7 - I Am the Resurrection and the Life

SLIDE: Scripture John 11:25

Scripture: John 11:25

John 11:25 (NLT)

25 Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying.

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SLIDE: Open Your Bibles to: John 11:17-27 to follow along today

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Introduction

We’ve been looking at the “I Am” statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John. There are seven of them, and each one tells us a little more about Jesus’ understanding of himself. But perhaps even more important is beginning each one with the phrase, “I Am.” This was the ancient name of God revealed to Moses at the burning bush, “Yahweh,” which is a form of the verb “to be.” So here was Jesus, seven times, identifying himself with God.

Today, we’re going to do something unusual: on Easter Sunday we’re going to consider a text that is not about Jesus’ resurrection. Did you know that Jesus was not the first person to be raised back to life after they died? The Gospels record at least three that Jesus himself raised: Jairus’ daughter, the widow’s son, and Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha. This is the one we’re going to look at today. Here’s the significance of that: On Easter we’re not just remembering and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus; we’re also recognizing and celebrating our own.

Last week, we left Jesus and his disciples on the other side of the Jordan river. This was the desert region where John had originally been baptizing people. The text implies that things had heated up in Jerusalem because of Jesus’ confrontations with the Pharisees, so they had to “get out of Dodge” for a while.

But chapter 11 opens with a messenger coming to them with news that a man named Lazarus was sick. This was the brother of Mary and Martha, and they lived in a town called Bethany, just outside of Jerusalem. These siblings were apparently very close to Jesus, and he stayed with them when he was visiting Jerusalem. But upon hearing the news of Lazarus’ illness, Jesus inexplicably chose to stay where he was for two more days. “This sickness will not end in death,” he said. “No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” (John 11:4)

After two days, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.” (John 11:7) His disciples tried to talk him out of it: “A short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”(John 11:8) Jesus responded with something similar to what he said

back in John 9:4; “I must do the work of the father while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.”

Then this curious exchange: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” (John 11:11) His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.”

As usual, the disciples missed the deeper meaning of what Jesus was saying. So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” (John 11:14)

Thomas’ response: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” It’s not clear whether Thomas was referring to Lazarus’ death, or the fear that Jesus was walking into a trap.

But sometimes in the scriptures, people say things that have meanings far beyond what they intended. Thomas’ gloomy comment was more profound and prophetic than he could possibly know. The disciples needed to experience a death and resurrection, just like Lazarus. And so do we.

SLIDE: We need to die & resurrect...

We have to die to an old life in order to be born into a new one. And the work of the Holy Spirit in us is to wake us up to this new life—what life is meant to be all about.

Main Teaching:

Double meanings

SLIDE: Double Meanings # 1

1 - Two kinds of sleep

- Mark 5:39-41 Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter.

He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him.

After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”).

Jesus used the metaphor of sleep to describe people that were actually dead. For him, the two states were interchangeable, indistinguishable. What did he know that we do not? Perhaps what we call death is more like finally waking up from this long, sleep-walk that we call life.

SLIDE: Double Meanings # 2

2 - Two kinds of death

- Eph. 2:1-6

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…”

- Rev. 3:1-2 Jesus’ words to the church at Sardis: “You have a reputation of being alive, but you are really dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die…”

These passages describe a kind of living death, or zombie-like state that many of us fall into… It’s terrifying to think about the truth of being alive, breathing, but also being dead.

SLIDE: Double Meanings # 3

3 - Two kinds of life - life vs. eternal life

- John 5:21 “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.”

- John 17:3 Jesus’ prayer in the Upper Room:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. And this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Illustration: Thomas Merton quote

“Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God shows Himself everywhere, in everything—in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without Him. It’s impossible. The only thing is that we don’t see it.”

Illustration: Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town

Emily discovers the joy of being fully alive too late. After she’s dead, she pleads with the spirits to allow her to return and look in on one day of her life, one last time. She picks her twelfth birthday. She is saddened as she recognizes how little the people she loves really comprehend the joys of life or experience them with any depth of awareness. She cries to be taken away, so she doesn’t have to watch any more of their inattention to the preciousness of life. Her parting words are, “Good-bye! Good-bye, world. Good-bye, Grover’s Corners…Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking…and Mama’s sunflowers, and food and coffee. And even ironed dresses and hot baths…sleeping and waking up. O earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? Every minute?”

