I’m deeply missing our amazing boy Xavier. I used to say he was 90% cheek and 10% grump. He died over 2 years ago from an aggressive sarcoma. The grump was sometimes very hard to take. But I would delight in it in less than a heartbeat if I could hug him right now.
But, I cannot. Death has stolen him from me, from my wife, Kathryn, from his brothers, his grandparents, his aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.
So what do I hold onto if I cannot hold onto him? The resurrection. The resurrection promises that one day I will see Xavier again. In all his glorious cheekiness and even with his grump, where it wasn’t shaped by sin. Jesus said to Martha about her brother Lazarus.
“Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her.
Martha replies , “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” (John 11v23-24)
This was the Jewish belief*: the dead will burst forth out of the soil on the last day. It arises from Bible texts such as Daniel 12v1-3
2 Many who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake,
some to eternal life, and some to disgrace and eternal contempt.
But Jesus surprises Martha. He isn’t talking about the resurrection to come in the last days. He is saying Lazarus will live now. For Jesus himself is the resurrection from the dead.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11v25-26)
And to prove this Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.
The language Jesus uses is worth noticing. He doesn’t say, he will perform a resurrection. And he isn’t saying he is one of many resurrections, but the best case. He says he is ‘the resurrection and the life’. He is the reality by which the dead will rise. And this makes perfect sense since he is ‘the life’. Again, he isn’t life par excellence - the most living person. He is ‘the life’. That is, life in the universe in all its glorious power only exists because of him.
Jesus’ raising of Lazarus, which he does next, is the proof that Jesus is himself life and resurrection.
Xavier will be the first one Kathryn and I see at the resurrection. Our grave plots are adjacent to his grave. Xavier had put his hope in Jesus. Therefore he will live again.
May God speed the day when Kathryn and I see and hug Xavier again. What a day it will be when the dead rise, death is undone and eternal life begins. This is a fact for those in Jesus. He is the only hope against death. May God speed the day.
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*Though not all Jews held it. The Sadducees were sad-you-see for they did not hold to the resurrection of the dead.