Of all the words that Jesus spoke, the words he said to Lazarus's sisters are among the most potent to me. "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" (John 11:25-26). Those words should make us stop in our tracks. Pause. Listen in. What did he just say? "Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die"? Jesus is calling out the greatest evil humanity has ever known, the one thing that has ever enslaved our souls: death (Heb. 2:14-15). The specter of death, which sneaks into all of our experiences like a polluting smoke . . . he blows it away as if it were a dandelion puff. He does it right out in the open, in broad daylight. He makes himself a bridge from the land of the living to the land of the undying. And we have the audacity to read those words and keep moving . . . to let our eyes roll over the letters like fallen leaves. How can we do this?
Maybe it's because we don't often get to stare death in the face. We don't see the hideousness, the unholy terror, the deep shadow that glides unstoppable like a wrecking ball into the walls of familiarity. For those of us in the modern West, death is more like a specter. We can forget about it for much of the day. Until our father passes, or a friend gets spinal cancer, or a car accident deletes a life on a back road. It's all around us. And when we see it, when we really see it, we lose our breath. That hideous, unholy shadow is what Jesus faces in the presence of Lazarus's sisters. It's the shadow of leaving, the ghost standing at the end of our pilgrimage. But Jesus goes out to meet it. Jesus calls death forward and pierces it with a promise. He is the greater David slinging stones at the greater Goliath. And he has won.
Jesus calls death forward and pierces it with a promise.
I don't know why we overlook this so easily. Perhaps the ordinary blinds us to eternity. Outside a grocery store today, I watched as an elderly woman with a walker bent over and used tissues to wipe the dirt off the back of her Subaru. Stroke by stroke, as strands of her white hair caught the sunlight, she made clean what would only be dirty an hour later. I don't critique her. It was a beautiful image, actually: this old and weathered body using careful motions to mend something most of us don't measure. And yet I couldn't help thinking that this was not a great use of the time. Better to stare at the brilliant clouds, or watch the people bustling in and out of the store. But no. She focused on the immediate. It needed her attention, and she was running out of tissues. To her, this was serious.
We have this habit of taking the things at our fingertips and making them finalities. But they aren't. Death is . . . at least, it was until Jesus came along. And because of him, we are invited into a greater habit, a habit of hope. And hope takes the things at our fingertips and turns them to glass. We now look through the immediate to gaze on the eternal: an ancient home with God . . . the God who broods over his people like a great bird (Ps. 91), a God who will teach us to fly. At least, that was George Herbert's idea:
If souls be made of earthly mould,
Let them love gold;
If born on high,
Let them unto their kindred fly:
For they can never be at rest
Till they regain their ancient nest.
Looking Forward
Like most people in the modern West, I don't often get to stare at death. But I was blessed recently by someone who has. I had the privilege of editing a collection of biblical reflections by Brian Zimmerman, who has now gone on to glory. Brian battled terminal cancer for a few years. But he put his time to good use: he chronicled his journey of approaching death as a Christian. As I edited the collection, it became clear to me that Brian truly saw through all the things at our fingertips. He saw what Jesus did in killing death with a promise. He looked with longing at the ancient nest, where God will gather all of his people. And he had the special opportunity to speak with sincerity about mortality as he called his brothers and sisters to hope with him. Here's one of my favorite reflections.
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"The king is not saved by a mighty army; a warrior is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a false hope for victory; nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope for his lovingkindness, to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine. Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. For our heart rejoices in him, because we trust in his holy name. Let your lovingkindness, O LORD, be upon us, according as we have hoped in you." (Ps. 33:16–22)
The psalmist here lists a range of means to keep someone safe from harm—an army, great strength, the power of a horse, all means of war in the ancient world. But the psalmist goes on to relate what is the only hope we have ultimately: the protection of God. He mentions God’s deliverance from death—in an age when such means of death as famine were a very real fear (and still are in parts of the world today). But death in our age is a very great concern for us, and in that sense, we are no different from people in the ancient world. Just ask me: I had a terminal diagnosis, which at that time (in the spring of 2021) was the last thing I expected to hear. I was still working full-time and felt fine with no health issues except some shortness of breath.
But death in this age can come at any time for anyone, as I found out. And as I have related elsewhere (see the appendix on healing), it truly and obviously is only God’s mercy that has thus far spared me from death. As much help as modern medicine can be, much like the psalmist’s army or warrior, it could not deliver me from death.
So, where is your hope? In money, your skills or talent, your job or company position, your spouse or friends, your exercise and healthy eating habits? No one and no thing can ever guarantee your deliverance from death’s powerful hold. In the end, it is only the power of God that can open that lion’s jaws.
There is, however, a greater need that we have, a need for deliverance from another death beyond the first death of the psalmist’s description. That second death is far more terrible than the first one, as terrible as the first one may be. The first death is only the conclusion of our brief stay in this present age. The second death has no end; there is no conclusion to it, no stay or reprieve. Once again, it is the psalmist’s words that point us to the only hope we can have: the power and care of our God.
If the elements of the greatest power for war (in the ancient world) had no hope of deliverance from death in this age, what hope is there that there can be any human deliverance from a greater and more frightening fate, a permanent death?
There is no hope of escape made possible by anyone or anything—even the best medical treatment available—in this current age. We must turn to the One who created us, the Lord who would protect and deliver us from that final death. He is our guarantee, our certainty of eternal life. Once he is, then we can say with the psalmist: “Sing for joy in the Lord…”!
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For Christians, the only thing death can do to us is turn our shoulders so that we face the God of hope, the God who sent his own Son to kill death by dying. And because he's done that, we have not just peace or acceptance but joy, because the one who believes in Jesus will never die. Never. Though we die, yet shall we live. Or, as the Apostle Paul put it, "dying . . . we live" (2 Cor. 6:9).
I never had the chance to meet Brian Zimmerman. You likely didn't either. But you have the chance to meet Jesus. And once you do, once you believe in him, you'll get to shake Brian's hand one day . . . because he lives.
The Dying Man Lives is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.