Jesus can bring you back to life and living!

Jn. 11:20-27

So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary remained sitting in the house. So Martha said to Jesus: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. And even as things are, I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you." Jesus said to her: "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him: "I know that he win rise at the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her: "I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in me will live even if he has died; and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him; "Yes, Lord. I am convinced that you are God's Anointed One, the Son of God, the One who is to come into the world."

Food for thought

In this story, like we saw a few days ago, Martha is true to character. Martha loves action while Mary loves being still. As soon as it was announced that Jesus was coming near, Martha was up to meet him, for she could not sit still, but Mary lingered behind.

When Martha met Jesus her heart spoke through her lips. Here is one of the most human speeches in all the Bible, for Martha spoke, half with a reproach that she could not keep back, and half with a faith that nothing could shake. "If you had been here." she said, "my brother would not have died."

We can read Martha's mind. She is kind of saying to Jesus: "When you got our message, why didn't you come at once? And now you have left it too late." No sooner are the words out than there follow the words of faith, faith which defied the facts and defied experience: "Even yet," she said with a kind of desperate hope, "even yet, I know that God will give you whatever you ask."

Because of Martha's boldness, Jesus made an eternal revelation: "I am the Resurrection and the Life," he said. "He who believes in me will live even if he has died; and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die." What exactly did he mean? Not even a lifetime's thinking will reveal the full meaning of this; but we must try to grasp as much of it as we can.

One thing is clear, Jesus was not thinking in terms of physical life; for, speaking physically, it is not true that the man who believes in him will never die. Lazarus whom Jesus rose from the dead, died again. The same with Christians; they experience physical death as anybody does. We must look for a more than physical meaning. Jesus was thinking of the death of sin. He was saying: "Even if a man is dead in sin, even if, through his sins, he has lost all that makes life worth calling life, I can make him alive again."

Yes, sometimes we become so selfish that we become dead to the needs of others; we become so insensitive that we become dead to the feelings of others; we become so involved in the petty dishonesties and the petty disloyalties of life, that we become dead to honour; we become so hopeless that we get filled with an inertia, which is spiritual death. The is the bad news. The good news is that Jesus Christ can resurrect us. The witness of history is that he has resurrected millions and millions of people; and his touch has not lost its ancient power. Jesus can bring us back to life, as he did with Lazarus; just as he did to Martha. Don't give up on Jesus.