Will You Ultimately Die?

On our pilgrimage with Jesus to Jerusalem and the Cross we did not accompany Him to Lazarus tomb and see Him raise this Friend from the dead. But we did meet Lazarus at Dinner. People who witnessed his resurrection couldn’t talk about anything else. John was with us. He would write about it later. But that evening he talked about it too.

Today, this Ninth day of Lent, I’m drawn to what John wrote about this dramatic occasion. It’s filled with insights into Christ’s life; who He is; why He came; how He feels about us; how He and the Father interact; what His ultimate purpose for us is.

His record of it takes up most of the 11^th Chapter of his Story of Jesus. Jesus was teaching on the East side of the Jordan, where John the Baptist had preached and baptized, when word came that Lazarus was ill. Oddly, Jesus did not go to him and his Sisters right away. His disciples were relieved. The rulers in Jerusalem had intensified their efforts to silence Him. They’d even tried to stone Him to death. To go back to Bethany – less than 2 miles from Jerusalem – was too great a risk for them.

Two days later, however, He announced His intention to “go back to Judea.” His followers protested. But He told them – in veiled language – that He knew what He was doing. Lazarus, He explained, has died. And “I am glad, for your sakes that I wasn’t there.”

He seemed to be inferring that if He’d been there He’d have healed His Friend.

What was there in this man’s being deliberately allowed to die, when he could have been healed, that was beneficial to the Followers of Jesus? He explained. “You are about to be given new ground for believing.”

As Jesus approached Bethany Martha heard He was coming and left the gravesite to go and meet Him. She told Him she was disappointed that He hadn’t come sooner and healed her Brother. With that the laying of “new ground to believe,” began. Jesus promised her that her Brother would “be raised up.” His words gave her little comfort. Resurrection, to her, was something general and a long way off. Jesus pressed His point and boldly declared to her, “You don't have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all.” Talk about “new reason to believe” in Jesus.

He is boldly saying that life comes from Him. Whether it’s life that comes from something that dies and is resurrected like the seed “that falls into the ground and dies in order that it can produce many seeds,” – resurrection life – or life in any other form, it is His doing. He pressed His point even more forcefully. The person “who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live.” Could He have been more bold? Well, yes! “And everyone who lives, believing in me does not ultimately die at all.”

This is far beyond “new ground for believing.” It’s a new claim, difficult, if not impossible to believe.

“Do you believe this?” He asked Martha.

Do you believe this?

Does this preposterous claim change the way you understand life in general, or your life in particular?

How does it alter your way of living now?

I’m asking myself this.

Lord help me believe that you are the “Lord of Life.”

This Man Raised Another Man from the Dead!

Little did we know, as we reached the region surrounding Jerusalem, what was about to happen.
The place was overrun with Passover Pilgrims. Jerusalem itself, a City of 50,000 has grown to 5 times its size. There are perhaps 250,000 folks milling around. The crowd we’d travelled with was huge. But masses of people had preceded us and countless more are pouring into the City behind us.

Thinking back, now, on all that went on in the mayhem, one event stands out. John, who, with his Brother James, bore the stigma of their Mother’s meddling, tells of that event in his story of Jesus.

It was a Dinner, “held,” John writes, “in Jesus’ honor.” It was held in Bethany where Lazarus lived. Yes that Lazarus, John assures us, the one “whom Jesus raised from the dead.” He, Lazarus, “was among those reclining at the table with Jesus.”

Only a few days before we joined the Journey from Galilee to Golgotha Jesus had ordered this man out of his grave after he’d been lying in it for 4 days. He “came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.”

“Many of the Jews,” John remembered, “who’d come to visit Mary – Lazarus Sister,” and mourn with her, saw this happen and put their faith in Him. “But,” he writes, “some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.”

So now, Lazarus is with Jesus, and a house full of people, honoring the Master. “Meanwhile,” John continues, “a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of Him but also to see Lazarus whom He had raised from the dead.”

In retrospect, once again a Lenten traveler and spectator, the people intrigue me.

