John 11:17-27
Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been laid 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.” (ESV)
Hope. In the midst of the weightiness of the world right now, we are collectively grasping for it. We hope for reforms and vaccines and jobs. We hope for systems to change, sickness to be eradicated, and normal social interaction to be restored. We hope for school to start and sports to resume. We hope to worship and work again in the ways for which God created us. These are good and right things, and we should hope for them. But for the weightiness of the world and the weightiness of our hearts, we need a hope that is weightier still. We need a hope that the Scriptures describe—that is sure and steadfast, that does not disappoint and does not put us to shame.
In the midst of death and darkness and despair, Jesus identifies himself as the hope that is weightier still. To his hurting and hoping friend, and to us, Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. . . .
In the person and work of Jesus Christ, death is completely overcome—in all its forms. He is the resurrection and the life. He has had and will have complete victory over sin and Satan and death. Our hope is grounded in glorious truth—hope that is personal, hope that is powerful, and hope that has purpose.
Hope that is Personal
This scene in John 11 narrows in on a conversation not between Jesus and the crowd, but between Jesus and a friend. Martha is someone Jesus deeply knows and dearly loves. She runs to him as someone who is hurting and grieving; her brother Lazarus has just died. And she runs to him as someone who is confused. She knows if Jesus had just been there, he could have saved him. Why hadn’t he come?
The previous verses answer this question. Jesus intentionally delays in coming because he loves them. He delays in coming so that in the raising rather than the saving of Lazarus, God might be glorified, and so that Martha and all who witness this miracle might believe in him.
We see this is progression in Martha. She tells him, “Lord, if you had been here, Lazarus would not have died.” Jesus responds that he will be raised. Martha then tells him, “Yes, I know. I know the theology, I know the promise, I know what the Scriptures say, he will be raised on the last day.”
But Jesus is saying, “Yes. But I have come to give you much more than that. I am the resurrection and the life. I know you know the promise, but do you know me?” Jesus wants to move Martha and us from knowing truth to knowing Him!
Real resurrection power is not found in our profession, but in a person! Real resurrection power is not just a theology we believe, but a person in whom we trust! Our hope is not merely that the resurrection will happen, but that He is here! He has come not merely to raise our bodies but to unite us to himself, so that his resurrection, and the victory that he wins in it over sin and Satan and death belong to us fully too.
Hope that is Powerful
What a powerful hope this reality then brings! We are united to a risen and reigning Savior. The resurrection is then for us both a future promise and a present power.
Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we can look forward with surety to the day when death is defeated once and for all, and all his enemies sit as footstools at his feet. His resurrection has given us a foretaste of the day when everything sad will be made untrue and all that is wrong will be made right. Because of his resurrection, we can look forward with hope to the day John foresees, the day when, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. . . .” (Revelation 21:4).
Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we can also look at our present struggles with powerful hope. The resurrection power of Jesus is ours now too. Paul says in Ephesians 2:4-5,
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. . . .
If you are in Christ, death no longer defines you—life does. If you are in Christ, sin and struggle and shame are no longer the overarching themes of your story; you are not defined by them. Your narrative has been changed to one of resurrection and redemption and newness of life. And this will be the theme of your story until his work is done.
I have always found great hope in what Paul writes in Romans 8:11:
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
The Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us!! What hope this gives us when we are overwhelmed by the sin and struggle both in and around us. What hope this gives us that we can change! The risen Christ reigns in us; therefore, sin and struggle and shame have already been defeated. And the risen Christ is at work in us to defeat them once and for all. He is at work to make us more like himself, and to bring his kingdom to bear, and he will not stop until he has finished the work that he began.
Hope that has Purpose
As believers, we live in between the already and the not yet, between resurrection of Jesus from the dead and the final resurrection in the last day. Both the future promise and the present reality should shape the way we live in the in between. In the days where we are oft overwhelmed by the weight of the world, we are to be people who are shaped by the hope that is weightier still.
We see this pattern often in Paul. One of these places is in 1 Corinthians 15. Here Paul talks about the centrality of the resurrection, the surety of our union with him, and the surpassing victory that is ours in Jesus over sin and death! Theologian N.T. Wright, in his book Surprised by Hope, then makes a compelling observation about the way Paul closes this chapter. He writes,
Paul has just written the longest and densest chapter in any of his letters, discussing the future resurrection of the body in great and complex detail. How might we expect him to finish such a chapter? By saying, ‘therefore, since you have such a great hope, sit back and relax because you know God’s got a great future in store for you’? No. Instead, he says, ‘Therefore, my beloved ones, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (192)
Friends, our labors to be agents of his resurrection power in this world are not in vain. Let us then abound in the work of the Lord and move with great hope into places of sin and struggle and shame, both in our own hearts and in the world around us. We belong to the one who has defeated sin and Satan and death, and who will come again to swallow it up once and for all. We may not always understand his ways, but we know that he is at work! The weight of the world will not be the end of the story. Instead we will all be overwhelmed by the weight of the glory of the one who has said, I am the resurrection and the life!