Sermon: I am The Resurrection and The Life - Rev. Jen Swindell

I Am the Resurrection and the Life | Rev. Jen Swindell | North Raleigh UMC

What did Jesus mean when He declared, "I am the resurrection and the life"?

In this message from John 11, Rev. Jen Swindell explores one of Jesus' most powerful "I Am" statements through His conversation with Martha after the death of her brother, Lazarus. Martha comes to Jesus carrying grief, disappointment, questions, and faith all at once. Rather than correcting her or explaining away her pain, Jesus meets her in it and reveals that resurrection is more than a future promise. It is a present reality found in Him.

Drawing on John 11, Romans 8, and the imagery of resurrection woven throughout Christian tradition, this sermon reflects the heart of Wesleyan and United Methodist theology by emphasizing God's prevenient grace, the work of the Holy Spirit, and our calling to embody resurrection life in the world today. Resurrection is not simply something Christians wait for after death. Through Christ, it is a life we are invited to live now, as God's grace transforms us and works through us to bring hope, healing, compassion, and new life to others.

Whether you're walking through grief, wrestling with unanswered prayers, searching for hope, or longing to deepen your understanding of Jesus' words, this message offers biblical encouragement and practical discipleship rooted in the Gospel.

Scripture: John 11:17-27, Romans 8

North Raleigh United Methodist Church (NRUMC) is a welcoming United Methodist congregation in Raleigh, North Carolina, committed to helping people encounter Jesus Christ, grow in faith, build authentic community, and serve the world.