Illustration: Fyodor Dostoevsky’s conversion experience.

He was arrested by the Czar and sentenced to die. But the whole thing was just a cruel joke intended to traumatize people who had rebelled against the regime. They were blindfolded and stood before a firing squad. They heard the guns go off but felt nothing, then slowly realized the guns were loaded with blanks. The whole experience had a profound effect on Dostoevsky. He describes waking up the morning of his mock execution, knowing that it would be the last day of his life. As he ate his last meal, he savored every bite. Every breath he took was breathed with an awareness of how precious it was. Every face he saw that day he studied with intensity. He wanted every experience to be etched in his mind. As they marched him to the courtyard he felt the warmth of the sun on his back as never before. Everything around him, every blade of grass, had a magical quality about it. He was seeing the world as he had never seen it before. All of his senses were heightened—he was fully alive! After the experience of fake execution, his life was never the same. He became grateful to people he had previously hated. He became thankful for everything about life, but especially for life itself. He was born again.

As Paul Harvey would say: NOW, for the rest of the story

Jesus speaks to Martha, and she expresses a kind of faith that is familiar to us.

“If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus assures her that her brother will rise again, she responds, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Then comes Jesus’ startling response: “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?” Do we? Apparently, Jesus was speaking again of two kinds of life and two kinds of death.

Next, Jesus speaks to Mary. She expresses the same level of faith as her sister: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” But this time, Jesus is deeply moved by her tears, and asks, “Where have you laid him?”

Finally, Jesus speaks to Lazarus. First, he silences Martha’s objections to removing the stone. “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” Next he prays to the Father: “I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” Then he calls in a loud voice: “Lazarus, come out!”

SLIDE: The real meaning of Easter

The real meaning of Easter: God’s New Creation starts now.

The meaning of Easter is not primarily about life after physical death—that because Jesus came back to life biologically, therefore we will too. Nowhere in these accounts do we find his early followers saying, “Jesus has risen from the dead! Therefore, we’re going to heaven when we die!” The resurrection narratives in the gospels—and the stories told by Jesus himself—point beyond just the reanimation of cadavers.

Example: Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son.

Upon realizing he had reached the bottom of the barrel, the young man resolved, “I will arise and go to my father.” At their reunion, the father exclaims, “For this my son was dead and is alive again.” Then, to be sure we don’t miss the imagery of a resurrection, the father restates his joy to his other son, “For your brother was dead and is alive again.”

This son hadn’t lost and regained his biological existence. But he had lain down on the deathbed of shame, fear, and broken relationships. He had cultivated an overwhelming sense of separation that bore the bitter fruit of disgrace, anguish, and loneliness. When he took responsibility for his actions and honestly faced up to the consequences, Jesus says that the young man “arose.” Interesting that this is the same word that the New Testament consistently uses to refer to Jesus being “raised” in resurrection.

SLIDE: Double Meanings # 4

3 - Two kinds of arising

So, “arising”also has a double meaning. It points to a greater, broader, and deeper resurrection than just biological reanimation. What difference would it make for a dead body to regain its existence if the person remained filled with anger, bitterness, arrogance, hatred, anxiety, resentment, hostility, and blame. Repeating the same patterns in a new outer shell would be like slapping a fresh coat of paint on a broken-down jalopy. It may look good, but nothing of substance has changed.

No, the glorious message of Easter is what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

Also, Romans 6:4, “Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.”

Conclusion:

The story God is telling is the story of the renewal of all things, and it has already begun!

SLIDE: Truth for your life...

We participate in it through death and resurrection, now! It happens when we say yes to God’s invitation to new life and follow Jesus to the cross. And the cross—once an instrument of torture and death—becomes a symbol of joy and beauty.

SLIDE: Today’s challenge...

Will you put your faith into Jesus, to “come alive in Christ”.

Let’s pray together.

Prayer: “Father, help us to fully embrace and live out the truth of our new life in Christ today. We live because he is risen! We are already seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus! We walk in the newness of life because he has conquered death!”