The one nearest and dearest to me in this life is walking into the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Yes, I know the death sentence for Adam’s sin hangs over all his generations, including you and me, but when the doctor says, “Your cancer has returned,” the reality of that sentence becomes a stark reality. The question for each of us is not, “Will I die?” but, “When and how will I die? And more importantly, is there life beyond the grave and will I have it?”

What does the bible say when we are confronted with death’s cold reality?

The longest narrative in the gospel of John after the section relating the final week of Christ’s life including his crucifixion and resurrection is the story of the resurrection of Lazarus. The first question we should always ask when we read the bible is, “Why is this in the bible?” And the second is like unto it, “What does this mean?” Jesus told his disciples that Lazarus had died for the sole reason that he could show his power to raise the dead. And why is that so important? So they (and we) might believe he is who he claimed to be, and by believing we might have everlasting life through him.

Look at the story. Lazarus is deadly ill. His sisters send for Jesus. He delays his coming until after Lazarus is good and dead. Now he has already proven his power to heal the sick. Everybody knows he can do that! But power over death? Only the Giver of Life has that kind of power. So Lazarus dies and Jesus goes to bring men and women to faith in himself by bringing Lazarus up from the dead.

He goes up from Galilee to Bethany and is met by Martha, Lazarus’s sister. Here John picks up the narrative: Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:21-26, ESV)

This is one of those bible narratives we can dive into and just keep going deeper and deeper and I’m not going to even try to plummet its depth, but Jesus is making the point that he is life itself. He didn’t say, “I have the power to raise the dead and give life to lifeless bodies.” He said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Elsewhere, in his first letter, John wrote, “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:11,12, ESV) Life is not separate from God; life is God himself.

Let’s swing back to the creation story in Genesis 2. The Lord God (The Son of God who later became incarnate as Jesus) shaped man from the dust of the earth (in other words, we are elemental to the earth on which we dwell.) and breathed into him the breath of life. This life breathed into Adam is the life that is passed from Adam to Eve and then to their generations down to you and me. That mysterious spark that separates us from the dust of the ground is God’s giving of himself to his creation. So Jesus could say, “I am life itself and whoever has me has eternal life. As long as I am alive, and I am the eternal, self-existent One whose human flesh might die but whose eternal nature is just that: eternal, those who have been born into me by the action of the Holy Spirit, possess eternity through me. (How’s that for a mouthful!)

Then Jesus spoke and raised Lazarus from the dead. Again, what’s the point of the story? It is that all who hear might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and in believing they might have life in his name.
So how am I, how are you, fellow Christian, to view death? Jesus demonstrated his power over death in the resurrection of Lazarus, and his intent to raise all who believe on his name by the reality of his own resurrection. So what are we to do when death comes knocking on our door?

The final line of the Apostles Creed is, “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” The end of the Christian’s faith, the goal towards which we stumble, is to see the face of Jesus Christ and to hear his voice calling us from our graves on the day of his return. Paul put it this way, “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17, ESV) As the old gospel song goes, “But what will it be to see Jesus!”

We, with all the Christ followers of all the ages, know that we shall die (unless he returns very soon). But death holds no fear for those who are in Christ Jesus. In fact, if we are to believe Paul, and I do, he was looking forward to being dead. Look at what he said to the church in Corinth: “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
“So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” (2 Corinthians 5:1-10, ESV)

Paul wasn’t looking forward to being a disembodied spirit floating on the clouds and plucking a harp! No, he was looking forward to wearing that new body, that body that will never again be subject to age and disease and death – a body just like the body of the resurrected Christ. And that is every Christian’s hope.

Remember in the Old Testament, when God led Israel out of slavery in Egypt and into the wilderness at Sinai? He had them make this beautiful tent for his sanctuary that he might dwell among them. But this was a temporary arrangement. Solomon was to build him a permanent sanctuary later on. (See also John 1:14. The word for “dwelt” there means, “pitched his tent.” Jesus pitched a tent as a temporary dwelling before his resurrection in his permanent dwelling: the body that he will share with all who are to live and dwell with him forever.) That’s what Paul is talking about here.

Death is planting the old body in the ground so that a new and glorious body arises when Christ returns. (See 1 Corinthians 15) That is why death holds no fear for the Christian. Death is not the Great Unknown! Christ demonstrated his power over death in the resurrection of Lazarus (that’s why the story is so detailed in the gospel) and showed us our future in his own. So we can look death in the eye and shout, O death, where is your victory! O death, where is your sting?