Profound Bindness

Psalm 94:8-11                           2 Samuel 20:14-22                         John 11:45-54

Profound Blindness

Have you ever discovered, right in the middle of a debate or a discussion or an argument, that you were wrong and yet you still chose to continue to defend your position? I'm ashamed to admit that I have done this in the past…more so when I was younger than now…but I still remember the day when I decided to make a concerted effort to stop doing that. To rather admit that I was wrong as soon as possible and apologise because I found that the longer you wait to concede the more difficult and painful it becomes for all concerned. 

But have you ever wondered why people do this? I’m sure you have also been on the other end of such a discussion or perhaps you have been an exasperated witness. It is mind-boggling how people can still uphold their opinions when all logic is heaped up against them. Or worse when they base what they believe on how they feel! We all know that feelings can change with the weather or with a bad bit of steak! But besides that, how on earth can you argue with, “Yes, I know that is what the Scriptures say, but I feel, blah, blah, blah”? It’s enough to tear your hair out. Such people simply will not hear because they are not listening. Often such deliberations end in anger and things are said and done that may (or may not) be regretted later.

Now, last week we examined the possible reasons why Jesus allowed his dear friends to suffer such prolonged anguish and grief when he basically could have healed Lazarus even from a distance. The resurrection of a four-day-old, rotting corpse was an indisputable sign that Jesus was more than a good man, a virtuous teacher, or a mighty prophet. 

Interestingly, just as an aside, some Jewish Rabbis believe that the soul of the deceased remains present for a while after death – some say until the burial or a few days after the burial (see Shabbat 152b). The soul is even believed to mourn over its discarded and decomposing body, at times even hanging around for a while because it feels homeless. Now you know where ghost stories come from! 

But, as far as I know, no one ever contemplated the possibility of a soul returning to the body once the process of decay had set in because the body was no longer habitable. “According to Dr. Arpad A. Vass, a Senior Staff Scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee in Forensic Anthropology, human decomposition begins around four minutes after a person dies and follows four stages: autolysis (or self-digestion) , bloat, active decay, and skeletonization.” 

After four days, given the climate of that region, Lazarus would have been well on his way to stage three of this process which explains Martha’s horrified reaction to Jesus’ command to remove the heavy stone covering from the mouth of the cave or tomb. Resurrecting a person who had just died was one thing…resurrecting an actively decaying body was unthinkable. 

And for this reason, many of those who witnessed the startling event believed in Jesus.

However, disturbingly, John tells us that some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Whether the intention was good or bad, we are not told, but this report sparked off a series of events that led to the murder of Jesus. 

Now, as I said before, the raising of the decomposing corpse of Lazarus was an indisputable sign pointing to the nature of Jesus…no one had ever raised a rotting corpse before, so the miracle was undeniable. However, remember what Abraham said to the rich man in Sheol? “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”. As with Lazarus so also with Jesus…they would not believe…

But what I’d like for us to consider today is the reason why they would not believe. 

So, let’s start with what the Sanhedrin had to say: “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” The fear expressed here is that they will either lose their position as rulers or lose the Temple itself or lose both as well as the nation as a whole. But why? What was the basis for this fear? 

Well, the backstory here is long and complicated, so I will try my best to keep it simple and to the point. This fear really began with the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians. So many Judeans had believed that their God would not allow his Temple to be destroyed even though the prophets had warned them that because of their life choices and lifestyles, God had abandoned them as well as their city and their temple. They had abandoned God by not obeying his Word and therefore God had abandoned them. Now, for reasons we can’t go into now, they had erroneously believed that the destruction of the Temple meant their God had been defeated by the gods of the invaders. 

Imagine their surprise when the prophet Ezekiel described to them what must be one of the most bizarre visions of all time. In his vision, Ezekiel saw God coming to his people in their place of exile, outside the Promised Land, on a mobile throne. Remember the wheels, the eyes, the angels etc? But while the vision might have been obscure and weird, the lesson was clear. God was enthroned above and over the universe and the God of the universe does not live in buildings made by humans. He is not like the false gods of the unbelievers. So, the destruction of the Temple was a sign of judgement on the people, not of the defeat of God. To the contrary. The destruction of the Temple meant that God was very much in control and would not be toyed with even by his own people. 

