John 11:25: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.”

Email and social media often give us a glimpse of things that seem amazing, unbelievable or even miraculous. Sometimes they turn out to be false, like the photos of 15-foot human skeletons that once showed up in my inbox.

Other times, the stories are real and astonishing, like the X-ray of a large kitchen knife driven through the left temple of a Chinese teenager and across the width of his skull. Remarkably, he walked into the hospital on his own, and doctors were able to remove it without serious damage to his brain or nerves.

Stories like that may grab our attention for a moment, but they are still just curiosities. We look at them, marvel briefly, then move on with our day. They do not change our lives.

But when Jesus’ friend Lazarus walked out of his tomb alive, and when Jesus himself rose from the grave, those were not curiosities. They were not stories meant only to amaze us for a few moments before we go back to business as usual. They are promises. They tell us that life after death is not only possible, but certain for those who believe in him.

You know the setting for these words. It was just a few months before the first Easter. Jesus’ friend Lazarus had died, and Jesus came to comfort Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha. Just before raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.”

“Even though he dies …” One of my professors used to criticize preaching that named sin without speaking of its consequences. Scripture does not do that. “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” “Your iniquities have separated you from your God.” “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink …”

That is what makes Jesus’ promise so meaningful and so comforting. Resurrection was not merely something Jesus taught. He was not simply an authority on the subject. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He is the source of both.

Other religions may speak of an afterlife, but what proof can they offer? On what foundation does their hope stand? Our hope rests in Jesus himself. His sinless life supplies every good work we lack. His perfect obedience is counted as ours. His innocent death removes the guilt of every sin. And if the wages of sin is death, then once sin has been taken away, God’s sentence of death over us has been removed as well.

And this is not mere religious theory or attractive philosophy. Jesus rose bodily from the dead. Our faith is grounded in a real person and real events in human history. His resurrection confirms his promise, and that promise gives us comfort.

Because Jesus is the resurrection and the life, death does not have the final word for those who trust in him. 

Nourish your faith in between Sundays by reading more of John’s writings at BitsOfBread.org.