25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”
John 11:25
ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἀνάστασις καὶ ἡ ζωή· ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμὲ κἂν ἀποθάνῃ
ζήσεται[1]
When Jesus said
this, Lazarus had been dead for four days.
His body had decomposed and produced bad odor. After the first day, the internal organs
decompose, the cell membranes rupture and release enzymes to digest the cells
from the inside out. After the third
day, the body starts to bloat because of the many gases produced by the
enzymes. The microorganism and bacteria
within the body release extremely unpleasant odors. At this point the smell is unbearable. The human body has in average 30 trillion
cells, and they are decomposing all at once starting from day 1. In our intestines, we have commonly 37
trillion bacteria and they start breaking down our body in the first day of
death. Scientifically, it can be
expected that when it comes to day 4 the smell is terrible. No wonder Martha tried to stop Jesus from
commanding the people to open the tomb’s door.
John 11:39 records:
39 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.”
But Martha’s reasoning did not deter
Jesus.
The
dilemma that Martha was facing was not only natural but also cultural. According to the
natural law it is impossible to get back to life after being dead for four
days, especially not after the body decomposes so badly. Culturally, in Jesus’ time the Jews believed
that the human spirit hovered around the dead body for the maximum period of
three days. Thus according to the
prevailing belief system of the day, Lazarus could not return back to life
after being dead for four days because his spirit was no longer there. Had he still be in the three days period,
Martha would believe that Lazarus could be brought back to life. Martha’s belief that Lazarus would be raised
again was bound to her understanding of the natural law and cultural
limitations. Before Jesus said the
famous “I am the resurrection and the
life” line, Martha stated in verse 24:
24 Martha said to him, “I know that he
will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
In
short, Martha believed that Lazarus would be raised again in the last days, but
she did not believe that Jesus could bring back Lazarus right there and then
after being dead four days.
Are we better than Martha? After 2000 years, do we now have stronger
faith than her? Isn’t our faith also
bound by the limitations of our understanding of the natural laws and cultural beliefs? We might not see the dead being raised again
in our modern age, because Jesus is not bodily present with us today, and
neither the prophets nor the apostles.
But of other things we often find ourselves in Martha’s shoes. Let me give you an example. In Asian culture, when our kids become
troublesome, we often believe that it is our karma because we too were
troublesome to our parents when we were young.
Then we appropriate such belief into our Christian faith. Therefore, we then believe that God is
punishing us for what we have done to our parents back then. Sounds familiar? The counterpart is that we also believe that
when our kids are good and well, it is because God rewards us for being nice
back then when we were young. This
karmic system actually is the one cultural belief that binds our faith. And in this case we have not truly believed
in Christ.
Jesus knew that Martha’s faith was
confined in the natural law and cultural belief of the day. So Jesus said most emphatically:
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”
John 11:25
ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἀνάστασις
καὶ ἡ ζωή· ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμὲ κἂν ἀποθάνῃ ζήσεται[2]
Now,
let us look more closely how Jesus emphasized His statement here. Twenty four times recorded in the gospel of
John Jesus said: “I Am” or “Ego Eimi.” Seventeen times the “Ego Eimi” is followed by a predicate like what we have in the passage
above. Many theologians consider the “Ego Eimi” that Jesus said in the gospel
of John special, because it refers to the name of God as He introduced Himself
to Moses in Exodus 3:14:
4 God said to Moses, “I am
who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of
Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
The
“Ego Eimi” indicates that Jesus is
God. When we combine it with the
predicate “The Resurrection and The Life,”
we have here that He is not powerless against death but instead death can’t
overcome Jesus.
A theologian by the name of Brooke
Foss Wescott commented on this passage:
Christ in
the fulness of His Person does not simply work the Resurrection and give life:
He is both. He does not say “I promise,” or “I procure,” or “I bring,” but “I
am.” By taking humanity into Himself He has revealed the permanence of man’s
individuality and being. But this permanence can be found only in union with
Him. Thus two main thoughts are laid down: Life (Resurrection) is present, and
this Life is in a Person.[3]
Thus,
Jesus is not only the bringer of resurrection and life as if He is just a
messenger; but Jesus Himself IS the resurrection and the life. Therefore, resurrection and life is not
merely a gift from God, but it is in relationship with God. The attention thus is not to the gift, but to
the person of Jesus Christ. And Jesus
proved it by resurrecting Lazarus during the stage of terrible
decomposition. Jesus surpassed the
natural law and the cultural belief. With
this, Jesus broke the barrier of Martha’s faith. Martha’s faith was being set free and was no
longer imprisoned within the boundary of the natural law and cultural belief. But instead, her faith was then centered upon
the person of Jesus Christ. Together
with Martha, many people who were there also believed. John 11:45 puts it:
45 Many of
the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed
in him,
I do not doubt that we all, who have
faith in Christ, believe that when we die we shall live in Christ and we will
be resurrected in the end time. What I
am concerned about is that our faith is still being imprisoned within the
natural laws and cultural beliefs. Our
example above is about the karmic system, which, without realizing it, we have
injected into our faith. Subconsciously
we believe that our sins are not truly forgiven, but will eventually catch up
with us. Subconsciously we also believe
that our works will definitely be rewarded on this earth. The dynamics between the two subconscious
beliefs dictates our conclusion that all the bad things we are experiencing are
always the result of our bad deeds in the past and all the good things we enjoy
are always the result of our good works in the past. In that way we then forget about the grace of
God, His mercy and gifts, God’s blessings to us regardless of our past. Similarly we then also forget that bad things
or unfortunate things are not always a punishment from the Almighty, but often
is used by God to help us grow and become better. The bottom line is life is not black and
white but instead life is complex in nature, and our faith in God must be based
on Him, not on our experience or interpretation of our experience.