However, when the exiles were allowed to return under the Persians, they were encouraged to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. Why? Well, because the City and the Temple were the unifying objects of the Jews. That’s what the major struggle between Sanballat on the one hand and Nehemiah and company on the other hand was all about. The Samarians, if you recall, had built a rival Temple on Mount Gerizim based on their understanding of the instructions in the Torah because they did not accept the writings and the prophets as Scripture and, consequently, they did not accept the Davidic dynasty nor the primacy of Jerusalem and its Temple. 

Remember, before the exile, Judah was a monarchy under the Davidic kings, a dynasty with a claim to divine investiture, an investiture spelt out in the writings and the prophets, but not the Torah. And their reign was inextricably linked with Jerusalem, because it was the City of David, and also with the Temple which was built by his son Solomon. 

So, any shift concerning the placement of the Temple was a shift in the locus of power and therefore a threat to Jewish identity. Jerusalem and the Temple were central to everything Jewish. So, it was imperative and inevitable that the Temple be rebuilt in Jerusalem. What was not rebuilt, however, was the Davidic monarchy. Various governors serving under the Persians and the Greeks ruled in their stead. The code of law declared by Ezra in the early 4th century BC served as the legal ideal of a theocratic state, but one ruled by priests rather than by kings.

Now, jumping ahead several years to the Greek period, the Greeks allowed the Jews to manage their own affairs, without much interference by the government, but leadership was given to the High Priest, not a king. Sometime in the first century BC, an historian by the name of Diodorus Siculus said that because of the Greeks, the Jews never had a king because authority over the people was regularly vested in whichever priest was regarded as superior to his colleagues in wisdom and virtue. 

This form of government continued after the Maccabean revolt, and it was sealed by the eventual establishment of the Hasmonean Priest-Kings. The descendants of David all but faded into obscurity. 

So, the emerging Jewish religion now had a sacred centre in Jerusalem that became the focus of regular pilgrimages and the beneficiary of generous gifts and taxes due to the sanctuary and its officials. That was a dramatic shift for people who thought that Judaism needed to be a Davidic kingdom. Many still believed the prophetic promises that God had made to his people that Israel was to be a kingdom ruled by Davidic kings sanctioned by God himself. However, at some point in time, many of the descendants of David moved to Alexandria in Egypt and stayed there. Those remaining in Judea and Galilee became labourers and tradesmen. 

All of this further empowered the priests as they moved from being cultic officials to being wealthy politicians. They became the political leaders of Judaism, establishing themselves as a kingdom of priests, a term taken straight out of the book of Exodus, and they never relinquished that power from then on. Rather, they depicted themselves as the realization of God's purpose for Israel. But you may well ask, what about God's other prophetic promises regarding a future Davidic king? Well, that created national tension because some folks steadfastly believed that the Davidic Covenant still stood.

But then to complicate matters even further, when Pompey finally conquered Jerusalem, after years of friendly cooperation between the Jews and Rome, a puppet king by the name of Herod was installed to rule over the Jews. Now, Herod's ancestors were Edomites who had converted to Judaism, and his mother was Jewish, but although he had been raised as a Jew, he nevertheless was not widely accepted by the general population and so he married a Hasmonean princess to legitimize his claim to the throne. 

But as Rome transitioned from a Republic to what eventually became an Empire, they soon became overlords and oppressors controlling the cooperative leaders of the Jews (the Herodians and the Sadducees especially) and destroying any form of opposition like the zealots and especially self-proclaimed messiahs. This created an atmosphere ripe for messianic fever. But what was this messiah going to be? A warrior liberator like Joshua? A priest-king like the Hasmonaeans? Or would he be a Davidic descendant? And what would that mean for those currently in positions of power?

So, you can imagine why things were a little tense in Jerusalem when a descendant of David was becoming more and more popular gaining an ever-expanding following. If there was an uprising among the people that would challenge Rome, the current leadership would be in deep trouble regardless of who won the day in the end. 

However, we must remember that we are dealing with men who were steeped in the teachings of Scripture, so one would have expected their primary concern to be spiritual, but whenever the lines between political and religious entities are blurred the outcome is usually some form of compromise or outright rejection of biblical truth. So it is important to realise that the major concern of the Sanhedrin was about power and position and posterity, not truth. 

