new thoughts (for me) on death from John 11

[Sorry, I know I could have summarized my ideas into a few sentences.  I couldn't be bothered.  This is a section of my talk from last night.  It came after the bit where I told the story.  The headings were just put in now for your benefit!]

1. The elephant in the room.

Jesus' words to Martha 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live even if they die.” Well Martha said she believed it before, but now she's got proof. Jesus can pull people from death to life. If he raised Lazarus today, what will he do tomorrow? Is this the beginning of a new age where we don't have to worry about sickness or aging or dying? Have tombs and graves become the things of yesterday? Lazarus is alive so everything's changed now! Or has it?

I told this story to the children at our church in the middle of last year. It was a few days after little Abby died. ... When I got to the end of the story and talked about how Jesus is stronger than death and how he's powerful enough to give us life even if we die... I remember the look on 9 year old Emily's face. She was so attached to her sister. It was heartbreaking. Jesus can raise the dead. Please, Jesus. Do it now. Bring Abby back to life!

Jesus is the resurrection and the life, he proved that to Martha. But since then, billions and billions of people have died. And they've stayed dead. So what's the point?

2. Death as necessary for now.

This miracle that Jesus did, it's a sign. He didn't just do it for the sake of Lazarus, or because it makes a cool story to tell. He did to point to something else. In a way, this miracle was just a teaser to get us ready for the real thing.

Lazarus was raised back to life, but not forever. He may have gone on to live another 60 years, but he's dead now. And Abby? Even if Jesus had raised her last year, eventually she'd still die.

As we all will.

What Jesus was actually committed to, was making a permanent solution to death. Not just stringing out our lives for a little longer, but fixing the death problem all together. And that's what this miracle is about.

Death is a tragic part of our world, but for now, it's necessary.

Think about the bad vampires in Twilight. Mythical characters who live forever. What do they do? They kill people. And because they are immortal, they just go on killing more and more people. They can't be stopped. They're imaginary, but what about real people? Adolf Hitler. How would it be if someone like him lived forever? You see, death is a natural limiting force on the harm we can do. If our lives were without end can you imaging how much damage even normal people like me might cause? I might look okay on the outside, but inside ambition and greed and pride and selfishness are brewing. If time and physical strength weren't against me, imagine what I'd be capable of. All the little hurts that I cause would escalate into big hurts. And it's the same with all of us.

So long as sin is in the world, death will be too. It's a blunt instrument but it limits the harm we might do. Kind of like an interest rate rise. Rate rises hit rich and poor alike, but overall, they do make our society spend less money. Sometimes the good die young (before they've had a chance to cause too much trouble!) and sometimes the worst people live till a ripe old age. Death hits indiscriminately, but it curbs our natural inclination towards evil.

But Jesus has done something so that this small sign he gave with Lazarus, this small foretaste of what we all long for, can become a permanent reality for us. He's done something so that his words 'I am the resurrection and the life” can have ultimate meaning. And the thing that he's done is died to take away the problem of sin altogether...