Topics: I Am the Resurrection and the Life, John 11, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, resurrection, eternal life, United Methodist Church, Wesleyan theology, prevenient grace, Holy Spirit, Romans 8, Christian hope, grief, faith, discipleship, Bible study, Jesus Christ, Christian living, sermon, North Raleigh UMC.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Kids. Raise your hand if you had noticed, had not noticed the butterfly until the kids' moment today. Yeah. So that is a sign of how sometimes the life that we think is here has even more to it, right? Many of us have sat in this sanctuary several dozens, maybe hundreds of times, and every single time you've been here, so has this window. I don't know about y'all, but it's a joy to give, when we do our next steps lunch, I give a tour. And if folks have only worshipped in our contemporary space when they walk in here for the first time, the awe and wonder at the visual is always a beautiful thing to watch. Maybe you remember the first time you walked into this space and saw this window. Not many churches choose to have the symbol of resurrection at the center of worship. An empty cross, sure, but the vivid storytelling that our stained glass has is something to be cherished. But even though you might have been familiar with it, there are layers to it that when you really look, it could be easy to miss those other things hidden in that resurrection scene. Butterflies are one of the oldest symbols of transformation and new life that we have because of exactly what Pastor Laura mentioned. And we sort of have that snuck in there. Those folks that helped to design these windows 20 plus years ago did so with such beautiful intention that it is a sermon in and of itself. There's more here than we might first notice. Today's gospel gets us to learn a little bit more about a woman named Martha. Sometimes Martha gets a bad rap from her Mary and Martha story in Scripture, but it goes to show that Jesus spent a lot of time with her and in her house and with her family. But I want, before we jump to Jesus' I Am statement, which is the goal of this series, I want to invite you to notice and to sit with what Martha has to say as we read this scripture. It's probably one of the most honest things that we hear in Scripture on someone's journey. So we know here that Martha's brother Lazarus has died. Jesus, again, a close friend of this family, came but was not there when it happened. There's some that say he could have come quicker, but didn't. And so that's where our scripture picks up in John chapter 11, verse 17. When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him while Mary stayed at home. Martha came to Jesus and said, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, Son of God, the one coming into the world. This is the word of God for us, the people of God. So Martha hears that Jesus is finally on his way, and instead of waiting for him to come to their house, she goes and meets him. And the first thing out of her mouth is, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Lord, if you had been there. And again, I want us to sit with that because it's honest and true, and it's probably something most of us have our own version of. Maybe not about our brother, but Lord, if you had just healed them. If you have ever said any version of those things, maybe quietly in the middle of the night, awake when no one can hear you, something important is that it doesn't show a lack of faith. In fact, this is what real faith and real relationship sounds like when it's struggling and grieving. Martha is not faithless. She's heartbroken. And she's honest enough, and most importantly, has a close enough relationship with Jesus to be able to say the hard thing out loud, which, though hard, is a gift. And Jesus doesn't correct her to it. He doesn't say, Martha, that's not very faithful. He doesn't offer a theological explanation for why he waited. He met her in it, and he walks with her and weeps with her. So we need to take in what that means for us for a minute. Martha shows up with her grief and her accusation and her sharpness and that theology all tied together. She doesn't have to clean it up before she runs to Jesus. She doesn't have to wait until she has more faith or better words. She can come raw, heartbroken, and honest. And Jesus doesn't give her an explanation. He doesn't offer her a timeline or tell her to be patient. He never says everything happens for a reason or this is just part of the plan. He stays. He sits and stands beside and weeps. That is the God that we worship, the God that we can bring our grief and our disappointment to. And here's the thing about Martha we need to not miss. Her sentence doesn't end with, if you would have just been there. She says, if you had just been here, but even now I know God will give you whatever you ask. She's grieving, yet she still has that arm reaching out, just like in the window behind me. She's grieving and reaching, both things true at the same time. Too often we say it has to be one or the other. But here is a good example that reaching towards someone even if we don't understand, or a moment of need even when things aren't resolved, that loss is real, and yet hope can be too. And that's what faith looks like. It doesn't always look like certainty and answers, but it looks like running to our Savior even in the midst of chaos. And most of us probably know what that looks and feels like. Showing up even when we're not sure, coming to worship or trying to pray, even when we don't have the words, or being invited to a communion table open for all when you feel more like an outsider standing on the street like Martha than you do a disciple in the upper room. But you don't have to have it all together to come to the one who says, I am the resurrection and the life. You just get to come. Jesus says to her, Your brother will rise again. And Martha, who knows her scripture, faithfully formed as she was, sat in the synagogue, believes in the resurrection, and she recites her knowledge. Yes, I know that he will rise again on the resurrection in the last day. And theologically, she's right. She's completely and totally right, and she's also completely and totally missing exactly who is standing in front of her. She turned the resurrection into a future calendar event, not into the Messiah standing right there. That the resurrection is someday, on the last day, far, far away, the end of all things, and that's fine, but it's not here, it's not now, it's not in this moment when my brother is four days dead and my heart is broken. She has the right doctrine, but she reduced it to a distant factual hope. And Jesus looks at her, the woman that came with grief, accusation, but really strong and correct information. But he says something that changes all that she's ever learned, all that humanity has ever known. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. He didn't say, I can produce the resurrection if the conditions are right. He didn't say someday, somewhere you're right, we'll experience resurrection one day. He said, I am it. Right now, right here, standing in front of you in the middle of the place where you thought all hope had run out. I am the resurrection and the life. See, she came running to see what Jesus could do for her, but she left knowing a little bit more about who Jesus is. This week's I Am statement has two words that we often say are doing two very different things, the resurrection and the life. Those can be separate, at least on this side of heaven, but we need to make sure we don't rush past that Jesus says that I am both, the and resurrection and the life. Resurrection as the promise that death does not get the last word, that with God the worst thing is not the last thing, that future hope is real and matters. In our first scripture reading, Paul, writing to the church in Rome, takes this as a reminder that the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is living in you right now. Not will live in you someday, but here right now. Not a future calendar event, but a current address inside each of us. The resurrection power is not waiting for us on the other side of heaven. It's already been given within us as we received the Holy Spirit and celebrated that Pentecost Sunday and every day since. That means that it's not just a one-day thing, it is together with that we receive this resurrection life. It doesn't just come to us, though. If we are co-heirs with Christ, it also has to come through us. We experience God's grace and we are changed so that the world around us can be changed and shaped by that same grace as well. We are not called to just wait to experience resurrection. We're called to embody it and to let it move through us and out into the world. We're called to go forth and to be love for the world in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces, our relationships, and our choices. We're called to be the love that comes and reaches the person who is still saying, if you had just been there, God, to sit with them and walk with them through the valley of the shadow of death and to be there, to be the body of Christ for them. And the one that can say, look at what's already happening here. So our question as we come to this space is where in our life have we been treating the resurrection like a future calendar event when we really need to be embracing it as our current address? Where have we been looking towards that resurrection someday when we need to let it be working through us today? Maybe you said something like, when things get better, then I'll feel alive again. Or when I get through this, then God can use me. We have a litany of excuses sometimes of why we're not good enough or not now, and we're in good company if we study scripture. But the shift that Jesus invites Martha into and invites us into is to change from, hey God, when are you going to show up to the embrace of God, I know you're already here. Open my eyes to see and to help to be that love too. But that's a much harder prayer. It asks something of us. It asks us to stop waiting and to start looking, to stop being a spectator and being one that helps to move God's spirit on to others. It asks us to live from our address of resurrection rather than looking towards it someday in the far-off future. And so that's our call today. The prayer you've been putting off, the act of grace for someone that doesn't deserve it, the yes to that nudge that you've been forgetting and putting off, those invitations that you've been ignoring, your presence with someone who feels stuck in that if only phase. That is the ongoing, spirit-filled work of becoming more fully alive for God and more fully available for the world. That is the resurrection moving through you. Because all of these I am statements of Christ are also callings placed on our lives. We aren't called just to come looking for what Jesus can do, but to leave here knowing who Jesus is and knowing that because of who Jesus is in us, we are called to do that as well. Today, as we come to the table for communion, it will be even more obvious. You'll come before with hands outstretched, with an openness to receive that grace, to put it in you and work through you, to know a little taste of that resurrection so that when you go forth from this place, you can go and be that grace for someone else.