Instead of acknowledging the signs for what they were and the Man for who he was, they feared that politically things could get out of hand. The High Priest at the time, Joseph ben Caiaphas (who held office from AD 18-36), had been appointed in AD 18 by the Roman prefect Valerius Gratus (who preceded Pontius Pilate) after his father-in-law, Annas had been deposed. So, the threat of deposition or removal from office hung over the heads of anyone whose action displeased Rome. 

Consequently, their fear, then, was for their positions of power, the Temple that unified and controlled the people and served as a lucrative source of income, and the nation should they dare to rebel. Obviously, the zealous Maccabean blood had run cold by this time. The sad irony here is that the very thing they feared and sought to protect at all costs, became reality in AD 70 when Rome finally squelched the Jewish rebellion and razed Jerusalem to the ground. 

Be that as it may, the Sanhedrin rallied together, and expressed their anxious thoughts one to another, hoping that someone would come up with a viable solution to their dilemma. It is instructive to note that there is no mention of divine consultation. No prayers, no Urim and Thummin, no lot, no ephod, no prophet…nothing. But their carnality did not stop God.

When Caiaphas unveiled his diabolical plan to remove their problem, John says that he inadvertently uttered a prophetic word from God. Like Balaam, he prophesied unconsciously. What he meant was that if they would sacrifice one man, they would demonstrate their zeal for the supremacy of Rome. Remember their statement at the trial before Pilate. When the pagan governor said to them “Here is your King!” they shouted back, “Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!” Stunned, Pilate asked, “Shall I crucify your King?” And what was the reply of the chief priests? “We have no king but Caesar!”

But Caiaphas’ recommendation was in direct violation of Exodus 23:7 where God warned, “Keep yourself far from a false matter; do not kill the innocent and righteous. For I will not justify the wicked.” Likewise Proverbs 17:17 bluntly states, “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them are an abomination to the Lord.” So how did they get around this? Well, as you can imagine, there is quite a bit of debate about this, but some scholars believe that Caiaphas was citing a principle derived from the story found in our Old Testament lesson for today, about sacrificing one man (Sheba) to save the inhabitants of the city. The application of this principle in the context of saving a group of people, was that an individual might be sacrificed to save the whole. (The Talmudic concept of Yehareg ve’al ya’avor)

So, in the eyes of Caiaphas, Jesus was no less a worthless fellow than Sheba as his actions threatened them, the City, the Temple, and, indeed, in their opinion, the whole nation. But we must remember that they had been wanting to get rid of Jesus for a long time now, and what they had desired was now determined in council.

So, Jesus once more withdrew from the area to a town called Ephraim which, interestingly means “to be fruitful”. As we know, the death and resurrection of Jesus would be the first fruits of a global spiritual people of God. And so once more we see that even the evil decisions and deeds of wicked people are used by God to bring about his sovereign purposes. As the Early Church noted in their prayers in Acts 4, the actions of Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Chief Priests, and others all worked together in the crucifixion of Jesus to achieve the predetermined will of God. 

Of course, this is nothing new…from Joseph’s brothers to Pharoah, from Nebuchadnezzar to Cyrus, from Caiaphas to Judas…God controls and overrides evil. The earth is the Lord’s, the Psalmist reminds us, and the fulness thereof…the world and those who dwell in it. The sovereignty of God is completely universal.

As such, our God can guarantee that all things work together for the good of those who love him. He instructs the nations. He rules over both the deceiver and the deceived. He establishes rulers and removes them from office as he wills. Indeed, as Proverbs 16:33 tells us, our God controls even the most arbitrary of actions such as the rolling of dice. “The lot is cast into the lap,” Solomon wrote, “but it’s every decision is from the Lord.” 

That is why we can trust God, even in the face of overwhelming difficulty. We may not know how God will use all things for our benefit, but that is what faith is all about. If God could use the evil decisions of the Sanhedrin to bring about such a great salvation as is ours, then we can be assured that he will lead and guide us according to what he knows is best.

It is interesting to note at this point, that we no longer find any mention in John’s Gospel of more Jews believing in Jesus. It seems as if Jesus withdrew from public ministry to spend more time with his disciples, to go deeper with them, as it were, to prepare them for what was to come. The lesson for us as we reflect on this is that our God is extremely gracious in preparing us for future events and through His Word, he helps us to understand his ways regardless of circumstances. 

Yes, it is sad that there are such things as unteachable people…people who will not acknowledge the truth even though it is presented as an irrefutable fact…such as the resurrection of a decomposing body. 

