Jesus and Martha
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days … When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:17-26
Life for many of us has too many “If only’s.” If only she hadn’t stepped onto the roads just then … If only he’d worked harder before that final exam … If only a different leader had been elected …
All of these involve wanting to turn the clock back. And so we come to Martha’s ‘If only.’ “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” And she probably knows it took Jesus two days longer than it could have. Added to this is the fact ‘that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.’ Many rabbis taught that the soul ‘hovered’ around the body for three days before finally leaving.
Jesus’ conversation with Martha is confronting. Instead of looking at the past and dreaming of what might have been (but now can’t be), He invites her to look to the future. Then having looked to the future, He asks her to imagine the future brought dramatically back into the present.
Let’s take this section by section. He begins by pointing her to the future, “Your brother will rise again.” This was the standard Jewish teaching. Most Jews, following Daniel 12:3 and other key scriptures believed there would be new heavens and a new earth where all the pain and grief of this world would be abolished. Martha doesn’t realise Jesus is about to raise her brother from the dead as a symbol of the resurrection of the last day.
To move her thinking to His, ‘Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”’ This is the fifth of John’s seven “I am” statements with predicates (6:35,48,51; 8:12; 10:7,9; 10:11,14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1,5).
It involves three claims:
(1) Jesus Himself is the resurrection and the life. The Father has given Him ‘life’ in Himself and the right to bestow resurrection life on those He chooses (5:21,26)
(2) those who believe in Him, even if they die (as Lazarus had done), will live. Jesus will raise them from death on the last day
(3) those who live and believe in Him will never die. This will be literally true of the last generation of believers. For others it is true in the sense that even death cannot break their relationship with God.
By these claims Jesus made Himself central to the Jewish hope of the resurrection and eternal life, and by asking Martha, “Do you believe this?” He encouraged her to recognise and really believe this. The death of a Christian is not ‘second best’ for them. It might seem that way for us but a believer who dies is instantly ushered into God’s very presence and at Christ’s return, they receive a resurrection body like Christ’s. This is the ultimate victory over death. Their life is complete in every possible way.
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