“I Am the Resurrection and the Life”: Do You Believe This?

Introduction

Lazarus, Jesus' friend, has died. His sisters Martha and Mary have mourned him, buried him, surrounded by loved ones who came from Jerusalem. And now Jesus arrives, four days too late. Martha runs to meet him. What unfolds is not just a spectacular miracle at the edge of a tomb. It's a declaration that overturns the way you believe: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Not in some distant future. Today. Right here. In front of you. And a question, addressed to you just as it was to Martha: “Do you believe this?”

Message Outline

1. Martha, a mirror of our faith

• Martha isn't a woman of little faith. In verses 21 and 22 she says to Jesus: “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn't have died. Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” It's a remarkably strong statement, as if she senses that with Jesus, anything is still possible.
• Yet a little further on, in verse 39, her faith seems to take a step back. When Jesus asks for the tomb to be opened, she protests: “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” As if to say: yes to the resurrection in theory, but let's not push it too far.
• Martha isn't skeptical about the resurrection itself. “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day,” she says. A kind of skepticism appears at the precise moment Jesus wants to do something that seems unreasonable here and now.
• Could this be a mirror of your own faith? We confess the resurrection on the last day without any difficulty. But believing that God can do something extraordinary here and now, in your life, even during this very service, that's where it gets harder. This is the whole question of moving from catechism to reality, from confession of faith to the everyday walk of faith.
• Just as with Martha, Jesus wants to convince you that it's possible by his Spirit. The Risen One can renew a life, turn a dead end into a path of life. “I believe. Help my unbelief,” said another man in the Gospel (Mark 9:24).

2. Jesus' response: anger and tears

• Before his friend's tomb, Jesus shows two strong emotions. Anger, mentioned twice, in verses 33 and 38. And tears, in verse 35: “Jesus wept”, the shortest verse in the Bible.
• While the tears are easy to understand, the anger may surprise us. Scholars generally agree it's directed at death itself, which has struck unjustly once again, and at the distress that death brings. It's when Jesus sees Mary and her friends weeping that this anger rises in him.
• Death is profoundly cruel. It cuts down unjustly. It produces loneliness, sorrow, despair. It can strike at the end of life, but also in the middle of it, and even at the very beginning.
• More than that, death as the Bible understands it begins its work long before the fatal blow. It locks men and women into their sins, into their ungodliness, disfiguring humanity to the point of stripping away all hope of change. Death doesn't just kill life, it kills our humanity made in the image of God.
• Jesus is angry at this death because it was never part of God's plan, yet it forced its way into the world as far back as the garden of Eden. This is what the Bible calls “the last enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26), the one Jesus came to defeat. Standing before this tomb, he knows he will soon have to face it himself, giving over his body and his whole being in a merciless battle.
• “Jesus wept” also tells us that the Son is deeply moved, in his very person, by this unjust blow against his friend Lazarus. Anger and sorrow, indignation and emotion: Jesus shows us the voice of a Christian attitude. Death should never be accepted as normal. And since we still live in this fallen world, we too must learn to live with the sorrow it causes and to accept the tears it draws out of us.

3. “I am the resurrection and the life”: a declaration in the present tense

• The key to this account is found in verse 25: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” Another “I am” declaration, joining the others found throughout John's Gospel.
• This statement serves at least two purposes. First, to affirm that Jesus has real power over death: the power to bring someone from death back to life. He hasn't come to give a theoretical lecture at Lazarus' tomb, he's about to demonstrate it.
• Second, by saying “I am” in the present tense (not “I will be”), Jesus brings the idea of resurrection out of a distant future and into the here and now. Martha has just spoken of resurrection on the last day. Jesus embodies it in his own person, standing before her. From a far-off idea, resurrection becomes a person, present in the very context of Lazarus' death.

4. “Lazarus, come out!” : the boldness of Jesus

• Strengthened by this declaration, Jesus stands before the tomb and speaks a word of stunning boldness: “Lazarus, come out!” Picture the scene. You're standing there, before the tomb, and you hear Jesus cry out that name. The whole crowd holds its breath at such audacity. Time seems to stand still.
• Only two possibilities remain. Either Jesus appears as a madman whose words will simply vanish into the depths of the tomb. Or he is truly recognized as the resurrection and the life, the only one able to defeat the ultimate enemy that has crushed humanity since the garden of Eden.
• John's Gospel doesn't let the suspense linger. “He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth” (John 11:44). The one who was undeniably dead, the one who had already begun to decompose after four days, that very man walked out of the tomb. Jesus makes good on his word: he is not only the resurrection on the last day, he makes life possible again.

