The Unique Jesus (5):I am the Resurrection and the Life
- Rev Norman Cameron

I must have conducted almost 150 funerals in my time as a minister so far. I think at every one I have declared the words of John 11:25 - “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.” They are words of great hope at a time when people are going through the worst of times.

I believe they are among the most hopeful words in all literature I declare them with authority and with sincerity because I believe them to be true. I believe them to be true because of who spoke them, and because of the context in which he spoke them.

Here we have the fifth of the seven I am statements of Jesus in John’s Gospel. I have mentioned before that John often sets these sayings near a miracle, or a sign, that Jesus performed and when the miracle and the I Am statement are tied together they have an added force and resonance. Here Jesus performs one of his greatest miracles – some would say it is his greatest – and the saying is right in the middle of a miracle. The miracle, if you like, proves that what Jesus was saying about himself was true.

We do not need to spend much time on the narrative for this is one of the best known events in the Bible. Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, was very ill. This family was well known to Jesus, in fact he had a special relationship with them. Word is sent to Jesus, who is about twenty miles away, that Lazarus is unwell but instead of going immediately to him Jesus delays for two more days and he sends a message “this sickness will not end in death.” (11:4)

But Lazarus does die. Jesus says to his disciples on the way to Bethany, Lazarus has fallen asleep. They say well if he is sleeping that could be good, he may get better; but of course by sleep Jesus meant that he had died.

He arrives four days after Lazarus has died. Four days was significant in that culture because there was a belief, perhaps we would call it more of a superstition, that when a person died their soul hovered around the body for three days before definitely departing. The rabbinic belief was that the soul tries to re-enter the body but as it sees the body changing and decomposing then the soul departs. If Lazarus was dead four days, he was very dead, his soul had definitely departed. His body was starting the decomposing process.

So as Jesus delays before setting out to Bethany he is implying two things. He will not be hurried or harried, he does everything according to the Father’s timing and purposes. What was going to happen was for the Father’s glory - in other words that the Father’s glory might be better revealed. Also in waiting for four days there would be no doubt among the people that Lazarus was really dead. It was not a faint, it was not a case of mistaken diagnosis. He was dead.

Martha meets him and believes that if Jesus had been there Lazarus would not have died. There then follows this lovely conversation which is almost humorous as Jesus says he will rise again and Martha says I know he will rise at the last day. But no, Jesus means he is going to rise now, today.

Now before we go any further I want to set this saying and this event in the context of the Old Testament, as we have been doing with the other I am sayings. I want us to see that in the Old Testament scriptures although the idea of afterlife and resurrection is there it is actually a minor theme, it is underdeveloped. Warren Wiersbe says “Jesus brought the doctrine of the resurrection out of the shadows and into the light. The Old Testament revelation about death and resurrection is not clear or complete: it is, as it were, in the shadows.”

It is not that there were not resurrections in the Old Testament but the whole emphasis of the Jew was very much on God blessing in this life, God prospering in this life and judging people in this life. When a person died there was a descending to the dust and to a strange netherworld sometimes called Sheol. It was not clear what happened in Sheol, but there was an implication that there was some form of conscious existence, a shadowy wraith like existence. It was, according to Psalm 88:11-12, a place of darkness, a land of oblivion, a place of destruction.

But set against this of course we have Enoch and Elijah who did not die but seemed to undergo some kind of translation to heaven to be with God. We also have the strange episode where Saul tries to get the witch of Endor to bring up the spirit of Samuel who had died and she seems to succeed in this.

Also in the Old Testament text there are a few ringing endorsements of eternal life and the idea of bodily resurrection at the end days. There are only a few but they are worth noting. Psalm 23 of course ends by saying “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” In Job 19:25 Job says “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God..” A triumphant declaration in the midst of his suffering. Or what of Isaiah 66:22-24 – “As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me so will your name and descendants endure…all mankind will come and bow down before me and they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me, their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” Or finally what of Daniel 12:2 “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake; some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”

These verses are clear and strong that there will be a resurrection at the last day – a bodily resurrection, not just of our souls. But that is it in the Old Testament, the rest is silent as far as the nature of eternal life is concerned.

There are however a couple of instances in the Old Testament where people came back to life, but again only a couple. In 1 Kings 17:17-23 the son of the widow at Zarephath is raised by Elijah. When he hears of her son’s death he prays and then he stretches himself upon the boy three times before the boy comes to life. In 2 Kings 4 there is almost a parallel with Elisha, Elijah’s successor, where the Shunamite’s son is restored to life in the same way with Elisha stretching himself upon the boy and the boy sneezed seven times and came alive. As someone said “sneezes never sounded so healthy!”

