. For the more noble of the Jews were buried in caves or underground chambers, as appears in the case of the sepulchre of Abraham ( Genesis 23:9), Isaac and Jacob ( Genesis 49:31), Joseph of Arimathea ( Matthew 26:60).
Mystically, S. Augustine says: "This stone denotes the Mosaic Law, which was written on tables of stone, and included all under sin."
Typically, the same says (Serm44 , on S. John) "That mass placed on the sepulchre...
Here we understand the groaning as if it were the will struggling with a sort of movement according to its power, both because He rather sternly reproved His grief, and the tears which were about to be shed from His grief. For, as God, He in the way of a master reproves His Manhood, bidding it be manly in sorrowful circumstances; or by His God-befitting movement He distinctly lays it down that we must hence forward overthrow the powerful influence of death. And this He makes manifest by His very own Flesh, and signified by the movement of His Body that which was concealed within. And this is shown here by the expression: "He groaned," which means, that through the outward action of His Body He indicated His hidden commotion.
And He did not roll away the stone Himself for these two reasons: first, to teach that it was superfluous to work wonders when there was no necessity for them; and secondly, [to teach] that He Himself awakes the dead, but His angels will be at hand to minister i...
