I Am The Resurrection And The Life
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Intro
Intro
If you are the type of person that loves to look at stats and graphs about people online, then you are probably aware that we are living in a time and a place that has seen hope slip away from the lives of many people. Depression rates among people in the world, and especially among young people in our country, are skyrocketing at alarming rates. There can of course be wide ranges of reasons for this including life stress, loss, substance abuse, and mental health issues; but whatever the reason for a person’s depression, it has become plain to see that people are losing real hope in their lives. We live in an incredibly “spiritual” age, and yet this spiritual practice seems to be providing nothing of substance for many people.
The problem is that there is a pandemic in our country and in our homes of passive, ambiguous faith that is leading people straight into depression and despair.
FCF: A passive, ambiguous faith leads to a weak joy
The most normal funeral in history
Martha, Mary and the Rest are leaning on a very passive, ambiguous faith.
The mourners are marked by intense grief, loss and regret.
There is no sense of hope present, only and overwhelming grief
Martha in verse 21
Mary in verse 32
The Jews in verse 37
The only shred of “hope” that we find present at this funeral is in Martha when she approaches Jesus in verse 23-24
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
I have witnessed this exact thing a thousand times at dozens of funerals. The preacher gets up and tries to scrape together some fond memories of the deceased, the mourners approach the family and say “things will get easier,” and the loved ones try to comfort themselves by saying “they’re in a better place now.”
I’m sure that you have experienced this as well, and maybe you’ve also experienced the emptiness that follows such things. When you are the one grieving, this ambiguous, fully-future hope leaves us feeling just as empty as we feel without it.
This ambiguous faith is leaving the mourners hopeless
but this isn’t even really hope! Martha regurgitated the phrase that everyone spews out at a funeral, but it doesn’t seem to mean anything at all to her. She says “I know that he will rise again on the last day,” but this brings her absolutely no comfort in her present mourning.
While Martha said she believed that Lazarus was going to a better place, it seems like she doesn’t REALLY understand what that means. She doesn’t actually know what
That felt normal for me before I was a Christian, but when I came to know Jesus this started to concern me. Funerals for Christians need to be different than funerals for other people because of how we understand life and death.
When Mary and the other mourners approach Jesus, their complete devastation is obvious and Jesus becomes concerned as well.
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.
“deeply moved” in this context actually means something like “frustrated” or “disappointed”
Jesus is frustrated because he provides a level of hope for these mourners that they are completely ignoring.
In his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul tried to help them not to express the same type of hopelessness when their loved ones die.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
And now lets be clear - Christians ought to mourn the loss of loved ones. We ought to weep with one another and comfort one another. It is normal and acceptable to feel saddened by loss, but there is never a situation that we have to face where we should ever experience hopeless grief. When people who don’t place their hope in Jesus mourn, it makes sense to experience a hopeless depression; but the situation is entirely different for Christians!
Christians that understand who Jesus is and what he has accomplished actually have reason to celebrate even amidst the mourning, because Jesus has given us a hope that leads to a peace beyond understanding.
A faith that does not bring present hope and comfort is not a proper understanding of what Jesus provides for us.
CFC: Jesus offers a very active, powerful faith in him that leads to great and immediate joy
As Christians, we all agree that we have a lot of hope because of what Jesus has done for us. I am sure that we would also agree that the ultimate sense of that joy and hope lies in the future - in the new heavens and the new Earth that Jesus will being us to. But what Jesus challenges Martha and Mary with in this passage is that
while the ultimate fulfillment of our joy is future, we can and should lay claim to the hope that Jesus gives us every single day and in every single circumstance.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
When we say things like “they’re in a better place now,” while it isn’t a wrong statement, its almost like we are just desperately seeking for some random cosmic force to make us feel better with thoughts of a place where all we ever do is play games and eat ice cream. But this doesn’t actually help against our depression because there isn’t any reason for us to believe that is what actually happens.
And lets forget about death - we act like this in all sorts of situation.
When something good happens, we’re lucky.
When something bad happens, its just unfortunate.
When we want something, we “hope” for it, but we don’t specifically hope in someone or something.
We don’t believe in some random all-inclusive resort in the sky or in luck or fortune or the “power of the universe”, we believe in the power of Jesus Christ and that His word is true.
So when Martha says “I know that one day Lazarus is going to rise again,” Jesus responds by saying
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
When Martha responds that she does believe, Jesus allows her to experience the present power of hope in Christ.
John 11:40,43
Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.”
In raising Lazarus from the dead after 4 days of being buried in a tomb, Jesus allowed Martha and Mary to experience the present hope and joy that every single one of us have access to as well through Jesus Christ.
And while the resurrection of Lazarus brought them joy, it is the resurrection of Christ that brings us an even greater hope! While the world grasps for ambiguous, passive hope of some resort in the sky, we look to Jesus who has presented us with overwhelming reason to have intense hope and joy in the midst of suffering.
We look to Christ’s empty tomb and are reminded that Jesus has defeated death not only for himself, but for all who believe in him.
And yet so often we are living defeated lives as though Christ never rose from the dead!
So how do we access this hope? What do we do when we, like Martha and Mary, are brought down to despair in the midst of horrible circumstances?
Like Paul did in Romans, when we are lacking hope we pray to the God of hope
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
As we pray to God and fix our eyes on Jesus and the victory over death that he has won for all who believe through his resurrection, our sorrows are turned to joy and our dark minds are filled with hope that death has been defeated.
Peter talks about our hope in his letter as well and he highlights the present nature of it, and let’s close by listening to the richness of that hope that Jesus has purchased for us in his resurrection even in the midst of dark trials:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,
Do you believe this?