"I am the resurrection and the life."

As today is the festival of the resurrection of our Lord, I thought I might add something resurrection-themed to the blog today.  I dug back in my files for a short sermon preached during my parish ministry years.  Blessings on your holiday.   - David Sellnow

The Electric Gospel

Jesus is Resurrection: Jesus is Life

There was a time when people laughed at Jesus. In fact, they were crying and screaming in sadness, but what Jesus said sounded so strange that they burst out laughing in the middle of a funeral.  A young person had just died. A young girl, twelve years old, had been deathly ill, and death had followed.  While she was dying, the girl's father, a man named Jairus, had come to Jesus asking for help ...but even before Jesus could come to Jairus' house, someone was sent from there to bring the sad news. "Your daughter is dead," he said. "Don't bother the teacher any more."

But upon hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, "Don't be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed" (Luke 8:49-50).  Healed from death? Who ever heard of such a thing?

When Jesus arrived at the house, it was full of people wailing and moaning and mourning. In true Jewish custom, they made quite a scene: tears streaming down their cheeks, hair disheveled, falling on the floor, groaning and bellowing, not a dry eye in the house. It was then--when Jesus entered that house--that the mourners went from hysterical crying to uproarious laughter in an instant. What the great and wise rabbi Jesus said struck them as hilarious. Jesus said to them, "Stop your wailing. She is not dead but asleep."  They laughed at him, knowing that she was, in fact, dead (Luke 8:52,53).

But within moments, Jesus proved that they were dead wrong. He took the girl's hand, said to her, "Get up" ...and she did!  "Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up" (Luke 8:55). Her parents were astonished. Everyone was amazed. For Jesus, bringing to life a dead person was no more difficult than waking someone up from sleep.

Jesus has an entirely different perspective on death than we normally do. Jesus' whole definition of life and death differs from what we normally think. The words on which I'd like you to focus especially today come from the story of another resurrection miracle that Jesus performed.  In talking to his dear friend Martha, just after her beloved brother Lazarus had died, Jesus spoke these powerful words: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:25,26).

You see, according to Jesus, Lazarus had died but he had not died. Lazarus had died but he also would live again. Let me explain how Jesus explains life and death.

Life, according to Jesus, is when we are enjoying the blessings of God. When we enjoy the blessings of God in our bodies, we are physically alive. Our lungs breathe, our hearts beat, our hands and feet move.  Only by God's blessing and his sustaining do we have physical life. When God decides it is time for us to pass from this life, those blessings are suspended, and physically we die.

But there is more to life than the body. God also created each of us with a soul. When we enjoy the blessings of God in our souls, we have faith in him, we have a relationship with him, we have life through him. Our spirits never die. The blessings of God upon our spirits began the day we were baptized and haven’t ceased since. We are blessed in faith throughout life and blessing awaits us beyond this present life.  We will live on with the Lord.  That is why Jesus could say, "Whoever lives and believes in me will never die."  Our loved ones who have died have not really died--not their spirits.  They are alive still, living with the Lord, standing side by side with Jesus right now. We see only the physical aspect of life and death, but there is a spiritual and eternal reality that we don't yet see, which nevertheless is absolutely true.  Those who have died in faith are yet alive, living and reigning with Jesus (cf. Revelation 20:4), who lives and reigns with the Father and with the Spirit, the one true and loving God, forever and ever.

But that's not all. Jesus also said, "Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies." The physical body dies, but Jesus pledges, with his word of power, that he will bring the body back to life. The daughter of Jairus and the man named Lazarus were two examples, demonstrations Jesus gave of just what he can do. By his miracles of resurrection, he was promising that he will do the same in the end for all of his people.

By his own resurrection, after he was crucified, Jesus proved that he has absolute power over death and the grave. A giant stone and armed guards of soldiers could not keep Jesus' resurrection from happening. Likewise, there is nothing that can keep Jesus from providing the same resurrection for us, his people, when his final time arrives. On that day, "we will all be changed--in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:52). We will be changed from dead to alive, from being troubled by all the ailments of our frail bodies to being freed from all ills in eternally glorified bodies.

"I am the resurrection and the life," Jesus said. That's exactly who he is. In him and because of him, we have life now and will have it always.  In him and because of him, we will experience one day the resurrection of our bodies into life and joy unending, that now we can barely even imagine.  In that day of resurrection, we won't have any back pains or body aches or cysts or cancers or any other disease or pains or wounds.  All will be healed completely by the Lord and made perfect in every way.

Jesus, keep our hearts strong as we wait for that day!