I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but just about one month from today, all of us must have filed our income tax returns for 2011. And every year when we complete our returns, we’re reminded of the old adage first made famous in one of Benjamin Franklin’s letters: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Since Ben Franklin penned those words in 1789. Others have come up with some interesting takes on his words. Here are a couple that I came across this week:
The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.
- Will Rogers
The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling.
- Paula Poundstone
Death and taxes are inevitable, but death doesn't repeat itself.
This morning as we continue our journey through the seven “I am” sayings of Jesus in John’s gospel account, we’ll find that the words of Benjamin Franklin aren’t quite right – at least when it comes to death. We’ll also find that death is no laughing matter. So go ahead and turn with me to John 11.
Although it would be nice if we had time to read and comment on the entire chapter, we want to narrow our focus and concentrate on the relevant words of Jesus this morning. I think that most of us are probably at least somewhat familiar with the account of the raising of Lazarus that we find in this chapter, but let me briefly set the stage.
After the Jews had tried to stone Jesus for claiming to be one with God the Father, Jesus and His followers had crossed back over the Jordan River to an area known as Perea, where Jesus ministered for several months before returning to Jerusalem, where He was crucified. While He was in Perea, Word came to Jesus that his friend Lazarus was sick and about to die. Jesus continued to minster there for two more days, then He and His disciples began their journey to Bethany, which was just outside Jerusalem.
We’ll pick up the account in verse 17:
Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 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.” 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?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
John 11:17-27 (ESV)
From the words of Jesus here, let’s identify…
IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF JESUS AS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE:
1. The resurrection and life is a person
In the culture of Jesus’ day, there were a number of different views about the resurrection that would have influenced Martha’s understanding:
• The Sadducees did not believe in any kind of resurrection and understood that the soul ceased to exist upon death. We see this confirmed in acts 23 in the account of Paul’s appearance before the Jewish Council:
For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.
Acts 23:8 (ESV)
• The Pharisees did believe in a bodily resurrection of the dead in the Messianic Age to come, an idea that we find expressed several places in the Old Testament, but most clearly in the words of Job:
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
Job 19:25-27 (ESV)
• The Greeks generally believed that certain heroic individuals were resurrected from the dead and made physically immortal but everyone else was destined for an afterlife as disembodied and dead souls
When Jesus told Martha, “Your brother will rise again”, Martha responded in a way that indicated that her understanding of the resurrection was closest to that of the Pharisees - I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day . As we read
Martha’s conversation with Jesus we get the sense that Martha had been comforted with these or similar words over and over for the last four days, much in the same way that we might comfort someone who has lost a loved one by saying, “He is in a better place now.”
But then Jesus responded with some words that really caught the attention of Martha, and probably everyone else that heard them that day – I am the resurrection and the life. With those words, Jesus made it clear that the resurrection, in particular, is more than just some future event. The resurrection was there before them in person, embodied in Jesus Himself.
Although it is true that the physical resurrection of every Christ follower will not occur until sometime in the future, because Jesus is the resurrection, His followers do experience a spiritual resurrection in the present.
In Ephesians 2, Paul describes how all of us were once spiritually dead. But in Jesus, the resurrection and the life, we have experienced a spiritual resurrection:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…
Ephesians 2:4-6 (ESV)
When Jesus proclaimed to Martha that He was the resurrection and the life, He was not only pointing out to her that He had the ability to raise her brother from the dead right then and there, but also revealing to all who were present that day that they could personally experience a resurrection in their own lives that would provide them with life – real life. That leads directly to the second aspect of Jesus as the resurrection and the life that we’ll look at today…
2. The resurrection and life is pervasive
Over the past two weeks, we’ve looked at three different Greek words that can be translated “life”.
• bios = quantitative life
• zoe = both quantitative and qualitative life
• psuche = soul
So let’s take a brief poll here this morning to see how well you understand those three words. Which of the three words do you think Jesus uses here in John 11, when He proclaims Himself to be “the life”? [Ask for show of hands]
Very good. He uses the word “zoe”, which indicates both a quantity and quality of life. And that is further emphasized here in the two statements that Jesus makes regarding that life. In order to fully understand Jesus as the life, we need to look at each statement separately and then examine them as a whole.
• Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live…
Here, Jesus is emphasizing the quantitative aspect of the life He gives. Even though all of us die physically, those who believe in Jesus continue to live spiritually. Just as we saw earlier in Ephesians 2, they have been transformed from those who are spiritually dead to those who are spiritually alive in Christ.