5. “Do you believe this?” : living the resurrection life starting today

• Jesus then gives a few keys to understanding this extraordinary statement. “He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies.” Physical death (the death we know, the death of our loved ones, the death we too will one day face), is no longer quite the same death for the one who believes in him.
• It still looks like death to those left on earth. It still leaves behind its share of sorrow. But through Jesus' victory, it has lost what Paul calls its “sting” (1 Corinthians 15:55), its power to kill forever. It's no accident that earlier Jesus speaks of Lazarus' death as sleep (John 11:11-14): “Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep.”
• It isn't up to us to measure out how much faith, or how healthy a faith, is required, that belongs to God. But the statement stands: “He who believes in me will live, even if he dies.”
• “Whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” Jesus doesn't say the believer will escape physical death. He says that whoever believes in him begins their journey into eternal life here and now, in the present, not only in some far-off future. His victory over death has effects starting today: it's possible to live, in him, a life already touched by resurrection.
• And just as he asked Martha, Jesus asks you: “Do you believe this?” Do you believe, you who have placed your trust in Christ, that death has lost its true power to kill? Do you believe that starting today the Lord wants you to live a life marked by resurrection, a life that begins restoring what death, through sin, had ruined? Do you believe he can cause you to be born again and set you walking on a path opened up to hope and life? That's the question put to you this morning.

Key Takeaways

• Martha's faith mirrors a faith that confesses the resurrection on the last day, yet hesitates to believe that God acts here and now. Moving from theory to practice remains the great work of the Christian life.
• Facing death, Jesus is neither resigned nor detached. His anger and his tears tell us death is not normal: it is the enemy the Son of God has come to defeat.
• “I am the resurrection and the life” brings resurrection into the present tense. It's no longer a distant idea, it's a person standing in front of you.
• Since Christ's victory, death has lost its sting. For the one who believes, it no longer has the last word; it becomes a sleep.
• The resurrection life begins today, not on the last day. The question Jesus asked Martha is the same one he's asking you: “Do you believe this?”

Personal Application

1. Where does your faith resemble Martha's: solid in theory, but pulling back the moment it comes to believing God can act in your actual situation?
2. Is there a “tomb” in your life (a situation that's been stuck for a long time), before which you need to hear Jesus say, “Take away the stone”?
3. Do you welcome anger and tears as legitimate Christian responses to death and evil, or do you try to shut them down too quickly?
4. If Jesus really is the resurrection in the present tense, what does that change about how you hope, how you pray, how you engage this week?
5. Take a moment to answer Jesus' question personally: “Do you believe this?”, and if you need to, bring him your unbelief.

Scripture References

• John 11:17-29 · Martha goes to meet Jesus
• John 11:1-16 · Lazarus' illness and the “sleep”
• John 11:32-44 · Mary, Jesus' tears, Lazarus raised
• John 11:25-26 · “I am the resurrection and the life”
• John 11:35 · “Jesus wept”
• Mark 9:24 · “I believe. Help my unbelief”
• 1 Corinthians 15:54-57 · death has lost its sting
• Genesis 3 · death forces its way into the world in the garden of Eden

Further reading

• Bible Reading Mistakes: How to Avoid Them at the Start
• Daily Bible Reading: Building the Habit
• Which Book of the Bible Should You Start With?

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does Jesus wait four days before coming to see Lazarus?

The text doesn't spell it out in detail, but Jesus himself tells his disciples: “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe” (John 11:15). The delay isn't indifference. It makes possible a sign greater than a simple healing: the resurrection of a man already decomposing, so that the faith of witnesses would move from a theoretical confession to a living encounter with “the resurrection and the life.”

What does it mean that “death has lost its sting”?

It's an image Paul borrows from the Old Testament in 1 Corinthians 15:55-56: death is pictured as a scorpion whose stinger has been broken. It still reaches us (grief, separation, sorrow remain real), but it no longer holds the ultimate power to kill the life of those who are in Christ. For the one who believes, death becomes a passage, a sleep from which they will be woken.

How do you actually live out “resurrection in the present”?

Not by denying the tombs in your life, nor by pretending everything is fine, but by believing that the risen Christ can act right now in your life. This looks like concrete prayers for situations that feel stuck, the courage to believe that change is possible, and welcoming the new life the Spirit produces (forgiveness, reconciliation, renewed hope), right in the middle of circumstances where everything seems frozen.