We need to break free from the prison
of the karmic system. God has forgiven
our sins, past, present, and future, the second we truly believe in
Christ. This is God’s grace to us. But the forgiveness of our sins does not mean
that we will be free from any unfortunate things. The forgiveness of our sins does indeed free
us from the most horrible thing that we deserve, which is the ultimate death in
hell. The death of our physical body,
the pain we feel on our knee, the coughing, the headache, the soreness of our
back, the slowness of our movement, even the loss of our earthly belongings due
to theft, robbery, extortion, and also the untimely death of our loved ones be it
of natural cause or even accidents, should not always be considered as God’s
punishments. They do happen in this
fallen world. Even Jesus, the sinless
One, had to suffer a great deal and died the most humiliating and horrible
death.
It is important for us who believe,
to fix our eyes upon Jesus, trust in Him and His words, follow His teaching,
obey His commands, and cast aside the other beliefs that bind our faith in Him. Martha missed fixing her eyes upon Jesus who
IS the resurrection and the life Himself.
Martha did not realize that she was in the presence of the God of Israel
who appeared to Moses more than 1000 years before. Martha couldn’t bring herself to believe that
Jesus IS more powerful than death. Jesus
then demonstrated His power when He resurrected Lazarus so she and others would
believe. And later, Jesus demonstrated
His eternal power by overcoming both the earthly death and the eternal death
through His death and resurrection. What
is very gracious of Jesus is that He then includes us in His mighty
accomplishment, so that death cannot overcome us who believe in Him.
If the greatest and most fearful
enemy, that is death – both the earthly and the eternal, has been defeated in
Jesus, why are we still allowing our faith to be severely limited by the
natural laws and cultural beliefs? It
wouldn’t make sense, would it? I’m not
saying that we do not need to be realistic.
I am also not suggesting that we all should live in dreams and
imaginations. What I am trying to say is
that the natural laws and the cultural beliefs ought not to deter us from truly
believing in Jesus. We are all plagued
with doubt. When all the evidences are
against us, like there is no money in the bank, or our applications have been
denied, or people continue to slander us, or the justice system does not favor
the righteous, or we can’t seem to recover from our illness, or our kids remain
rebellious and disrespectful, or problems upon problems keep piling up, our
minds can’t help but going to the default system of trusting the natural laws
and the cultural beliefs. We then forget
about Jesus. We have not trusted that
Jesus had done what defies the natural laws and cultural beliefs. We then forget about the Great I Am who
destroyed the mighty Egypt. Because our
faith has been defeated by the natural laws and the cultural beliefs. No, we can’t allow this to happen. Jesus intervened so Martha would not
surrender to the earthly belief system of that day anymore. In the same way Jesus continues to instruct
us and guide us through His words and spirit in order to keep us from
surrendering to the worldly belief system that surrounds us today.
Let me conclude with this. Let us come back to our discussion of the
karma, and break this barrier as an example of all our other beliefs that still
limit our faith in Christ. The karmic
system is a lie. If it were true, our
kids would suffer continuously under the curse of karma, and there is nothing
we or they can do about it. The saddest
thing if it were true is that it is all because of what we had done in the
past. Jesus has shown us the truth, and
the truth has set us free. Yes there are
natural consequences. We fall we got
hurt. We lie we hurt other people and
ourselves. We rob a bank, we got caught,
we end up in jail. We oppress our
employees, they fight back, things got ugly.
We can’t expect that we can hide behind our faith after doing all bad
and evil things so that bad consequences and judgments won’t happen to us. That would be playing with God and
manipulating Him. Such thing would
signal that we might not have true faith in Christ. But all that doesn’t mean that we can’t be
forgiven. That doesn’t mean that we
can’t repent and be good people. Jesus
overcomes the consequence of Adam’s sin, which is death, and He has freely
given us the victory over sin and death.
This is the grace of God for all of you.
I can’t talk about every single belief that limits our faith in Christ here. But I encourage you to be mindful of our beliefs. Remember that Jesus is above all. Nothing in this world can overcome Him. Fix your eyes upon Him alone. Do not rely on other things. For Jesus alone is the “Ego Eimi” – the Great I Am.
Amen.
[1]
Eberhard Nestle et al., The Greek New
Testament, 27th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 1993), Jn 11:25.
[2]
Eberhard Nestle et al., The Greek New
Testament, 27th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 1993), Jn 11:25.
[3]
Brooke Foss Westcott and Arthur Westcott, eds., The Gospel
according to St. John Introduction and Notes on the Authorized Version,
Classic Commentaries on the Greek New Testament (London: J. Murray, 1908), 168.
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