I am the Resurrection and the Life

John 11:25

This is the fifth of the 'I am' sayings in John's Gospel. These sayings are unique to John's Gospel, and each one of them reminds us of the glory of Jesus as the great I am. The name of Jehovah is the name Jesus appropriates to himself, and fills out its meaning for us in the seven 'I am' sayings.

This fifth saying is a remarkable statement; these are familiar words set in a well-known context in the home of Bethany and in connection with the death and subsequent raising of Lazarus. Jesus is coming towards the end of his public ministry, and the opposition against him is growing. There is a great deal of conspiracy afoot to capture Jesus. That is clear at the end of the chapter, where we read about the intrigue of the Pharisees at the time of the Passover. They wonder if Jesus will appear at the feast.

It is also captured for us in the comment Thomas makes when Jesus tells them that they are going to Bethany. Thomas says 'Let us go that we might die with him'. Thomas realises that for them to come out of relative obscurity and into Bethany, nearer Jerusalem, is to walk a path fraught with danger. Thomas is saying, 'Yes, we might as well all go, then we'll all be dead!'

So there is a great deal of opposition to Jesus. Yet, remarkably, in that context, Jesus is going to perform his greatest miracle on that side of the cross. Before he goes to Calvary, and before the miracle of his own resurrection, he is going to perform another miracle to demonstrate his glory: he will bring Lazarus out of the grave. It is in this context that Jesus will make his great claim to be -- not just to bring -- resurrection and life.

Let's remind ourselves of one or two things in this passage. First, let's remind ourselves how much this family loved Jesus. This particular home in Bethany, where Martha, Mary and Lazarus were. There were no children, none of them had married; they lived together -- and they loved the Lord Jesus Christ. They gave him hospitality and a welcome when few places did. As soon as this cloud of sorrow and darkness came over their home, the sisters immediately sent word to Jesus. They sent the message that Lazarus, whom Jesus loved, was ill.

They were a family who loved Jesus. Theirs was a home where Jesus received a reception. As soon as trouble came into their home, they immediately knew that the best thing to do was to take it to Jesus.

I think even at this level, the home of Bethany shines on the pages of the Gospel as an example to our own homes and families. Is our home a home that welcomes Jesus? Is our home a home that has a place for him? Is our family circle one where Jesus is honoured, respected and obeyed? Is it one where, if trouble arises, we know exactly where to go with it? Do we instinctively know that we can take our needs -- not just individually but as families -- all to Jesus.

Is our home one where God's word is honoured, and God's Christ is welcome, and God's cause is loved and God's people find a reception? In this world, where so few homes are so hospitable to the Lord of glory, is our home a Bethany home? Is our family a Bethany family?

What about you young people out there -- perhaps who are coming into years of responsibility and maturity, and who are thinking about engagement and marriage and setting up home -- what kind of home do you want to have? You want a home full of love, joy and happiness, and these are good. But I hope you have a Bethany home. I hope you set up a home where Jesus is always welcome, and by his Spirit is always present. Perhaps you have recently been married -- setting out together on life's course? Is this your kind of home? Is this Jesus prayed to and honoured and worshipped in your family life? Does he have a place of primacy in your life? Do you love having Jesus round to visit? It's the best way to start out on married life together, to make sure your home is a Bethany home. Shining through this chapter is the remarkable place Jesus had in the affections of this home.

But if it is true that this was a home that loved Jesus, then, secondly, it was also a home that Jesus loved. This was a place where Jesus came, because he needed friends and companions, and he enjoyed the fellowship of this home, and he loved Martha, and Mary and Lazarus. I think this is one of the great chapters in the Bible which stresses for us the sheer glory of the humanness of our Lord.

Jesus loved this family. We are told this explicitly in verse 5. In verse 11 he calls Lazarus 'our friend'. In verse 36, when Jesus wept at his grave, the Jews remarked on Jesus' love. It was so obvious -- Jesus loved this family, and drew near them at this time for this very reason. Perhaps more remarkable still, this chapter which shows us the human Jesus is also going to show us the supernatural Jesus whose glory is such that he can stand before the grave of Lazarus and say, 'Lazarus, come out'.

