I Am the Resurrection + the Life

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”

“Do you believe this, Hannah?”

When I’m reading this, I cannot help but to imagine Jesus explaining to me that He is the resurrection and life and that believing this means that I will never die. And then Him straight up asking me: Do you believe this?

I think I would obviously want my answer to be yes. A resounding yes! And honestly, I think that if Jesus came and asked me that question right in this moment, I would say yes and mean it.

But...

But then begs the question: Am I living as though I believe this truth? Am I living as though I have access to the fullness of life and eternity?

I think in some ways I do live this way, but if I really sit and think about it, there are definitely ways that I am not living in the fullness of this truth.

Now, you might be sitting here thinking, “What does it even mean to live like that?” I don’t have all of the answers, but I think it’s beneficial to break down what Jesus really means when He says that we get to live life in this way.

Faith

If we are living with the assurance of eternal life, I think that this requires some faith. And faith is literally what this is all about. Living as though we have access to the fullness of life and eternity. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.”

I think this looks like if God asks us to do something—even if in our own eyes, it looks like the end result will be a disaster—we do it! I think it means that knowing that the hard stuff is worth it because it is walking in line with the One who loves us unconditionally. I think it means just trusting in God in every circumstance and believing Him to be good and to be who He says He is.

Hope

When we have faith, we also get to operate in hope. Hope means that we get to know that the best is yet to come and that when bad things are happening, we can rest in a supernatural peace that God has us. Now, this isn’t a self help thing, where we always just get to hope that every single thing we want is going to come to us. But it is knowing that no matter the outcome, God is going to care for us because He loves us and has our best interests at heart. We get to lean into the best case scenario instead of the worst case scenario.

Like in this story from John, we get to lean into hope that the dead will come to life. We get to lean into hope that the sick will be healed. We get to lean into hope that financial ruin will be reconciled. We get to lean into hope that broken relationships will be restored. We get to lean into hope that our histories will be redeemed. And this is all within complete reason because we have God on our sides when we believe Him to be who He says He is. Y’all, this is HUGE. I don’t know of any other way that we have access to this sort of hope outside of the love of Jesus. I don’t know of another religion, I don’t know of another lifestyle.

The fact that we have the hope of God just simply being who He says He is is insane!!! When we choose to believe Him, something crazy happens!!! He responds.

He responds

If you read the entirety of this passage from the Bible, you’ll see that Jesus’s friend Lazarus has died. And in the midst of this is where Jesus is talking to Martha about His giving access to eternal life.

When He asks her if she believes these things, she says yes. And she believes it. And what happens next is crazy: Jesus directly responds to her belief!! He quite literally walks into a grave of a man who has been dead for days and RAISES HIM TO LIFE. I mean, this is CRAZY!!!!!!! This blows me away.

When we believe and we have faith and we have hope in Jesus, He responds!! I don’t know all of the theology and mechanics and reasons behind it, but I just know He does. Faith and hope give space for God to do the literal impossible in our lives. Again, I don’t fully understand it, but I just know that this is what I see over and over and over again in the Bible, in my life and in my friends’ lives.

But what about doubt?

I think this could be easy to read this and be thinking, “Well, I have a lot of doubt, so I’m not sure how this would work.” Listen, I think that you can have faith and doubt simultaneously. Faith is choosing belief, choosing action, choosing hope and truth despite the doubt. It’s saying yes to God’s whisper when doubt is screaming in your ear. So, if you have doubt, that’s okay! Please do not feel shame.

I just want to encourage you that these things of faith and hope are for you. You don’t have to be some sort of special Christian to have access to these things. Jesus says if you believe, they are yours.
 
I want to encourage you to sit down and ask God where there is space for faith and hope in your life. Ask Him to give you direction on what it would look like for you to live the truth Jesus speaks of here in John 11. He doesn’t want to keep you in the dark. He will give you direction. But simultaneously, He will give you grace upon grace upon grace. I’m SO excited for you to lean into more faith and hope and truth. It will bring about so much freedom and goodness and intimacy and joy!!!!!!

Author | Hannah Cole