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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
But why did He not raise him without taking away the stone? Could not He who moved a dead body by His voice, much more have moved a stone? He purposely did not do so, in order that the miracle might take place in the sight of all; to give no room for saying, as they had said in the case of the blind man, This is not he. Now they might go into the grave, and feel and see that this was the man. (Hom. lxiii. 2) Thus every thing tends to stop the months of the unbelieving. …
Cyril of Alexandria
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. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
Why does the Evangelist again note that Jesus wept and grieved out of compassion? So that we may know that He truly clothed Himself in our nature. John, compared with the other Evangelists, proclaims the highest teaching about the Lord and theologizes something great; therefore, from His bodily deeds he also narrates the more humbling ones. For this reason, in the Lord's grief he finds much that is human, and thereby proves the reality of His flesh, so that you may know that the Lord was God and at the same time Man. …
Western Saints
Augustine of Hippo
"Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself, cometh to the tomb." May His groaning have thee also for its object, if thou wouldst re-enter into life! Every man who lies in that dire moral condition has it said to him, "He cometh to the tomb." "It was a cave, and a stone had been laid upon it." Dead under that stone, guilty under the law. For you know that the law, which was given to the Jews, was inscribed on stone. And all the guilty are under the law: the right-living are in harmony with the law. …
Bede
A cave is a hollow in a rock. It is called a monument, because it reminds us of the dead. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. (non occ. [Nic.]) Or, these are not words of despair, but of wonder.
Thomas Aquinas
1540 The Evangelist, after having given certain preambles to the raising of Lazarus, now presents the raising itself. He considers four things: first, Christ's arrival at the tomb; second, the removal of the stone (v 39); third, Christ's prayer; and fourth, the actual raising of the dead Lazarus (v 43). 1541 In regard to the first he says, Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. …
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