Resurrection, Life, & Hope
I have been at the bedside of a number of dying family and friends, watching, waiting, and praying when they take their last breath. I have attended and/or officiated more funerals than I care to remember. I buried my parents and grandparents. I have watched the grief of young parents with stillborn infants. I have seen the shock, anger, and sadness of suicide. I have watched chronic illness slowly but inevitably take lives. I have seen men and women live to ripe old ages and die with family around them, mixed with conflicting joy and sadness. I have preached the funerals of people with hope and people with no hope, the latter of whom were wailing desperately and trying to crawl into the coffin. In all of this, I have seen that what you believe determines how you will face death, your own and those you love.
In John 11, Jesus attends a funeral, a funeral that, according to the man’s sisters, could have been avoided if Jesus had been there (Jn 11:20, 32). Two sisters saying the same thing at different times provide a double witness to what they believe was Jesus’ failure. There seems to be an angry edge to their statements. That is not surprising. Anger is part of the grieving process, and it is ultimately directed toward God, who could have changed the fate but didn’t.
Even in their anger, both sisters had hope. That hope was confessed by Martha and was common among the Jews: her brother, Lazarus, would rise again on the last day (Jn 11:24). From the beginning of creation, resurrection was inscribed on everything. When the land from which man was created emerged from the primordial waters on the third day, culminating in rest on the seventh day, it was an image of resurrection. When Adam went into a death-like sleep and awoke glorified, that was an image of resurrection. Sin entered the world and would have halted the process of moving from glory to glory through death and resurrection were it not for God’s grace. But full and final resurrection was always God’s plan.
God’s plan is that the resurrection would come in two parts: a first resurrection and a final resurrection. These resurrections would occur on the third day (the day the land emerged from the waters) and the last day (the seventh day, the day of enthronement rest). These resurrections were typified and enacted in the third and seventh day baptisms recorded in Numbers 19. Anyone who had contracted death by touching a dead body had to be “resurrected” through the ashes of the red heifer, cedar wood, hyssop, scarlet, and running water. The first baptism was on the third day of the week, and the final baptism was on the seventh day of the week. Two baptisms. Two resurrections.
Martha knew all this. God promised resurrection from the beginning of the Scriptures to the end. The patriarchs and prophets all declared it. Every seed that was ever planted proclaimed it as it had to die in order to bear fruit (cf. Jn 12:24). Lazarus, a faithful man, would rise again on the last day.
Jesus declares to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (Jn 11:25-26). Jesus is the I AM, Yahweh, God of Israel, who delivers his people from slavery, not merely the slavery of the Pharaohs of the world, but from that which empowers the Pharaohs of the world: sin and its death. United to Jesus by faith, though you may die physically, you will not experience the second death, a life in hell (Rev 20:6). Death will serve you, leading to greater glory (cf. 1 Cor 3:21-23).
Our resurrection is still in two stages: baptism and final resurrection. When you are baptized into Christ, you participate in the third-day, first resurrection (cf. Rom 6). Your baptism anticipates a “seventh-day” resurrection, our resurrection on the last day (1 Cor 15). As you participate in Christ’s first resurrection, trusting him, you have hope for the final resurrection. Death is not your master but your servant.
Do you believe this? Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Do you believe it when you face your own mortality or the illness and death of loved ones? Do you believe this when it looks as if the enemy is winning and you are distressed? Do you believe this? What you believe … or better, in whom you believe … will determine if you face death in the comfort of hope or in the emptiness of hopelessness
.