Life After Death
Memorial Garden Crosses, First Presbyterian Church Edwardsville, photo by jch.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” –John 11:25-26
According to the gospels, Jesus performed many miracles, though the exact number is disputed. When Matthew and Mark say that Jesus was in the region of Gennesaret, and all who touched his cloak were healed, does that count as one miracle or many?[1] When John says that Jesus performed many miracles “not written in this book,” does that mean the dozen or so miracles unique to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, or miracles not written anywhere at all?[2]
Of all the recorded miracles, perhaps the most dramatic and inspiring is the one we’ve read for you today from the 11th chapter of John.
When Jesus called Lazarus to rise up and live again, it meant something special in the context of the religious tradition Jesus and his disciples had inherited. Israel’s understanding of afterlife had been developing slowly but surely in a new direction. In an early phase, afterlife was thought of as the post-death persistence of a disembodied soul, perhaps in a shadowy underworld of Sheol. You see traces of this belief in the psalms, for example. But it’s also true that passages in the psalms and prophets hint at something more hopeful. Later, from about the time of the second century B.C.E., the idea of resurrection took hold as a principle rooted in the mercy and justice of God. At the essence of this theological development was the conviction that God, who is merciful and just, would not allow God’s enemies – not even death – to permanently triumph over God’s people. Resurrection, it was believed, belonged to the end time. When the end time came, the dead would begin to rise, and come together from east, west, north, and south. So when Jesus commands Lazarus to rise up, he is signaling that this new age has begun, and God’s new order has been established.[3]
The apostle Paul, before his vision of Christ, was the Pharisee Saul. As a Pharisee, he was part of the religious community that cherished and championed the belief in resurrection. When he was called by Jesus to a new way of life, his belief in the importance of resurrection only grew. Most you will recognize the statement from his first letter to the Corinthian church: “If there is no resurrection of the dead … if for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”[4]
We Presbyterians know the story about Lazarus, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy for us to know what to believe about it or to do with it. We’re Christians, but we’re also children of the Enlightenment, and we know that people typically are not revived after being pronounced dead, certainly not after four days in the tomb. Perhaps we look at this story as a placeholder for general belief in an afterlife of some kind, whatever that experience may be. Perhaps we sympathize with the emotion of the sisters and of Jesus, and see the story as expression of a heartfelt desire that resurrection could happen somewhere out there where dreams come true. I remember one of my favorite regulars in Bible class in Springfield, a brilliant engineer named Wilbur, who looked at Bible texts like this, and said, “One part of me says that this story cannot be true. But another part of me, on my best days, hopes that it might be.”
Such a tension in belief, an ambivalence about the truth of afterlife, has been explored by a songwriter named Darryl Scott. Years ago, he co-lead worship at the Festival of Homiletics in Nashville. I can’t read the story of Lazarus without remembering how that text inspired his lyrics.[5]
Darryl Scott imagines Lazarus’ life from the moment that Jesus calls him to rise up and live. First comes the relief, tears to joy, a family feast. Then, he's a celebrity, an authority on death, people turn to him to ask what did he see while he was dead: “Did you see my mother there?” “Did you see a great white light?” He is caught up in the drama surrounding Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. But, as the years go by, and the disciples are scattered, his celebrity fades. He grows old, his strength wanes. One night he lies in bed, fading from this life, and calls out to his old friend, “Oh Jesus, can you hear me?” Then Lazarus dies again.
Was Jesus there the second time Lazarus died? Did he listen with compassion when his friend cried out, “Oh Jesus, can you hear me?” The songwriter doesn’t give us a satisfactory answer.
I’m not much of a musician, but even I can appreciate the brilliant way that Darryl Scott concludes the song. He simply returns to what I would call the leitmotif: “Rise up.” Is the musical restatement “Rise up” simply an echo of something that happened long ago? Or is it the merciful loving voice of Jesus calling Lazarus to rise up and live now? We’re left to decide for ourselves whether Jesus’ call to rise up and live is an impossible fond wish of a former generation, or the good news of a reliable witness in which to place our trust.
Through the past 22 years, I’ve spent time with many of you facing the death of a member of your family. As I’ve ministered to you, you have ministered to me. The ways that you have gracefully lived have helped me to cope with the death of my parents and in-laws. The ways that you have prepared for death by making provision for the living have inspired my personal estate planning. I consider it a privilege to walk beside those who trust deeply in the good news Jesus embodied and proclaimed that death is not the end.
There are times in life, and structured opportunities like an All Saints’ Remembrance Sunday, when we face our mortality and the claims of Christ in light of certain death. One way to summarize the good news of the gospel is this: When the day comes during which we are fading from this life, and cry out, “Oh Jesus, can you hear me?” Christ will be there to say, “Rise up, and live.” Today, he says to us, “Those who believe in me, even though they die will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Do YOU believe this?
NOTES
[1] Matthew 14:34-36, Mark 6:53-56.
[2] John 20:30-31.
[3] For a summary of this development, see John Barton, “Risen bodies,” a review of Resurrection: The power of God for Christians and Jews, by Kevin J. Madigan and Jon D. Levenson, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009, in TLS, 20 Feb. 2009, p. 10.
[4] 1 Corinthians 15:12-19.
[5] “Lazarus Dies Again,” Darryl Scott, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB-_ujo9zKs accessed 2 Nov. 2024.
READ MORE, https://www.fpcedw.org/pastors-blog
