The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting
Do you know what the shortest verse in the Bible is? It’s John 11:35:
Jesus wept.
It takes longer to say the reference (“John 11:35”) than it does to say the verse (“Jesus wept”). But this verse is more than a piece of Bible trivia; it’s an insight into the heart of our God.
Do you know what caused Jesus to weep? It had to do with the death of his dear friend Lazarus. Now, I want to be clear about this, because it makes a difference: it wasn’t Lazarus’ death that made Jesus cry; it was something else that happened because of Lazarus’ death. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first let’s read from John 11 to see what happened:
Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha… So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”[1]
Why do you suppose Mary and Martha would have sent this message?
Mary and Martha know who Jesus is and what he can do. They’ve seen his miraculous power with their own eyes. There’s an expectation – or, at least a glimmer of hope – behind their message, e.g. “Lord, the one you love is sick… come do something about it.”
The puzzling thing is how Jesus responds:
When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified though it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”[2]
What did Jesus do when he heard that Lazarus was sick? He waited 2 days before he even began the more than 2-day journey it would take to get to Lazarus. Jesus was being pretty cavalier about Lazarus’ life. In fact, it wasn’t long after this that Jesus said:
“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.[3]
The disciples are so clueless, aren’t they? They have no idea what Jesus is talking about:
So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”[4]
When Jesus got Mary and Martha’s message, he said that this sickness would not end in death.[5] But now, he says in no uncertain terms, “Lazarus is dead.”[6] What’s the deal? How can Jesus say both things? It’s because Jesus has a plan: “I am going there to wake him up,”[7] not from sleep, but from death. And so this sickness would not end in death; it would take Lazarus to the grave, but it would not end there.
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”[8]
Here we can see clearly the meaning behind Martha’s message. She was confident that Jesus could have healed her brother and prevented his death.
But even after Lazarus died, what confidence does Martha still have? “Even now God will give you whatever you ask.”[9] Martha doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, but she does know that anything is possible with Jesus.
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”[10]
Even in the wake of the loss of her brother, what hope did Martha still have? She believed in the resurrection at the last day. That’s our focus in worship today, so let’s dive into what the Bible has to say about death and resurrection for a second:
Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.[11]
Where did death come from? It was not God’s original intent for human beings to die. Death is the consequence of sin. Had Adam and Eve not disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, death would not be part of this world. Death is the consequence of sin. And because you and I follow in the sinful footsteps of our sinful parents, death is waiting for us too.
The dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.[12]
When we die, our soul and body separate. Our body goes to the ground and decays, i.e. “returns to the ground it came from,” while our soul, i.e. our spirit, “returns to God who gave it.”
But we’re not done with these bodies after we die. Even though they decay and eventually waste away into nothing but a pile dust, our bodies will rise again on the Last Day:
Your dead will live, Lord; their bodies will rise – let those who dwell in the dust wake up and shout for joy – your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.[13]
Everyone who is dead will be raised from the dead on the Last Day in their bodies. And as Daniel puts it: Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting corruption.[14] In other words, those who believe in God and put their trust in him will go to heaven, while those who reject and deny God will go to hell.
Martha knew all this. She had heard the prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel; she had heard the words of Ecclesiastes. She knew there was a resurrection on the Last Day. What Martha didn’t know was what Jesus was going to do on this day.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”[15]
Jesus agrees with Martha. He validates her faith in the resurrection, but he shifts her focus from the unknown future to the present power of God standing right in front of her. We’ll come back to this, but first, Jesus has a very similar exchange with Martha’s sister Mary:
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”[16]
Clearly Mary had the same hopes that Martha did – that Jesus could have prevented Lazarus’ death. But now that Lazarus was gone, Mary was in full mourning mode. As were many other people:
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.[17]
Here’s our verse, and now we can answer the question we started with. Why did Jesus weep? It wasn’t because Lazarus was dead. He had known Lazarus was dead for days and didn’t weep. He could have gotten there earlier and prevented Lazarus’ death. It wasn’t Lazarus’ death that deeply moved Jesus. It was the grief he saw painted on the faces of the people who loved but lost Lazarus to death.