A man unquestionably raised another man from the dead. John was an eyewitness. He said that when Jesus commanded some men to remove the stone securing the tomb, Lazarus Sister, Martha, protested. “He’s been dead 4 days! That tomb will stink!” Everyone there knew he was dead! And they all saw him “come out” of that tomb, virtually mummified, but alive!

But what about those of us who weren’t there and didn’t see what happened? Well, less than 20 years after it happened, St. Paul wrote that there were over 500 people still living who would gladly tell any skeptic that they’d seen Jesus alive after His crucifixion. Surely they’d want to tell about Lazarus’s resurrection as well. We, thousands of years later, have this written record of what John saw. Copies and fragments of what he wrote are far more extensive and plentiful than most records of ancient events.

Some people will hear or read what John has written, believe, and follow the Lord of Life.

Other people will believe and immediately look for ways to turn the miracle to their advantage. Some, who witnessed it up-close-and-personal, went to the powerful bent on rallying a movement to harness His power and make Him their King. They, and many down the Centuries of history since His Resurrection, hoped He’d come to establish them as rulers of the world who could throw off oppression and make it the kind of world they wanted.

Still others simply cannot believe. “If you can’t see it, hear it, smell it, hold it, or taste what you’re being told, then it just “didn’t happen.”

In one of His stories, Jesus told of a man who died and went to Hell. Tormented and desperate the man begged to have someone raised from the dead and sent to warn his family that they DID NOT! want to be where he was. Jesus said the condemned man was refused his request. The reason? His Family had the record of storied Great Men. These men repeatedly warned of what had happened to him. If his people wouldn’t believe these men, like “Moses,” and the “prophets,” they would not be convinced if someone were “raised from the dead,” and sent to warn them.

And so it is with us this Lent, 2012. The Lord of Life, who raised a man from the dead, 9 days later, himself crucified, dead, and buried, walked out of His own grave. His claim is clear. “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me, even though they die, will live. And anyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Those who believe will follow Him to the cross, through the empty tomb, into the Forever Kingdom and on to their timeless never-ending Mission as His Followers and Children of His Father.

The Ultimate Ransom

The trek from Jericho up to Jerusalem is a tough climb. With only short breaks, walking at a brisk pace, it usually takes about 6.5 hours. And it isn’t particularly safe, though with the mob of people accompanying us, most of the bandits will probably be discouraged.

With all of this time, and so much going on, things Jesus said and did flood our minds. One thing stands out. He “came,” He said, “to serve; not to be served and then to give away His life in exchange for the many who are held hostage.” Simply, He was saying that “His life was the ransom for many.”

Today, on this imaginative Lenten climb with you who are reading these words, I am intrigued by those two words; “hostage,” and “ransom.” Our race, humanity, is, according to the Bible, the “many who are held hostage.”

Generally a hostage is someone held against their will. They could be a victim of kidnapping. Prisoners of War are hostages. Some hostages are unwitting pawns in a power game they don’t understand; a compulsive gambler terrorized and enslaved by a loan shark.

We, all humanity, have been conned into thinking someone else is more trustworthy than our beneficent Creator. As a result we are hostages to an adversary whose ultimate mission is to enslave us, eternally; to a life that we’ve been duped into believing is our own idea. In reality, like most “hostages,” we’ve been “brain-washed. Programmed into believing things that will actually destroy us.

A quick glance backward in history, far before the time of Jesus, reveals how our captor has deceived us. The story is of a man named Job. God was pleased with this man. Satan criticized God for favoring him. He actually accused God of spoiling this good man. “Does Job revere God for nothing?” he asks. Contrary to what he’s duped us into believing this Kidnapper has little or no regard for us. He has no interest in us. He sees us as nothing more than weak-willed creatures who will only choose what is right when we’ve been, like a child, pampered into doing so. Completely contrary to anything he’s said before he betrays his belief that we don’t deserve the choice of our life’s path and never did. There’s more. Our enemy speaks through the mouths of Friends and Family. His view of God is no better than what he’s said about us. We might better curse “God,” and “die.” Job is suffering unimaginably. And it’s because he’s done something wrong and God is punishing him. Job insists they’re wrong. He adamantly believes that if he could have a “hearing” with God he’d be vindicated.