At one level, Jesus is so remarkably like us; but at another level he is so remarkably different to us. His human emotions come through in this chapter. Lazarus is his friend. He was bound to him in ties of deep friendship and in a bond of fellowship that left him weeping over Lazarus' death.

It is good to have good friends. Our Saviour had good friends, and was himself a good friend to those whom he loved. He did not call Lazarus to be one of his apostles -- don't you think that Lazarus would have made a good apostle? Don't you think that Lazarus would have been able to speak about things that Jesus can do for people as none of the others could? He could have gone out and told others that he had died and been raised -- but that was not his calling. His calling was just to be the friend of Jesus where he was, in that home in Bethany. He was not an apostle, not the author of any New Testament book, but in the relative obscurity of Bethany he was a faithful friend of Jesus, and Jesus loved him.

I think that is wonderful, because it is the calling of so many whom Jesus calls his friends. 'You are my friends,' he says, 'if you do whatever I command you'.

Thirdly, we learn here how much more they learned about Jesus when trouble hit their family. When the dark clouds of death and separation came over their home and their family they discovered more about Jesus than they could possibly imagine, and they found him in places and in ways in which they never expected to find him, seeing things they would never have seen had it not been for the death of their brother.

Isn't it amazing how many times Jesus speaks to us through things that are taking place in our lives, and in the life of our family and home. He uses children to speak to parents; he uses parents to speak to children, brothers to speak to sisters and sisters to brothers. Sometimes God's voice is heard by us in things we would never have wished for, and never have wanted to come into our homes and families. The sisters ran to Jesus; both said the same thing -- 'if you had been here, our brother would not have died'. How they loved their brother! They would have given anything to have had him back with them again. How often had they visited neighbours and friends when they had lost loved ones? How often had they mourned with others?

Now it was their time to mourn. Now what they had seen so often in the homes and lives and families around them now came to themselves. Let's never forget that there is a time for rejoicing and there is a time for weeping. The Bible reminds us that sorrow clouds can quickly come across our sky and blot out our sun; they can quickly bring unpleasant and difficult things into our lives; yet we are also reminded that through these things the Lord reveals himself as the Lord of life and of grace and of glory.

There are people reading this who can look back over their lives and see things written into that story things they would never have chosen for themselves, but they also would say that they would not have left these things out of their lives either. His way is always best. Even through pain and difficulty and darkness, Jesus makes himself known.

Fourthly, the faith of these sisters was tested by Jesus' delay. The message came in the first instance: 'Lazarus is ill'. Then they send word 'Lazarus is dead'. There is delay on the part of Jesus; he waits before he acts. So much so that by the time he finally comes to Bethany, Lazarus is buried. 'If you had been here....' The sisters say to him. 'If ... then'. 'If you had come earlier, then our brother would still be alive'. If you had not delayed things would be so different.

But there is a song that says that although Jesus was four days late, he was right on time. His timing in our lives is not always our timing. His timetable is not always the same as ours; sometimes there is good reason for him to delay. Sometimes he just wants us to exercise our faith with patience in the testing, knowing that he knows, and it is in his control. The sisters were probably right: if he had come earlier things would have turned out differently. But the reason he delayed was so that they would discover things they could otherwise never have known.

Maybe you are wondering what Jesus is doing with your life; maybe you've been praying but there is no answer; maybe there are things that have concerned you over many years but there is still no resolution. Maybe he has kept you waiting, and nothing seems to be happening; but in his own time it will be to his glory. That is what he said at the beginning.

Finally he comes, and Martha runs out to meet Jesus. It is so much in character -- Martha just runs to Jesus, after hearing that he had come. She says that he could have prevented Lazarus's death, and so he could have. But Martha has to learn things about Jesus. 'Your brother will rise again'. Immediately Martha assumes that Jesus is speaking about the ultimate, final resurrection. 'I know he will rise on the last day,' she says. It is at this point that Jesus makes the claim: 'I am -- even now -- the resurrection and the life'.

