Learn to embrace the power of God available to us because of the resurrection

By Dean Collins

My reading plan is a little behind the church calendar. We just celebrated Easter last Sunday, but my reading plan this week contains the early events of Holy Week. As I read John chapters 11 and 12 today, the story of Lazarus has me thinking about both the power of a resurrection, but also about the trail of hints Jesus gave his listeners ahead of his own death and resurrection. To be fair, the gospel writers wrote their accounts well after the resurrection, so we see the hints that they heard even though those hints didn’t always register.

There is some irony in the timing of the resurrection of Lazarus and the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. In John 11, we read one of the longer narratives in the gospels outside of Holy Week and the events of Easter morning. The motivation of the religious hierarchy to do something about Jesus was escalated by the resurrection of Lazarus, it seems.

Jesus visited the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus just before the events of Palm Sunday. John chapter 11 tells the whole story. I am confident that the disciples, the Pharisees, and the residents of Bethany would have said that calling Lazarus to come out of the tomb four days after his death was the greatest miracle they had seen or heard about. And by this time Jesus had done many wonderful miracles. 

The crowd’s sense of wonder and amazement surrounding this miracle would have spread both loudly and quickly, which prompted the chief priests and Pharisees to call a council meeting to discuss what to do. Things were tipping quickly to weaken their influence on their own constituents, as well as with Roman officials. They decided that Jesus needed to go, and not just for a little while but forever. This meant Jesus needed to die.

Now think about the twisted logic. Jesus raised the widow’s son in Nain who had been carried out of the city to be buried. Then he raised a grown man named Lazarus in front of many witnesses. But the thought that he could raise himself from the dead apparently didn’t cross their minds. They could not accept the divine connection of the Father and the Son. Their grasping for control and their unwillingness to see what the prophets foretold kept them from experiencing God. They also couldn’t anticipate that the death of Jesus was the very thing that would produce life. 

I wonder how often our interpretation of scripture and our perception of God limits our ability to embrace the power of God available to us because of the resurrection. I suspect more often than we care to admit. 

When the rich young man came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to receive eternal life, Jesus went to the heart of the matter in this man’s life. He told the young man to quit clinging to his possessions and to surrender everything to God. When the disciples heard this answer, they couldn’t believe that Jesus told the man to sell his possessions and give away what he had earned and acquired. Their logic was pretty much in line with ours. If I earned it, then it is mine. It was incomprehensible to accept that Jesus asked his followers to give up everything for the sake of the Kingdom. But Jesus did tell the young man to go and sell his possessions and give them away. Even the disciples thought that Jesus’ request was impossible for anyone to do. In response to the disciples’ inquiry, this is what Jesus said: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

The question we must wrestle with is whether we believe that with God all things are possible. For some reason the religious leaders, having seen Jesus bring Lazarus back to life, thought that if they killed Jesus, the power of God would somehow be limited. They believed that Jesus coming back to life was impossible. But we know that Jesus rose from the dead, and that he is alive and with us today.

And if we believe Jesus to be fully alive, then we must ask ourselves if we believe that Jesus can and will do all that he said, concerning us and his future plans to unite heaven and earth, restore all things, and to reign as Lord of all. I assume that you and I agree that Jesus is alive and that he will keep all his promises about how his kingdom works now and how it will work in the days following his return.

As we continue to celebrate the Resurrection, may we pray and act like people of the Resurrection. These things include:

Praying that God will provide our daily bread
Praying that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Abiding in Christ and having Christ’s words abiding in us, so we can be confident that God hears us and responds to our needs

Pray that we would work at being the answer to the prayer Jesus prayed in John 17 that we would be one the way he and the Father are one.

Thank you Lord for your resurrection! We praise you and thank you for bearing our sin and shame on the cross, that we might have life now and forever. As people of the Resurrection, grant us the faith and the courage to live as people who have been brought from death to life. Help us to express our faith in tangible ways though our kindness to others, our unity with each other, our generosity to those in need, and our willingness to share the good news with those around and far away. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Your Time with God’s Word
John 11:38-53; John 12:9-11, 25-26; Matthew 19:26 ESV

Photo by Tony Eight Media on Unsplash
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