This is important. It is OK to grieve. Remember, death was not part of God’s plan for his creation; it was the consequence of sin. Sin makes God sad, not just because we do things that displease God, but because there are consequences – some of which we cannot escape, like death.
This moment in Jesus’ life shows us that God grieves at your grief. God’s heart breaks to see yours break. God has not become desensitized to death. He still feels the loss of every soul that dies.
But that’s why Jesus came. That’s why he became a man and came to earth in the first place. But that’s also why he showed up in Bethany 4 days too late to save Lazarus. Remember what Jesus said to his disciples before he left:
“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”[18]
Jesus intentionally waited until Lazarus was dead for days before he came to Bethany, so that he could demonstrate to the world what he said privately to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life.”[19]
Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”[20]
Jesus knew all along that he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. And yet he still wept. His heart broke for the grief that sin causes in our lives, especially the inevitable loss that we will all face in the death of the ones we love and in our own departure from this world.
And still, in the midst of grief, we have hope. We have hope in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. It’s what we confess in the Apostles’ Creed; it’s the promise of God to all who believe. And there are some amazing promises about resurrection in the Bible.
1 Corinthians 15 is the famous “Resurrection Chapter” of the Bible. There Paul tells us what the resurrection of the body will look like:
The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.[21]
What will your body be like after God raises you from the dead? It’ll be imperishable, glorious, powerful, spiritual.
I mean, think about our bodies now. They are very perishable. They are fragile. We break bones; we get cuts, scrapes, bruises, burns. We get sick; our internal organs and systems fail and malfunction.
But not your resurrected body. It’ll be imperishable. Wear and tear do not exist in heaven. You won’t suffer from aches and pains. You won’t need to collapse into bed at the end of the day or struggle to wake up in the morning because you’re so exhausted. Your resurrected body will be imperishable and impervious to the dangers and stressors that we face in this world.
Your body will be glorious. You won’t look in a mirror and wish you saw something different. You’ll be delighted with what you see. There will be no shame, no body image or self-esteem issues. Your body will be glorious.
The book of Revelation gives us several pictures of what eternal life will be like:
Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat.[22]
“God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”[23]
None of the things that harm us here, none of the things that run us down or stress us out will bother us there. We will have imperishable, glorious bodies in a world without pain or sadness, sickness or death.
Does that sound too good to be true? Does that sound more like something we want to happen than like something that will happen? I wouldn’t blame you if you thought that way. It’s easy to make promises. It’s easy to paint these pictures of paradise; all you need is a good imagination. Just because they’re written down doesn’t make them true, right?
But the resurrection is far more than just words on a page. Just ask Lazarus. He was dead, for 4 days. Many people from both Bethany and Jerusalem could swear to that fact. But Jesus had the power to raise Lazarus from the dead and call him out of his grave.
The resurrection is far more than just words on a page. Just ask Jesus. He was dead, for 3 days. The Romans made sure of that when they nailed him to a tree. He was lifeless in a grave for 3 days. The Jews made sure of that by posting a guard outside his tomb. But Jesus had the power to raise himself from the dead because he is the resurrection and the life, as he said to Martha. He is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep and promises you the same thing he promised Martha, “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”[24]
Like Lazarus some illness might take your life, but that will not be the end for you. For you who believe, there is resurrection and everlasting life in Jesus.
Yes, there is still grief in death – Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus – but he will wipe every tear from your eyes, because we do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.[25]
These are more than words on a page. This is the solemn promise of God, proven to be true in Jesus. And so we confess with Christians across the centuries: I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.
[1] John 11:1,3
[2] John 11:4-7
[3] John 11:11-13
[4] John 11:14,15
[5] John 11:4
[6] John 11:14
[7] John 11:11
[8] John 11:17,20-22
[9] John 11:22
[10] John 11:23,24
[11] Romans 5:12
[12] Ecclesiastes 12:7
[13] Isaiah 26:19
[14] Daniel 12:2
[15] John 11:25,26
[16] John 11:28,32
[17] John 11:33-35
[18] John 11:11
[19] John 11:25
[20] John 11:38,43,44
[21] 1 Corinthians 15:42-44
[22] Revelation 7:16
[23] Revelation 21:3,4
[24] John 11:25,26
[25] 1 Thessalonians 4:13,14