We also find in these words a promise of the physical resurrection that every believer will experience one day when our physical bodies will be resurrected and reunited with our souls. That process is described in more detail in 1 Corinthians 15 and we’ll take some time to look at that in more detail in our “Connections” Bible study later this morning.
• …everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
Here, the primary focus is on the qualitative aspect of life, although the quantitative aspect is also present. There are a couple essential points that Jesus is making here that can only be discerned through a careful examination of Jesus’ words.
First, without getting into a Greek grammar lesson here, the sentence construction very clearly links together the two actions of living and believing in Jesus. Jesus promises that those who both live in Him and believe in Him will never die.
This is quite consistent with what we’ve seen in the previous four “I am” statements of Jesus. In order to appropriate that which Jesus offers to us, we must believe in Him, but that belief must be the kind of belief that also results in action on our part:
o When Jesus proclaimed that He is the “bread of life”, He said that only those who spiritually ate His flesh and drank His blood had life in them.
o When Jesus proclaimed that He is “the light of the world”, He also said that those who want to have the light of life must follow Him.
o When Jesus proclaimed that He is the “door”, He made it clear that one must enter through that door alone in order to experience real life.
o When Jesus proclaimed that He is the “good shepherd”, He said that those who are truly His sheep must both hear His voice and then follow Him.
Obviously, Jesus is focusing here on spiritual life rather than physical life. In the Scriptures, we have a number of accounts, including this account of Lazarus, where people were resuscitated. But in none of those accounts did anyone experience a physical resurrection because all of them, including Lazarus, died physically again at some later time. But those who live and believe in Jesus do experience a permanent spiritual resurrection which will be accompanied at some point in the future with a physical resurrection as well.
The second thing we notice is that the verbs here are in the present tense. That means that Jesus is speaking here of a lifestyle in which one consistently and continually lives in Him and believes in Him.
When we put all this together, the picture we get is that the life Jesus offers is pervasive. It is both a quality of life as well as a length of life. It is an abundant life right here and now and in eternity.
So far, all the “I am” statements of Jesus that we’ve looked at are connected in some way to the events that are associated with Jesus’ claims:
• Jesus claimed to be the “bread of life” right before the Passover and right after He had fed the crowd with bread and fish.
• Jesus claimed to the “light of the world” during the Feast of Tabernacles when the four huge candelabras lit up the Temple and the city of Jerusalem each night.
• Although the text doesn’t specifically mention it, it seems likely that when Jesus claimed to be the “door” and the “good shepherd” there were sheep and shepherds nearby. At a minimum Jesus used an illustration that would have been familiar to His audience.
But here in John 11, the events that accompany Jesus’ proclamation that He is the resurrection and the life are even more crucial in helping us to make some practical applications for our own lives. So let’s use that background to help us develop some…
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS FOR MY LIFE
1. Only Jesus can clean up the “stink” in my life
One of the things that I love about the account in John 11 is that it is so detailed and so real. As Jesus gets ready to raise Lazarus from the dead, we find that Martha has some very practical concerns:
Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
John 11:39-40 (ESV)
Although the ESV does a good job of translating verse 39, this is one of the places where the language of the KJV paints a more vivid picture:
…Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.
John 11:39 (KJV)
He stinketh. That was certainly true for Lazarus in a physical sense. They didn’t have refrigeration or the embalming chemicals that we use today to keep a body from decomposing. So after four days in the tomb there is no doubt that Lazarus stinketh. Just as an aside, the four days is significant because Jewish tradition held that the soul would hang around the grave for three days, hoping to return to the body. So after four days, there was absolutely no hope of resuscitation.
We are all spiritual Lazaruses. When we take our lives and present them in the presence of a holy God, we stinketh. And there is absolutely nothing we can do to remove the stink. Just like the dead man Lazarus couldn’t do anything about his stink because He was dead, we are spiritually dead and we can’t do anything on our own to clean up the stink in our lives.
But how many people do you know that try to clean up the stink in their lives by themselves? They try will power. They try self-help books and programs. They try support groups. They try relying upon friends or family or other people. And while some of these things might offer some temporary relief, they never actually clean up the stink. It’s kind of like just spraying some room deodorizer into your kid’s room after they have a dirty diaper without actually cleaning up and removing the diaper from the room.
But the good news is as the resurrection and the life, Jesus is both willing and able to clean up the stink in our lives. But He only does that for those who live and believe in Him.
