Sunday Service | "I am the Resurrection and the Life" | June 6, 2021

“I AM the resurrection & the life.” 

Jesus wants to interrupt the way that we think about him, the way we look at him, and the way we believe about him.

John 11.17-19

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother.

Jesus loved this family. In his life, Jesus interacts several times with these siblings. That’s why they send him word when Lazarus is sick. Jesus gets word and then he waits, promising God’s glory would go with them.

Verse 20-24

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

These sisters are wrestling with the loss of their brother, and the loss of Jesus doing something about it. There’s so much emotion in her words--”Where were you?” Many of us can relate to this even now. Our conversations with God tend to waver towards this same questioning: “if only…” If only you would’ve shown up, things might be better. I might feel differently.

The thing is the “if only” thought process leads us to believe that we need to navigate things on our own, that we now are abandoned in our issues, and we have to find the answers or solutions. These thoughts undermine the message of Christ, that he has not abandoned us but is always with us. Martha chased these thoughts of “if only” with Jesus. He responds to point her that this death is not the end. She believes that, but not for her right now. The effects of death are here, now. What good is it to believe that one day, everything will be okay again?

We know this as well as Martha, that Christ will return one day. And we likely feel similarly. How does that console us now? In the middle of our pain, our confusion, our death?

Verse 25-27

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

In Martha’s mind, the answer she wanted was not to have to experience the loss of her brother. He interrupts this thought pattern with truer thoughts of where he is in the midst of loss and death--whether physical, emotional, or otherwise. He’s calling us out of this “if only” game where we seek to avoid death, to the reality where we can engage with the resurrection and the life just by turning to him in the midst of it.

If we’re being honest, we want to play the game, because we want to avoid the pain. Jesus offers a different way: “Let’s walk through it and see what happens on the other side of it.” Our losses and disappointments do not have to be the end of the story. Nor do we only need to cling to a future, far-off hope that “one day” all will be restored. No, we get to turn to him, right here, right now.

Jesus doesn’t just talk about what he can do or what he can give to us in these I AM statements. He is telling us who he is. He doesn’t just give bread, light, or life, resurrection--to avoid the circumstances, to override them--he IS these things. He doesn’t give anything apart from himself. Resurrection isn’t just a doctrine or a future fact; it’s a person, and he calls Martha and us to make a huge leap of trust and hope and faith and believe that that is who he is.

The way of Christ is love, yes. But the way to that love is faith and submission to him. Our Christianity has become toothless because we are so overwhelmed by death and loss, that we miss the resurrection and the life who is right by our side. Even if delayed, even if not seen in miraculous ways.

Have we lost sight of this Jesus, who is resurrection and life. This Jesus is a thorn in our lives, as Paul put it. We get stuck in our own concepts of Jesus and miss the relationship we are offered. He is pointing us to how his love overcomes, bringing life out of death. His statement here interrupts us from the murky waters we wade in so that he can clear the way for us to know him more, to know the life and resurrection that he offers.

He calls Martha and us out in this text. Our solutions are small, our answers that we want are not the fullness of life that he offers us. Just getting your brother back is not the abundant life we’re promised. He meets her and us in our pain, and calls us to live through it.

Are we slowing down and listening to Jesus to see where resurrection and life is happening now? There’s a lot of death around us, even within our church as we move forward into an unknown season.

It is Pride month, and many churches are caught up in death-making, dismissing for the sake of correct theology instead of acceptance and love. We are meant to be allies, but are we being allies because we want to be on the opposite side of the spectrum of those who have brought death and destruction, or do we want to be allies because we know the power of Jesus as the resurrection and the life?

In all of life’s relationships, we face this “if only” game. Jesus interrupts here to invite us to see resurrection and life. This past year has led us into this same “if only” thought pattern. Who did we turn to in the midst of it? What did we choose to cope with? How does Jesus as the resurrection and life change our processes for coping? The interruption is to know that we are loved by the resurrection and the life. There is hope.

John continues to tell us how Lazarus was resurrected and the Pharisees get angry and want to kill him and Jesus. Lazarus was a forerunner of what Jesus would walk for us. There were no solutions here; Jesus instead always offers us himself. This is good news, and it’s frustrating. We want to avoid resurrection because we don’t want to die. But to die is to know him more fully. Death loses its sting because he is the resurrection and the life by living through to the other side. We don’t have to have this figured out. We aren’t immune to the struggles. But Jesus as the resurrection and the life, he leads us to the other side, because of the hope that he gives us and gives our stories.