Read and Study:
Reflect
Faith in a resurrected Christ gives us hope that Jesus’ resurrection was just the first of many future resurrections yet to come. To experience this resurrection, we must abandon faith in ourselves and put our faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection.When we give up on faith in self, and put faith in the risen Christ, we experience a death and resurrection of our own, a spiritual resurrection that will one day culminate in a bodily resurrection.
A lot of people share some of the sentiment behind what I’m saying, believing in some type of heaven. It’s common for people to offer empty platitudes around death: “We’ll see him in the afterlife” or “She’s in a better place.” What moves this from sentiment to hope? While the resurrection certainly offers us a promise of life after death, the promise only extends to those who have hoped in the Resurrector. Jesus said: “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” (John 11:25-26).
Notice—Jesus isn’t talking about a generic truth for everyone. The “resurrection” is in Christ. To those who hope in Christ for resurrection life, gaining life after death with him makes sense. But its important to see the hope isn’t in gaining a resurrection body. While stunning, the new body isn’t the final reward. Christ is the ultimate reward. Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life—the most powerful, beautiful, creative person in the universe. Upon faith in him we gain a forever union with this stunning, amazing Person. This is why Paul can say, before death, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Paul already knows resurrection life with Christ, in a spiritual sense, and he looked forward to its consummation in a new physical body at some point in the future. The resurrection of the body is a blessing, a wonderful gift, that comes with Jesus.
Those who only have nice sentiments about heaven, but do not have Christ, have no real hope for resurrection. If they are honest with themselves, they aren’t interested in being with Christ, they just want to avoid death or a painful existence after death. They have put their hope elsewhere, perhaps in things like familial love, career status, or being a good person.
If the sentimental person, then, is more likely to speak of their hope to be reunited with a loved one, rather than talking of being with Love himself, Jesus. They do not want the resurrection, but a resurrection that shields them from the truth of death. Sentiment is altogether different from hope; it is based on improving how we feel, not what is real or true.
Hope, though, is based on a promise. In this case, God himself makes the promise to us. As the resurrection and the life, Jesus binds himself, in this life and the next, to impart resurrection life to those who put their hope in him.
Process
1. Lazarus is called out of the grave. How is Jesus calling you out of the grave?
2. Mary and Martha are told to believe in Jesus himself. How does that belief bring power, even in suffering?