Let me say three things about these words.

First, THEY ARE SPOKEN BY A REMARKABLE PERSON.

This point hardly needs to be proved, but it is worth making nonetheless. There is no-one like Jesus. One of the things that shows me the uniqueness of Jesus is the fact that he can utter these words. No-one else can. None of the disciples could have said them; the sisters of the dead man could not have said them; no-one in the company could have said them. The high priest and the religious leaders could not speak like this. Only Jesus could say 'I am the resurrection and the life'.

He is not saying that Martha is right to believe in the resurrection; nor is he saying that he himself believes and teaches the final resurrection -- he says 'I AM the resurrection'. Combined in this unique person on the pages of John's Gospel is everything that is true of our humanness -- Jesus weeps, groans, loves, comes with a heart full of affection for this family -- and everything that belongs to the great I am, to the great God that he is.

He combines in his person all that is true of God and all that is true of man. He can articulate the words that alone can address this situation -- I am the resurrection and the life.

There is no God but Jehovah, and Jehovah is Jesus, and stands alone on the pages of the Bible and on the stage of human history. His equal is found nowhere. This is unprecedented and unparalleled. You will not find another Jesus on the pages of the history books. He who says 'I am the resurrection' is alone qualified to speak in this way, and there is nobody like him. That is why it is so important that we find him and close in with him, and make him our friend.

What a privilege - that they could claim this person as their friend; that he could say 'our friend Lazarus'. This unique person has so much love for this family that their situation moves him to tears. 'We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with a sense of our weakness' says the New Testament. Do you think Christ is so remote that he doesn't know what you are going through? He was tempted in all points but was sinless. His heart beat with the deepest affection. He groaned when he saw what death had done. He has been here, and he knows the trauma and difficulty of living in a fallen world. Yet as a man among men he is alone, the God-man, the great I am. We worship him and follow him, and say 'to whom can we go'. We say 'no man ever spoke like this man'. He has words full of grace.

Is your ear tuned in to the voice of Jesus? His sheep hear his voice, and there is no-one they wish to follow but him. His word fills, thrills and delights the soul. Whom have I but you alone? He is absolutely unique. These words are the words of a remarkable person.

Secondly, these words ARE FULL OF REMARKABLE POWER.

They indicate for us that this Jesus has a power that no one has. It is not just that he has insight, understanding, sympathy and fellow-feeling that no-one else has; this Jesus has a power that belongs to none other.

That is easily demonstrated; Jesus' power in this place is greater than the greatest power known among men. What is that? It is here -- don't you see it here, in the cold, unfeeling tomb in which Lazarus is laid? Don't you see it in this separation and sadness and burden of grief that weighs this family down? The greatest power at work in the world is at work here -- it is the power of death, the power that cuts right across all our dreams, hopes and aspirations. It is able to cause havoc and destruction and pain in human life.

Don't you see death waiting here to claim one after another of the lost, fallen sons of Adam. By one man's disobedience sin came into the world -- and death by sin. Riding on the back of our rebellion is this power of death that comes with all its force and potency ripping through the resolutions and plans of people. We brush it aside and fail to give it the thought we ought to give it. We walk over the graves of others and fail to remember that one day the place that knows us now will know us no more. We carry others to their last resting place as Lazarus was carried and entombed behind that stone, and we forget that one day the same power will claim us also.

Does the Bible not say that it is appointed to us all once to die and after death the judgement? There is no going beyond that boundary that God has set for our lives. We are made for eternity, and we are living in a world of sin and of death. It is so powerful. No-one can say to death 'Don't come here'. No one can say 'Don't come here yet'. No one can say 'Don't come here that way.' No one can say 'Don't come here until...'.

No -- the power of death sweeps right across our human experience, and comes right into our homes and our lives. We must all sleep the sleep of death. Remember the powerful Old Testament image -- 'we are like water poured out on the ground'. Try to gather it again -- it is impossible. We live our lives like a tale that is told -- then the power of death brings it all to an end, and concludes the story in God's time, not in ours, according to God's appointment, not according to our plans.

