“I am the Resurrection and the Life … Do You Believe?”
“I am the Resurrection and the Life.” John, the disciple, records these claims of Jesus in the mid-section of his gospel. What is resurrection? What is ‘the life’? Why was Jesus asking Mary to believe that He was the resurrection and the life? In John 11:17-44, - the story that follows Jesus’ declaration and question - is the raising of Mary and Martha’s brother, Lazarus, to life after he had been dead four days. (A note of interest: Pastor Jim told us that in ancient Hebrew tradition, the soul leaves the body after four days. The Jews knew this. So the story must be suggesting that Jesus brought soul and body back together.) As people of the 21st century, these are difficult claims and questions for us to process. Were these Bible stories recorded as scientific, rational documentations or were there other kinds of meanings trying to be revealed?
Pastor Jim asked us to brainstorm for words that come to mind when we hear ‘resurrection’. The room went quiet. Finally, people said: rebirth, new life, forgiveness, and fulfillment. Jim suggested the word resuscitation. I think these words coalesce around dying and then again becoming active - energized and alive. The Old Testament offers a ‘word picture’ of resurrection in the story of the valley of dry bones found in Ezekiel 37. (Remember the old spiritual song ‘Dem Dry Bones’.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVoPG9HtYF8)
Do we believe that new life can be restored after a lived life has crumbled or died? The words between Jesus’ declaration of “I am the resurrection and the life” and His question, ‘Do you believe this?’, are interesting. Boiling His phrases to word nuggets, He says in this order: “believe, die, live” and, then, “live, believe, never die.” What does it mean to “believe”? What does it mean to “die”? Besides the cessation of cells metabolizing, can ‘death’ be something else – loss of fortune, health, loved ones, hopes and dreams? What is the opposite of ‘death’? Is it living and growing? What does it mean to “live”? Is quality of life a necessary ingredient for experiencing a meaningful life?
This morning (April 10, 2017) I saw an interview on the NBC Today Show with author Abigail Pogrebin about her new book My Jewish Year. She described herself as growing up and living her adult life to age fifty as a Jew but non-observant. She decided that she wanted her life to feel fuller and more meaningful. She began wondering what would happen if she intentionally practiced the rituals of her ancient Jewish heritage as a blueprint for a living. After one year of being keenly observant in the Jewish faith, she discovered that she felt significantly more fulfilled and passionate in her life. As she said, “Do it, and you will feel it.”
Maybe Jesus was talking about this in His declaration and question to Mary – the “believe, die, live” – and then the almost reverse – “live, believe, never die”. Does it matter what comes first – belief or living? Maybe some of us follow this pattern: “believe” the new first, let “die” the old patterns of thought and behavior, and then “live” into the new, deeper and richer ways. Maybe some of us need to “live” (practice) the new ways first, the “believe” enters by osmosis as we experience its joy in the living of our life, and then we “never die”.
Pastor Jim told us that the first half of the book of John focuses on Jesus as light and life. Then comes the Lazarus resurrection story. The word ‘love’ then occurs after this pivotal story significantly many more times in the latter half than the first.
Do death, life, and love have any connection? Although Lazarus was ‘raised from the dead’, I think he eventually did experience another physical death at a later time. So what can we make of this story? The Apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:38-39 that we are always – in life and in death – bound together with the love of God. Paul’s old thinking had died about needing to destroy the Jesus story, when he saw a ‘Light’ that blinded him. He was then guided into a new way of thinking that changed the direction of the rest of his life.
None of this is an especially scientific and rational way of thinking. But for all its irrationality and unprovability, it rewarded Paul, Mary and Martha with the joyful experience of peace, blessedness, and gratitude. The despair was gone. They were overwhelmed with feeling loved. If we are willing to accept this mysterious, nuanced story of Jesus as God Incarnate (God in human form), the essence of Love, and allow it to bind onto our being, what will we experience? Will we find life’s unknown journey ease from fear and be given a sensation of comfort and assurance that we are never alone and always love? I think, as some (maybe only a few) others in the Bible and throughout history have found, that I can and am experiencing that ridiculously illogical peace.
Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
Written by Victoria Sherman
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