The Road of Life, Part 5

Today, we are picking back up in our study of “The Road of Life”, using the Gospel of John as an evangelistic tract, and we are in our fifth passage for this method. We started with three questions on purpose, meaning, and truth, and then we went to John 1:1-5 to show that Jesus is the source of life and truth because he is the Word of God. Then, we went to John 3:16-19 to show why we live in darkness and how we can be saved from that darkness through faith in Jesus. Next, we studied John 6:35, 47-51 to see that belief in Jesus isn’t just a one-time transaction, but rather, it is like feeding on him as we depend on him for our spiritual life. Last week, we covered John 10:7-11, where we found that Jesus leads us in truth and protects us from false teachers because he is our good shepherd.

As we’ve done in the past, flip back in your little Gospel of John to John 10:7, and on that same page write our passage for today in the margins: John 11:25-26. Now, flip to that passage and underline it as I read it. Today, we will focus on three words, and you should double-underline those: Resurrection, Die, and Live.

When sharing this passage with a friend, it’s helpful to provide some context to Jesus’s saying here. Jesus has been out in the countryside teaching on his way to Jerusalem, when he gets word that his dear friend, Lazarus, is deathly ill. Lazarus’s sisters, Mary and Martha, sent for Jesus with hopes that he might come in haste and heal Lazarus as he had done with so many others. But, instead, Jesus waited where he was for another two days. When he finally arrived in Bethany, where Lazarus was, he had already been dead for four days. His sisters were angry with Jesus, and Martha ran out to meet him and scold him for failing them. At her chastisement, Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha, being the good church goer, dismissed this, saying, “Yes, Lord, I know he will rise again in the final resurrection.” I’m sure she felt, as so many do at funerals, that Jesus was just offering the standard condolence. People like to say things like, “You will see him again in heaven” or “he’s in a better place.” All those may be true and may even provide some comfort at some point, but they can also be a bitter pill. And here, it seems that it is just that for Martha.

But, Jesus does not leave her with the cliché. He goes on to clarify in our passage, “Oh no, Martha, he is literally about to rise again because I am here.” Jesus tells Martha (and us), that the resurrection is not just an event way out in the future. The resurrection is a person. To understand why this was important to Martha, why it should be important to us and to those we share with, we need to understand just how radical this idea is. Let me show you how important it is by asking you this question: does your body matter? As a follow up, does this earth matter? This is a big question… bigger than you think it is. I don’t know how you just answered, but there is a good chance that you answered like most Americans would: no, not really. You hear this answer given in the arts, as William Shakespeare’s Hamlet famously said that he would “shuffle off this mortal coil.” You hear it given by the abortion industry that argues that a baby is just a clump of cells until it becomes a “person.” You hear it given by the advocates of assisted suicide, who argue that people should have dignity in dying. You hear it in from the transgender movement that argues that you can be born in the wrong body. You even hear it in Christian circles. People will offer comfort at a funeral by saying something akin to Hamlet: “That body is not your loved one.” Christians even act as though discipline and health aren’t important because we are all going to die, after all. As an pastor once told me, “It doesn’t matter what you eat, you’re still going to die.”

All of these attitudes trace their lineage back to an ancient heresy known as Gnosticism. The Gnostics taught that the material world was evil, created by an evil god that was intent on trapping souls in the physical world, and that the goal of life was to escape the physical, to transcend it through deeper wisdom. Gnosticism is easily found among pastors and theologians today who teach that the body doesn’t matter, or that the resurrection will be purely spiritual, or that the earth will be completely vaporized in judgment. But, the body does matter, and God’s salvation is intended to redeem the whole man, including our bodies. When God made Adam out of the dust of the earth and formed Eve out of his side, he declared over all of his creation that it was “very good.” As we read in our call to worship from Genesis 1:26-27, we were made in the image of God, which means that our bodies, souls, and minds bear that image. Had Adam and Eve depended on God for wisdom and rejected the deception of the serpent, they would have lived forever through the sustaining power of God. But, because of their rebellion, they were cast out of the garden, away from the tree of life, and left to die under the curse. Their curse brought all of creation under sin and corruption, so that now, the good earth that God made brings forth thorns and thistles.

So, if God made the earth and our bodies as part of his good creation, does it mean that Satan has won? If God can do nothing with this earth and must totally obliterate it and start over, did Satan in some way at least land a wounding blow, causing God to have to start over again? More importantly, have we and Satan done so much to this flesh of ours that the body that God formed and gave his image is good for nothing but to be discarded. God’s answer is a resounding “No!” We know that because into a fallen, corrupted world, God began a new creation. In the womb of a daughter of Eve named Mary, God formed a real human life, a new Adam. Jesus is the beginning of the new creation. And, because he is the eternal Word of God who is life and light, he gives life wherever he goes.

So, he tells Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Resurrection was the great hope of the Jews. They believed that one day the Messiah would come to judge the world, and when he did, he would bring about one final resurrection in which all of faithful Israel would be raised from the dead. This was the platitude that Martha pulled from when she answered Jesus. But, Jesus says that the resurrection isn’t just an event way out in the future when God judges the world. He is the resurrection. All who are in Jesus have resurrection life right now. We see that in the blessings of our own church family as we disciple one another, forgive each other, and pray with one another. We see it in the fact that God often answers our prayers by bringing healing. We see it when people hear and believe the Gospel and start living as new creations in Christ. And, we also abide in the promise that Jesus will cause our resurrection on the last day because he has defeated death and hell for us through his own resurrection. Jesus proved all of this to Martha (and us), by following her to Lazarus’s tomb. There, he had them roll the stone away from the entrance, and then he called out, “Lazarus, come forth.” To everyone’s amazement, a body that had been in the ground for four days, wrapped in burial clothing, came shuffling out of the tomb. In this, Jesus answers the question once and for all: yes, our bodies do matter. No, Satan will not win over his creation.

Quickly, let’s consider the other two words: die and live. Jesus tells Martha, “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” In this catchy saying, Jesus uses the same two words for two different forms of living and dying. Even unbelievers recognize that physical death is not the only way that someone can die. In fact, if you become jaded or disaffected by something, you might say, “I was dead inside.” What do you mean by that? You mean that you were soulless, emotionless, that you felt nothing. This is getting at what Jesus means. You can die, even before you physically die. In fact, we all are born dead. Eph. 2:1 says, “You were dead in your trespasses and sins.” We all are spiritually dead, which is to say that we are separated from spiritual life in God. When Adam and Eve took of the fruit, in that very instant they lost the spirit of God, and when they were cast out of the garden, they lost access to him. But, Jesus came to bring eternal life for those who believe in him. So, he could say, “everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” He does not mean that, if you believe in Jesus, you will never see death, but that you will never die again spiritually. He gives you life through faith in him, and you will never lose it.

But, this is not just a spiritual life that Jesus brings to our dead souls. He will also bring physical life through his resurrection. So, he says, “whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” At every funeral I do, as I stand at the graveside, I end by saying, “This is not the last time we will see this person, because, on the last day, when Christ returns, he will cause this body that we now commit to the ground to rise again in the glory of his resurrection.” This is the promise of the Gospel, that God has redeemed all of his creation in Jesus Christ. This promise means that he will redeem your mortal bodies through the resurrection that is to come, if you have believed on him.

So, the question for you today is simply, do you believe in that resurrection? Do you believe that Jesus rose again from the dead, and because of that, you will one day rise, too?