I can only think of one other episode where someone came to life after death and you would almost miss it, and it has to do with Elisha again. In 2 Kings 13:21 we find that Elisha has died and is buried in a tomb. A man is being buried by Israelites but they are disturbed by Moabite raiders and they throw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb and it says “When the body touched Elisha’s bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.” The power of God still resided in the very dead bones of Elisha.

So in the Old Testament we have a handful of texts pointing God’s people to a bodily eternal resurrection, we have two translations to heaven (Enoch and Elijah) and we have three risings from the dead – all to do with Elijah and Elisha, and that is it. All this covers a few thousand years of Bible history. It’s not a lot really over such a time.

And then comes Jesus. And then comes Jesus who does in three years more than the past three thousand years. Along comes Jesus who in three years raises Jairus’ twelve year old daughter (Mark 5:35-43), the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11-15), both who had just died and now he was going to raise a man who had been dead for four days, Lazarus of Bethany. So in three years he matches the number of risings in the Old Testament.

I also want you to notice that all these risings in the Bible, apart from the rising of Jesus, were different from Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus resurrection was a true resurrection to eternal life – he would not die again, whereas all these other resurrections were a resuscitation of the physical, mortal body. In other words they would die again at a later time. When Jesus rose his body was the same yet different. It looked similar and it bore the marks of the nails but it also looked different. He could eat and drink and yet he could suddenly appear in a locked room. His body was a spiritual, physical body. The mortal had put on immortality, the perishable had put on the imperishable. What happened to Jesus will happen to us who believe in him.

And how do we know this? How can we be sure that this will happen? How can we say with Paul “Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting – God gives us the victory thorough our Lord Jesus Christ” We can know this and we can say this and w ecan believe this because our faith is based on a sure and certain hope, it is based on evidence. It is based on a miracle where a man who was dead four days – so long in fact that Martha was concerned about the smell (Jn.11:39). Jesus says in v.38 “Take away the stone” Martha says “But Lord, by this time there is a bad odour for he has been there four days.” And Jesus says “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God.”

And so they took away the stone. If you had been there would you have taken away the stone. Would you have had the faith, or maybe you would just have acted out of sheer curiosity. But they took away the stone and they stood and waited – expectantly. Note then that Jesus prays before the miracle as if the miracle has occurred. In other words so closely is he on terms with the Father that he knows what is going to happen. He knows God is going to move and do something. He knows the outcome before it has happened and he says “father I thank you that you have heard me”.

Then Jesus calls out in a loud voice - Lazarus come out. Some commentators make the point that Jesus needed to use the name Lazarus for such was Jesus’ power that if he did not specify Lazarus others could have been raised!

As the people wait then there emerges from the shadows of the tomb a figure shuffling along in graveclothes – his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face. Oh to have seen it, oh to have been there. Can you imagine the joy, the awe, the wonder – and in the Jewish leaders case, the hatred. For it was after this that they begin to plot Jesus’ death, but you will also note in John 12:10 that they “made plans to kill Lazarus as well for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him.”

You see Jesus is unique. He is the resurrection and the life. We need to be clear here what we are saying here. Only God can bring life back from the dead. It is not within our power or any other human being’s power to raise the dead.

Here is the nub of the matter. Only God has ultimate control over life and death and only he can reverse death. Jesus is claiming to be God, he is acting like God. There can be no doubts. Even John the Baptist when he was in prison doubted – and when we are in prisons, whether that prison be a physical one, or a prison of doubt, or a prison of depression, or a prison of illness, or a prison of abuse, or a prison of hatred, or a prison of bereavement then when we feel as if we are in a prison and we are not being healed, as John the Baptist was not released, then we still need to hear and believe in Christ – “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is preached to the poor.” Now Jesus did not heal everyone he met and he did not raise all the dead, but as he walked on this earth he did enough for me to believe that he was who he said he was and one day he will raise all who have believed on him.

The God who made us from nothing, from dust, can raise us from dust again. Whether you are dead five days or five hundred years – God can do it and he will do it. Our souls and our bodies will be re-united and as Phil.3:21 says “the power of the Lord Jesus Christ will enable him to bring everything under his control and will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” We do not therefore grieve as those who have no hope “We believe Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.” (1 Thess.4:13-14)

In verse 25 Jesus says – “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 (he will just fall asleep). Do you believe this?”

- Do you believe this? Lazarus certainly did. Jesus is unique. He can raise the dead and he can raise you.