The problem that many of us, even those of us who are Christ followers, have is that we won’t get out of the way so that Jesus can clean up our stink. We’re spending so much time and effort trying to clean it up on our own, using our own methods, that we get in His way.
No matter how much you’ve messed up your life, no matter how dirty your past may be, it’s never too dirty for Jesus to clean up. If you’re one of those people who has put off trusting your life to Jesus because you feel like you first have to clean up the stink in your life, please don’t do that any longer. Trust in Jesus to do that for you.
And if you’re already a follower of Jesus, but you find that you’re still trying to clean up all the stink in your life, then let go of that. No human effort alone will ever be successful in removing that stink. Let Jesus do that for you.
2. Jesus ability to work in my life is not limited by my circumstances or my doubts
Throughout this account Martha and her sister Mary both express their doubts about the resurrection power of Jesus. Although they have spent time with Him face to face and are aware of the other miracles He has performed, they don’t really believe that Jesus can do anything about the predicament of their brother.
The first thing that both Martha and Mary say when they see Jesus is, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” It seems that they both believed Jesus could have done something for Lazarus if He had come earlier, but now it was too late.
And then, as we’ve already seen, when Jesus told Martha that Lazarus would rise again, Martha could only think of how that was going to happen far down the road during the Messianic age. And even when Jesus commanded the people gathered there to roll away the stone, Martha still had her doubts. She just couldn’t see how Jesus could do anything with the rotting corpse of her brother that had now been in the tomb for four days.
But Jesus did raise Lazarus from the dead in spite of difficulty of the circumstances and in spite of their doubts. And by doing so, Jesus proved to Martha and Mary and to us that there are no circumstances that are beyond His ability to handle.
Be honest, do you ever feel like your problems are somehow too big or too difficult for Jesus to handle? Whether it’s a broken relationship, or a health issue or a job situation, or your finances do you feel like your situation is too far gone, that it’s too stinky for Jesus to clean up?
Jesus worked in the lives of Martha, Mary and Lazarus because He loved them and had compassion on them. He was deeply moved by the grief of those who were mourning the death of Lazarus. So He raised Lazarus from the grave in spite of their doubts and in spite of the seeming impossibility of the circumstances. And Jesus loves you like that, too. He desires to work in your life in spite of the difficulty of the situation that you face and even in spite of any doubts you might have. So won’t you allow Him in so He can do that?
3. Jesus often calls me to be His co-laborer when He works in the lives of His people.
I’m really fascinated by how Jesus involves others in the miracle He performs in raising Lazarus. First, he instructs the people who are there to move the stone that covered the opening of the tomb. And then when Lazarus came out of the tomb, Jesus instructed them to remove the linen strips that bound his body.
Obviously Jesus didn’t need anyone else’s help. After all, if He has the ability to bring Lazarus back to life, it would be no problem at all for Him to merely speak and have the rock move or command the linen strips to fall from Lazarus’ body.
And yet Jesus chose to involve others in that miracle, to make them His co-laborers in His work. That is something that characterized much of Jesus’ ministry. For instance, when he fed the large crowd of 5,000 men, as recorded in John 6. Jesus chose to involve a young boy who had two fish and five loaves of bread. Jesus certainly didn’t need those fish and loaves. As the Creator of the universe, He could have easily created enough food to feed the crowd from nothing. But He allowed that young boy to be His co-laborer in the process.
Jesus still calls His followers to be His co-laborers. So often when He wants to work in the life of another person, He often calls His followers to co-labor with Him in that work. The apostle Paul certainly understood this principle well:
Working together with him [Jesus], then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
2 Corinthians 6:1 (ESV)
For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.
1 Corinthians 3:9 (ESV)
Once again, Jesus certainly doesn’t need any of us in order to carry out His plans in this world. But because he desires that we experience joy in our lives by laboring alongside of Him, He allows us that privilege. But I wonder how many times we miss those opportunities because we’re so caught up in our own lives. That can happen to us both personally and as a body.
On a personal level, we need to make sure that we don’t get so focused on self that we fail to see those around us who are hurting and who Jesus wants to minister to through us. And as a body, we need to make sure that we don’t get so inwardly focused on taking care of ourselves that we miss out on opportunities to minister in the lives of those outside these walls.
While it is true that in this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes, it is also true that as the resurrection and the life Jesus has overcome death for those who live and believe in Him. None of us will ever pass from death to life by going to church, or being religious, or following some set of rules or by our own good works. It is a person, Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life.
This morning, Jesus is asking each one of us the same question He asked Martha nearly 2,000 years ago:
Do you believe this?
Let’s pray.