While, in the end, God meets Job and confronts him with how foolish the notion is that he might be able to comprehend the ways of the Most High God, the Lord does vindicate him. The accusation that God is an angry, unjust being who punishes His creatures whimsically is dispelled in his exoneration of this man He loves.

Since our Race first fell for Satan’s seduction and entrapment we’ve been deluded by the propaganda that he has a higher view of us than God does. That we deserve to master or own destiny. As we’ve seen, he’s never believed that. Caught in the web of his deceit we’ve become enslaved to him, and to ourselves; to our insatiable, greedy, power hungry selves. And we’ve made a travesty of our existence. We have lost our lives.

Jesus has come to remove our bonds. But, because, seduced into disobedience, we carelessly relinquished our very lives, it will cost Him His.

Therein lies the “ransom.”

Jesus, though He is Divine, sacrifices His Divinity and becomes human. A completely free being, the Divine One Himself gives up everything. He lives every second of His human life in complete obedience to God; His Father. His innocence becomes virtue. A fully free being, He always makes the right choice.

Finally, on the precipice of His own life, He stands the ultimate test. He trusts His life – the Spirit of life in Him – to the Father; even when it appeared He’d abandoned Him.

But no! He was not abandoned. There, in humanity’s darkest hour, when it appeared the enemy was right and even this Righteous One was discarded by a capriciously tyrannical deity, He “was raised up.” Immortality was restored to our Race!

Shake the web from your mind and heart! You’ve been set free. The ransom’s been paid. Your captor was wrong. A free creature can live free and virtuously. Watch Jesus carefully. You’ll learn how. God is not a vengeful person. On the contrary, in our darkest hours, He is taking us to the edge of life where, on those high and treacherous precipices, we see the radiantly brilliant horizon. The Light of Life – Himself Life – that Infinite, Eternal Life that’s been extended to us for OUR LIBERTY!

Zacchaeus ...

The time with Jesus in Jericho has been a never-to-be-forgotten experience. As we climb up out of this magical Valley there’s one man we cannot get out of our minds. Zacchaeus.

Jericho was a Roman Central Station for the collection of Taxes, and management of Customs. Commerce flourished there. And the great Caravan Route from Arabia and Damascus ran right through it.

Zacchaeus was the Head of Tax and Customs, a Publican, contracted with Rome. He was very wealthy. Tax Contractors usually were. They would estimate the amount of Tax they could assess and bid for the contract accordingly. It was common for them to rig the rates to their advantage so excessively that their prosperity soared and their reputation plunged.

Zacchaeus was hated. A scoundrel to the people he plundered in the name of their despised oppressors.

Thinking back, now, on our encounter with him we remember that he seemed desperate to see Jesus. Jostled by the crowd, and a little man, unable to jostle back, he climbed into a Sycamore tree overhanging the roadway. That’s desperation!

What followed will be forever etched in our conscious recollections of this day. When Jesus “got to the tree, He looked up and said, ‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’” Zacchaeus “came down at once and welcomed him gladly.” The “bystanders,” pilgrims and locals, “muttered disapprovingly, ‘now He’s gone to be with a real sinner!”

Something momentous had taken place that afternoon. Four worlds collided.

The world of fallen, desperate humanity.

The Kingdom of Jesus, the One destined to salvage these “lost,” the One who must “stay,” for “the many who are held hostage.”

A world of self-righteous pietists who habitually cast off all whom they consider to be worthless.

And a world of those salvaged by the Man, today exultant that one “lost” has been found and now lives in the “blessing” of Abraham the Father of Faith.

For all of his power and prestige Zacchaeus was a desperate man. He had to see Jesus. There must be someone who can help Him. Maybe this Teacher and Healer from Galilee can. We saw how acutely he felt his need when he heard the accusations of the crowd and “just stood there stunned,” How telling it was that he resolved, then and there, before Jesus, “Master, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” We could see the guilt and shame had overwhelmed him. We knew without doubt that he was done with the abuse of power and exploitation. He was broken. He knew it. He acknowledged it. Whatever followed would be different from what lead to this.

