Evening Prayer 3-3-11

Reading:
John 11:17-37

"I am the resurrection and the life."

Lazarus was a close friend whom Jesus loved.  Today's reading includes the shortest verse and yet one of the most profound verses in the Bible, "Jesus wept."  Our Savior and God experienced in His humanity what it felt like to lose a loved one to the cold grave of death.  He saw and experienced the mourning that occurs when a family loses someone whom they love to the grave.  He saw and experienced that lost and it touched His heart.  God who knew that because of mankind's sin had to die, saw it, felt the effect on those left behind and He wept.  Death is the cruel equalizer, because unless Jesus returns before hand, it is the one thing that every human being must and will experience.

But this reading today is really filled with such hope and comfort.  Jesus is quite clear when speaking with Martha that she will see her brother again.  She did not understand that Lazarus was going to be raised again in front of her.  But Jesus goes on to say "I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."  This is profound for you see we are not just physical beings and when we die we go to nothing.  Rather we have a soul that is created in the image of God.  This soul lives for eternity.  Though we lay the body in the ground, we know that the soul lives on and as we profess in our great Creeds of Faith we believe in the resurrection of the body.   When Jesus returns to reign, we will all receive our resurrected bodies and be like Him in glorification.

There is such hope in these words of Jesus when being faced with death.  We need not fear death because Jesus Christ overcame death and the grave.  He swallowed it up when He rose again victorious on Easter morning.  This is the hope that all Christians have that He overcame the power of death and it no longer has dominion.  Death has no more power because Jesus Christ lives.  His perfect life, death on the cross, and resurrection assures us that we have nothing fear because our salvation is based fully on that perfect work of His.  Trust Jesus that He will forgive you of your sins and lead you to everlasting life.  Amen.