Jesus said ... “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)
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When I think about the little passage of Scripture that Hannah shared with us a few minutes ago, I always find my attention drawn to the last four words. Somehow, they often get forgotten. These two verses of Scripture get used a fair bit - often at funerals or interments; often in the context of Easter. And one thing I’ve noticed (and one thing I have myself been “guilty” of - to the extent that there’s guilt attached) is that the last four words often get left out. “Do you believe this?” I understand why. Certainly, I understand why I leave them out at a funeral or an interment. Those aren’t the hopeful words. Those aren’t the comforting words. “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” There’s the comfort. The assurance of life. The promise that because Jesus lives, we’re going to live. The last four words are not comfort. The last four words are challenge: “Do you believe this?” I’m in the midst of a few sermons about the impact of the resurrection right now. We’ve talked about the resurrection as promise and as victory. Today is life. And what we’ve talked about - and what’s coming up in the next 3 weeks as we look at the resurrection as restlessness, journey and completion - is meaningless unless we can come to grips with the last four words in today’s passage. “Do you believe this?” Because, if you don’t, then the resurrection doesn’t mean a lot. So, today, I’m making a bit of a shift from comfort and assurance to challenge. Today, I’m talking about “Resurrection As Life” - and that’s a challenge. To actually believe in life in the face of death - that’s a challenge. To actually believe that Jesus lives even though He died - that’s a challenge. To actually believe that we are going to live - even though we’re also going to die - that’s a challenge. “Resurrection as life.” That’s a challenge. Do you believe it?
I suppose that to know whether we believe it or not we have to know what we mean by “life.” We’re not talking biology. Biologically, I suppose life basically means the ability to reproduce. But, really, it means a lot more than just that. Jesus refers to “life” constantly and he’s not talking about biology. “I have come that they may have life.” “I am the way, the truth and the life.” “Life” - in its fullest and broadest and most meaningful sense is about Jesus. It revolves around Jesus. I’m not talking here in terms of doctrines - believe this or that and you go to heaven, don’t believe it and you go to hell. Jesus isn’t talking in terms of right belief or proper doctrine or acceptable liturgy. He’s talking about more intangible things - the things that truly give life. Last week I talked a bit about the things that take away life - things like fears and possessions and addictions and all the various kinds of demons (however you want to define that word) that swirl around us and sometimes possess us through no fault of our own. I said that the promise of the resurrection is that all those things that take away life have been defeated - and so they have. But what replaces them? What fills the void? If we get rid of the things that take life away, then what is the life that we fill the empty space with? What’s the life that Jesus offers?
Jesus says “He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” The life that Jesus offers us, plain and simple, is His life. It’s a new life, it’s a new nature, it’s new priorities, it’s new desires, it’s a new way of seeing the world, it’s a new way of seeing others. It’s basically living a life of freedom. There are so many things in the world that can take our freedom away. We saw that displayed this past week in Boston, as an entire city found itself cowering in fear. In the circumstances perhaps that was understandable but as always it got taken to far. So a state senator in New York could say, "let's torture the kid. No one will care." Or a radio host could say, before we even knew who was responsible, "we should kill all the Muslims." And the thing that truly bothers me is that if I were to look into the backgrounds of those two men, I suspect I would find that they call themselves Christians but really they have simply been enslaved by fear that has led to hatred. Wouldn't God be proud? Here’s 2 Corinthians 4:9-10: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.” We carry both the death and the life of Jesus in us and with us because in Jesus life came out on top. All the oppression and persecution that the mightiest empire in the world could throw at him couldn’t hold him. He overcame them - and so this life that’s freed is now what’s at work in us. “You will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free,” Jesus said. Freed from fear, but freed for what? Not freed to do whatever we want, because that isn’t freedom. That just enslaves us to our desires and to our wants and to the pursuit of more - always more. No. We’re not freed to do whatever we want. We’re freed for God! We’re freed to create the Kingdom! We, as a people, live with so much worry and with so much fear. As a people, I think we too easily fall into the trap of thinking we’re afraid that we might not be good enough, and so we need the rules laid out for us. Either way, we don’t live in freedom. But Jesus wants us to have life, and so Jesus sets us free.
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” Now there’s the source of life - life freed from fear; life freed to serve God; life freed to love others; life freed to stand with those who have no one else to stand for them. And we have that freedom because we have nothing to fear, because if the resurrection is true then life is more powerful than death, and if even death offers us nothing to be afraid of - then we are free! Then we are alive! Then we can be the church!
“Do you believe this?” That’s the key question isn’t it. “Jesus said ... ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though He dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’’ I hope, for all of us, that the answer to that question is “yes,” because a “yes” brings you into the life Jesus wants you to lead.
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