In the Kingdom of Jesus those who are “lost;” “held hostage,” and know it, can and will be “salvaged” the moment they let go of whatever they’re clinging to and reach out to Him.”

Zacchaeus was trashed by his accusers so often that he’d lost hope. The Temple at Jerusalem and its operators had been closed to him forever it seemed. This Jesus had to be his final hope.

Jesus was his Hope!

Exulting He declared for Zacchaeus; for us who are following Him; and for the masses, “Today is salvation day in this Home! Here he is, Zacchaeus, son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to find and restore the lost.” He’d been Abraham’s Kin since birth. The religionists disowned him. But, the Son of Man took him in; reinstated him; and bequeathed to Him the long ago promised blessings of those who, like Abraham, “believe God.”

We mustn’t forget!

In him, that is Abraham, all “the families of the earth will be blessed!”

Following Christ, WE MUST STAY FOR EVERYMAN TODAY … EVERDAY!”

Jericho ...

We are traveling with Jesus; accompanying Him from Galilee to Jerusalem. He’s told us He’s going to die; then be “raised up alive.”

We’ve been in Jericho and are now moving through, up the mountain road, out of this unusual City. In reality it’s a lush, tropical oasis. Its spring feeds hundreds of gallons of crystal clear water throughout it and on to the Jordan River a few miles below. It’s a City fit for a Queen. One actually wanted it for her Vacation Palace. Kings aspired to build Palaces and places to play there. And some did. It had been, for nearly a hundred years, a virtual Resort. There were fruit trees everywhere; sweet scented Balsam Plantations; sycamores; feathery Date Palms; Cypress Flowers; gardens of Roses. Its climate is described by one historian as “perpetual Summer.” The pervasive fragrance of its gardens, in harmony with the soft strains of Jerusalem’s Temple music gently carried on the mountain breezes into the lavish valley, gives us the sense that it is fit for the King. There are Priests everywhere. Rumor has it that if they’re not on assignment they’ll rest and recreate in the gardens and baths of Herod’s Jericho. There are Hermits. Wild-eyed Contemplatives coming in from, or trudging out to, caves and shelters in the arid, barren hills off in the distance. There they lived the rigorous regimens of the Anchorite. Watching them now we remember that it was in that mountainous wilderness that Jesus spent 40 days fasting before he began the final, public 3 years of His Mission.

We’re reflecting now as the procession winds up the treacherous, 2500 feet to Bethany and the region around Jerusalem. Satan found Jesus in those desert mountains during his days of fasting, and searching the heart of His Father. The tempter, predictably deceitful, insisted as he always does, that Jesus would be best advised to pursue the true marks of Royalty – pleasure, power, prosperity – but Jesus would have none of it. There’s more to life than pleasure for the True King. Everyman’s life is enriched by more than pleasure. As a matter-of-fact true delight and enrichment come as one hears and takes to heart, “everything God has to say.” In the Kingdom of His Father the “test” of Truth is not that it pleases me. It’s that it pleases the Him. To pursue power is to enthrone and adore oneself. He would worship the Lord God; Him alone. He’d learned long ago that prosperity comes in simple delight with what each day – each moment – presents.

As we watch Him now, striding among the Pilgrims; the Royal Resort brilliant, fragrantly lovely, sun glistening on palatial parapets and lavish structures behind Him, we recognize the contrast. He’s “not to be served but to serve.” The Father revealed this clearly in those dusty mountains out there above the desert’s floor night after night 3 years ago. And today He walks on “worshipping Him – the Father – and Him alone.” “Pleasure,” will come; in His time; on His terms. All “Power” is the Father’s. It will be shared with Him. Yes, but when and how the Father determines. Prosperity: That too is the Father’s. It’s ALL His. The Paradise behind Him is adequate reassurance of that! Life lived Abba’s – Papa’s – Way would always be best. The resolute determination of His stride confirmed His certainty.

Dear Lord! May “our faith not fail!”