Signs: The Resurrection Has Come!


I hate death.  It seems God does too.  The Bible has nothing good to say about death.

"If you had been here, my brother would not have died."  These words from Martha in John 11 reflect much of the anguish we feel about death.  Is God present when death occurs?  What has he done or what will he do about death?

Martha, Mary, and Lazarus were Jesus' close friends.  He had been their guest in their home.  Yet when he got the word that Lazarus was gravely ill, he lingered where he was a couple of days. 

When he finally arrived in Bethany, Martha went out to meet him, and made the statement above.  Then she said, "But I know that even now God will do what you ask."  When Jesus said that her brother would rise again, Martha said in resignation, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."  But what about now?  She missed her brother!

Jesus stunned her by saying, "I am the resurrection and the life."  Though this statement leaps out at us, John has been building up to it for some time.  In the first chapter, John said that Jesus had life in him.  In the fifth chapter, Jesus said that he was calling people from spiritual death to life in the present, and in the future would call people from physical death to life.

Jesus didn't just bring the resurrection and life.  He was the resurrection and life.  Just as God had life in himself, God had given Christ life in himself. 

Martha went and told her sister Mary that Jesus had arrived.  Mary and the crowd of mourners that had gathered at her house went to Jesus.  Mary fell at Jesus' feet, weeping, and said the same thing Martha had said. 

The scene moved Jesus' deeply.  Then he wept.  In that moment, he joined into human suffering and death.  He felt our grief and loss.

But then he gave the sign that God was doing something about death.  He raised Lazarus!  God sent Jesus to the world so that those who put their faith in him would never really die.  Today, Jesus' voice calls to us to rise spiritually to eternal life that begins now and never ends!

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