In his book, City of God, (Book 2, Chapter 1) written between AD 413 and 426, Augustine said: “If people were humble enough to accept the clear evidence of truth without resisting it…those who express sound ideas would not need lengthy explanations to debunk baseless speculations. However, the prevailing and harmful mental weakness today hinders this, leading people to cling to unreasonable beliefs even after the truth is plainly demonstrated. This might be due to profound blindness or stubborn obstinacy, necessitating more elaborate discussions on already clear points, aiming to make the truths palatable even to those who choose to close their eyes. Yet, if we constantly respond to those who resist and speak against us, especially those who either can't grasp our arguments or stubbornly contradict, our discussions would become endless, fruitless, and burdensome.” 

Sadly, it seems, not much has changed. However, we can rejoice knowing that God has a purpose in everything and with everyone he sends our way. Unlike the worldly counsel of humanity, we have a Word that has been challenged for centuries and yet has remained true. So, let us not be disheartened by adversity. We know the one who sits in heaven. 

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl

What's the Point?

Luke 16:19-31     Daniel 12:1-4.    John 11:17-44

What’s the point?

In 1899, French Archeologist Carles Clermont-Ganneau published a report regarding, what he described as "Judaeo-Christian Sarcophagi", found in a tomb on the Mount of Offence, not far from Bethany. The Hebrew inscriptions present the names Martha, Eleazar (the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek Lazarus), and Mary, some with the sign of the cross.  It is possible, although not certain, that these ossuaries contain, among others, the remains of the sisters Mary, and Martha, and their brother Lazarus. Dr Eleazar Lipa Sukenik, a scholar considered the greatest authority on Jewish ossuaries, believed this was a 1st Century Christian burial site and argued that the cross had become a sign for believers earlier than previously thought. Interesting, but not conclusive…

However, regardless of whether or not these ossuaries contain the remains of the famous family from Bethany, the fact is that despite the miracle of bodily resurrection described in our Gospel passage for today, all three of them died and all three of them were buried…or, in the case of Lazarus, the poor sod had to die all over again and be buried all over again and the mourners had to mourn all over again.

So, what was the point of this miracle? 

Death is not a trivial matter for those dying nor for those watching them die. Let’s face it. Death is difficult to deal with, whether it be the death of a favourite pet, the death of a friend, of a grandparent, of a spouse, or the worst of them all, the death of a child. Why then create a situation that will lead to a repeat performance for this already traumatised family?

And we may well ask, what is life other than a long (or short) prelude to death? 

No, the winter weather is not getting to me nor am I reading too many Russian plays.

Seriously, think about it. We are all going to die. There’s no escape plan other than if the Lord returns right now. 

So, what’s the point of life? 

It doesn’t matter how well-educated you are, how wealthy, how powerful, or how uneducated, poor, or weak, you are going to die. So, why not just die in the womb or, better still, not be conceived at all?

I’m not the first to ask such questions and I most certainly will not be the last. Job asked: “Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?” (Job 3:11) Jeremiah echoed this sentiment: “Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame?” (Jeremiah 20:18) Or what about the cheery writer of Ecclesiastes? “A good name is better than a good ointment, and the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth.”

So, what’s the point? Why resurrect a man who had already ended this pointless exercise of life and make him go through it again? 

In my humble opinion, we move way too quickly through this passage, charging ahead to get to the “happy space”…dead man walking here…in this case, quite literally. “You see,” we say, “there was a reason for the delay!” And then we wax lyrical about persisting in prayer. 

But what about the times when there is no end to the delay…when there is no healing or resurrection? When there are no answers, only questions?

 And whether or not the delay ends, and whether or not the prayers are answered, what about the emotional struggles, doubts, fears, grief, anger, denial, bitter questions, hurt, tremendous pain, anguish, numbness, and shock? These are things we all go through and then there’s no rushing through to the happy place.

And then there’s another question we need to ask ourselves as we walk through this story, and that is the question: why are we, as followers of Jesus…as followers of the one who said he is the resurrection and the life…why are we so afraid of death? Some say we face the unknown alone and that that is what we fear, but are we alone in death? Is that what the Scriptures teach?

John tells us that by the time Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now, I had to help once with an autopsy of a man who had been dead for three days – not four – but it ranks in the top five most unpleasant things I have ever done in my life. You don’t get that smell out of your nostrils for days.

