Anastasis

“I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”  (John 11:25-26 TNIV)

I have been told that in life you can count on two things:  taxes and death.  Now I have met a number of people who have managed to avoid paying taxes, but I have yet to meet anyone who has truly avoided death.  If you die, you die. I know there are a number of people who have stories of having died and then came back - I am not talking about them. In the end those people still haven't fully died.  If they had, they wouldn't be here.  If they "survived" death, then they would have been immortal and only one person gets to claim that.  

The story of Jesus and Lazarus is an interesting one.  Lazarus has died and Jesus has come to raise him from the dead.  Everyone around Jesus fails to see the connection between Lazarus' death and the presence of Jesus.  Yet, the connection is profound.  When Jesus arrives, Lazarus' sister Martha runs to Jesus first. "If you had been here, he wouldn't have died.  I still have faith in you that you are God's man, but I know you could have prevented this."  Jesus tells her that Lazarus will rise again to which she simply identifies the "raising" at the end of time as her consolation. In response,  Jesus says the most interesting thing:  

 “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die;  and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus says quite plainly, I am that Resurrection you speak of as well as the Life that proves the Resurrection.  Now Jesus clearly believes in a Resurrection at the end of all time (John 5:29, 6:39-40, 44, 54), but here Jesus clearly is making a distinction.  Jesus says to her that those who believe in him, though they die, will live forever.  That those who base their lives on believing in Jesus will never die.  In other words, Lazarus isn't dead and he has been for awhile.  

And that is what I am doing.  I am alive.  In every sense of the word as pronounced by Jesus, I am alive.  True, I am getting older.  I don't move as quick as I used to and may not be as sharp as I once was, but I am fully alive.  I am experiencing Life because Jesus is my LORD.  And as I experience Life, I am reminded that He who grants Life holds authority over death.  So that when death comes knocking - as it will - I know that I will raise again. I don't know what the space in between will be, nor do I know what the time frame looks like, but I know with confidence I will be raised.  

So maybe today, I will live because of the Life who gives me the confidence to know I will never die.  

Soli Deo Gloria.