Yet here is Jesus, in the face of the greatest power at work in human history, standing before it and saying 'I am the resurrection'. Can you imagine the impact of that moment? Conscious as she is of the power that has carried her brother away, Martha is face to face with Jesus, and he is claiming a power greater than that of death. He is claiming to have the power of resurrection and the power of life in his own being and in his own person, and ultimately in his work.

That is why he stands alone, and why we must listen to him. Yes, our lives must go the way of all flesh. Yes, our lives will be spilled like water on the ground. Yes we must leave this place and go into eternity. But let us listen to the one who has the keys of death in his hands, who can defy death and say 'O death where is your sting? O grave where is your victory?'

This is the Jesus who can come with all the power of resurrection life and victory into hearts that are dead in trespasses and sins. He is not saying 'I will be the resurrection on the last day', but 'I am NOW the resurrection'. All those who are believers in the Lord Jesus have experienced the power of resurrection. The New Testament describes the new birth as a passing from death to life -- that is resurrection. Jesus has come into the lives of people with unique resurrection power. He makes people alive. All that he does for his people by his grace in conversion is an act of resurrection. If we are born again we have been made alive spiritually. There is no life apart from him. Outside of him there is only sin and death. But his power brings the power of life into human experience.

This power is able to raise the dead when they hear the voice of the Son of God. This Jesus can do for you spiritually what he did for Lazarus physically -- he can take you out of a grave of spiritual death into newness of life. No-one else can do that. That is why he says 'Seek me and live'.

Thirdly, these words HOLD OUT A REMARKABLE PROMISE.

What is the promise of these words? 'Your brother will live again'. Yes, Martha is right -- he will rise in the last day; but Lazarus, by a unique act of God's providence is going to come out of the grave, and will experience a reviving and a reconstituting of his person; he is going to speak with them, and sit with them, and eat with them. The foolish thing was that the Jewish leaders, when they saw how people believed in Jesus as a result of this miracle, said 'Let's put Lazarus to death!' Did they not realise that if they put Lazarus to death Jesus could raise him again? But sin is so blind to all that Jesus does; here Jesus speaks into the teeth of death, and its power and pain -- because of what Jesus is, Lazarus will live again.

And Jesus continues to speak into the reality of death and to hold out the promise that one day those who sleep in Jesus will be raised incorruptible and he will change their vile body and make them like his own.

That is the Christian hope -- that death does not have the ultimate word, or the final word. Death brings many things to an end, but the power of him who is the resurrection means that for all of God's people life has the last word. All in their graves will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

I cannot imagine that day; it defies my power of imagination, but I believe it because I commit to the promises Jesus makes to me, and he says 'you will rise again'. Jesus promises me that this world is just a temporary place, a tent which one day will dissolve, and we will return to our constituent element. We will sleep the sleep of death, but it will not be forever. The years will roll and the centuries will see these bodies united to Jesus, and history will run their course; over these graves the world will carry on all its activities and carry out all its plans; but underneath that covering of dust the bodies of God's people will rest until the resurrection.

When that day dawns, and the trumpet sounds and the voice of the archangel summons God's people out of their graves forever, there will be a resurrection and they will discover personally what it is to rise with triumph and place their foot on the neck of the enemy and see Jesus face to face.

Do you have that hope? There is nothing more important than that you should be able to know that when you die you will sleep in Jesus in the hope of the resurrection that belongs to those who sleep in Jesus.

But there will be another resurrection, of those who are not in Christ. They will be summoned to the bar of his final judgement. The Bible says little about it except that their resurrection will be a step towards the lost eternity that they chose for themselves in their rejection of Jesus. Make sure that when the curtain finally falls, and when Jesus comes or calls that you are trusting in him who is the resurrection and the life. Then, with triumph and victory you will be caught up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, on that day when Jesus shuts his people in and his enemies out.

'I am the resurrection and the life' -- but is he our hope of resurrection and glory?

Who are you Jesus?

'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?'