Now, typically in the 1st Century, the hands and feet of the deceased would be tied together with strips of cloth (as well as the chin to keep the mouth closed), and then the body would be wrapped up in a shroud with spices together with a separate square cloth for the head.

The cadaver would then be laid out on a shelf and left to decompose for one year after which the family would return to collect the bones and put them in an ossuary to be placed in one of the niches along the inner wall. Mourning would last for seven days (called shivah) during which the family was cared for by the community.  

How Martha knew that Jesus was coming and why Mary remained in the home is not known, but from what we know about Martha’s nature, she had to be active, so it is possible that she simply could not sit still like Mary, and she was, therefore, the more likely candidate of the two to be out and about. 

The conversation between Martha and Jesus is interesting. Was her opening line a simple statement of fact or a statement of reproach? “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Many mourners are often “angry” with God for allowing their loved one to die and this anger manifests itself in various ways. 

Be that as it may, she hastened to soften her remark with a statement that has puzzled scholars for years. “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 

If one compares this statement with her astonishment and horror in verse 39, “Lord, by this time there will be an odour (or in the KJV “by this time he stinketh!) for he has been dead for four days!” – if you compare these two statements, Martha could not have meant that she was expecting a bodily resurrection. 

More than likely, her understanding of the resurrection was based on various Old Testament passages such as the one we read in Daniel, that there would be a general resurrection of the righteous on the last day. This is what Jesus himself taught in John 6:39-40: “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

So, whatever her initial statement of faith meant, it certainly did not include what happened. Perhaps she believed that Jesus was about to usher in the last day right then and there and thereby bring about the general resurrection, which, in one sense (depending on what you think is meant by the term “the last day”), she may not have been too far off the mark. Matthew (Matthew 27:52-53) does allude to some form of general resurrection at the time of Jesus’ own resurrection, but that’s another topic for another sermon. 

Mary then came on the scene, repeating the same words as those of her sister, but with a greater degree of emotion. Now, the few verses that follow are very important. I think some followers of Jesus believe it is wrong to mourn or to grieve as, to them, it is a sign of unbelief. This is what some call “grief shaming” and it comes in many forms. 

“You do believe they’ve gone to a better place, don’t you?” 

“We should be rejoicing that it’s all over.” 

“They wouldn’t want you to grieve.” 

No. In the face of grief, the Word made flesh was silent. Instead, Jesus wept. Mary wept. The community wept. Paul instructs us to weep with those who weep. He says we mourn, not like those who have no hope, but we do mourn. No recrimination here. In fact, we should weep, because death was never meant to be. Death is the sign of everything that’s wrong with this world…it is a sign of the curse brought about by sin. 

For Jesus, this must have been especially painful because he is the exact opposite of death. He is life. And so, death is still a sign that all is not as it should be. Only once we cross that threshold do we encounter life as it was intended to be. 

This goes back to my initial opening statements. Why bring one who has already crossed over to real life back for a repeat performance? Why resurrect him? What’s the point?

Well, I believe that what Jesus was doing can be compared to the release of the captive in Plato’s Cave allegory. 

  Plato’s Cave allegory is a philosophical metaphor found in his work “The Republic.” It explores the concepts of reality and perception. In the allegory, prisoners are chained inside a dark cave, facing a wall where shadows of objects are projected by a fire behind them. The prisoners perceive these shadows as the only reality. But when one of the prisoners escapes and discovers the outside world, he realizes that the shadows are mere illusions.  In Plato’s mind, the allegory represented the journey from ignorance to enlightenment and the philosopher’s duty to enlighten others.

So, what has this to do with the resurrection of Lazarus? Well, Martha and Mary were no different from any other human being…we are all material, and we think in terms of the material. Anything beyond the material is an abstraction and hard to comprehend. That’s why the biblical authors often used figures of speech and images to explain what they otherwise could not explain. Dragons and beasts and fruit trees and fountains.

Very few of us have been beyond the veil of death and lived to tell the tale. So, how do you make an abstract comment about “life after death” material? 

Well, someone must leave the cave (in this case quite literally) and then come back…for all to see and hear and experience…

Just as an aside, I do think it strange that Lazarus did not write a book about his ordeal. “My trip to Sheol and back.” Or “What I saw in the Great Beyond.” Or “How I Survived Death.” Or “I went to Eternity and all I got was this Life back again.” Well, maybe it was because Someone else would write that book…

Nevertheless, I think that is why Jesus resurrected Lazarus. To make an abstract concrete and therefore understandable.

Now, before we move on to the actual resurrection, allow me to explain what I believe happened to Lazarus. According to various Old Testament texts, the dead all went to a collective place called Sheol or Hades or a resting place with the fathers. In a sense, one could call it a kind of waiting room.

This place was best described by Jesus in the “story” of Lazarus the beggar and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31. If you recall, Lazarus the beggar and the rich man both went to the same place after they had died, where they were awake and able to communicate. But while Lazarus was said to be in Abraham’s bosom, the rich man was in flames, the two distinct areas separated by an impassable gulf. 

 I do believe that this is where Jesus went at the time of his death, together with the two thieves, one on each side of the gulf. 

Now, according to Matthew 27:52-53, at the resurrection of Jesus, a number of the folks from the righteous side (called “saints” or holy ones) rose with him from the dead and were seen doing a short walking tour of Jerusalem. 

But the most important thing for us to note here is that this is the last reference to any collective place of the dead. From the resurrection on, according to several New Testament texts, death ushes followers of Jesus right into his presence. 

For instance, in 2 Corinthians 5:8 Paul wrote: “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.… We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Absent from the body, present with the Lord.

In other words, at the ditching of this earthly body, we are immediately escorted into the presence of Jesus in heaven. No more collective place of the dead. No more waiting room. After all, we are already in him, and we have the Lord and giver of life living in us even now.

As to the raising of our discarded bodies at the end of time, that’s another sermon for another time…

But back to the story. Martha here revealed the limit of her grasp of what resurrection meant to her when Jesus told her to have the heavy stone covering removed from the mouth of the tomb. Unlike most 21st-century folks, she knew what the four-day-old corpse smelled like. But that was exactly the reason for the delay. Ultimately the “delay” was for the sake of God’s glory, but it also closed the door to any speculation about Lazarus just being in a coma or a deep sleep or that everyone had mistakenly thought he was dead. No way. No sleeping human smelled like that! 

At this point, Jesus revealed that he had been conversing with the Father for quite a while already…no doubt ever since he first received news concerning Lazarus’ illness…and that his vocal prayer at the tomb was purely for the benefit of those around him at the time. The point was for the people to know and believe that Jesus was the resurrection and the life. They’d already seen him or at least heard about him resurrecting people who had just died, but this was on a whole different level. No one, not even the prophets of old had ever raised a rotting corpse.

The rest is, as they say, history. Lazarus was raised and what happened afterwards is the subject of next week’s sermon. 

But, as David Ford says in his theological commentary on John, “The thrust of this chapter’s response to (the problem with belief in a loving God who yet lets people die) is to face the harsh facts of illness, death, and decomposition, and do justice to the realities of loss, grief, and anger while trusting that they do not have the last word. The relationship with the living Jesus in love and trust is more fundamental and embracing. Living in that trust and love can begin now, and the relationship with Jesus is not destroyed by physical death. Jesus himself does not avoid grief, danger, suffering, and death, but offers a life that has come through them and sustains others through them.” 

The challenge for us who still live in a material world and think in material terms is to get beyond an abstract faith in Jesus and embrace him for who he is…the one who created us and who sustains us…the one who went through the portals of death as one of us so that he might annul the penalty and the curse once for all who believe in him. Jesus is not one story among many…he is the story. He is not an ideology or a philosophy…he is a person who can be and must be known.

So, my prayer for us today is for us to emerge from the cave, as it were, and to see Jesus for who he really is…the resurrection and the life. To see him crowned with glory and honour, seated at the right hand of God the Father. To leave behind the shadowy abstractions and to engage with the spiritual reality of life in him. 

Yes, we will die…and it will not be easy for us or those around us as we go. But besides his clear promise to be with us always…we have the witness of countless believers in Jesus who have shared glimpses of what they have seen as they passed over the threshold into eternity…as that barrier that hinders us from seeing the reality that lies beyond death faded and allowed them to hear and see and experience that reality before passing into it, sharing their reactions with us in smiles and happy mumbles…so we know that Jesus is with us, even through the darkest valley of death.

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2024