In this episode I explore death in the context of the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. This is a symbolic story that looks at how three people – Mary, Martha, and Jesus respond to death. It culminates in Jesus statement: I am the resurrection and the life. This statement points to the reality that death is conquered now in the realization that one’s true nature does not die. Resurrection is another term for spiritual awakening.
In this episode I explore death in the context of the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. This is a symbolic story that looks at how three people – Mary, Martha, and Jesus respond to death. It culminates in Jesus statement: I am the resurrection and the life. This statement points to the reality that death is conquered now in the realization that one’s true nature does not die. Resurrection is another term for spiritual awakening.
How to Not Die
Today I am going to talk about death. We all have to deal with it sooner or later. If you read the newspaper you face it every day. As George Burns said, “I wake up every morning and read the morning newspaper. I look at the obituaries, and if my name is not there, I eat breakfast.” This morning I read our local paper and saw the obituaries. There were seven of them. The deceased were ages 71, 78, 64, 90, 71, 28 and 68. Those ages are uncomfortably close to my own age of 70. When you approach average life expectancy you realize more clearly that one day you are going to die.
With COVID going on we are even more conscious of the possibility of dying. As I am recording this 2000 Americans are dying every day of this virus. I got an email today informing me that a fellow pastor here in New Hampshire has died of COVID. My sister has COVID, and she is the most careful person I know, much more careful than I am. The only reason she got it and I didn’t is because she lives in Massachusetts 20 miles from Boston, and I live in New Hampshire 20 miles from nowhere.
Seriously, we all die. The mortality rate is still 100%, regardless of what the Bible says about Elijah and Enoch, two people in the Bible who traditionally were said not to have died. They died, regardless of what your Sunday School teacher or preacher told you. The biblical depictions of their departure from earth are just metaphors for dying. Also there is not going to be a rapture that allows a certain group of lucky Christians to avoid death. That idea was created by some crazy Christians in the 19th century. It ain’t gonna happen. Everything that is born dies. That is the nature of this physical realm.
Thank God for dying. It inspires us to look for that which does not die. If we did not die, we would never search for the eternal. At this point I need to amend what I just said about everybody dying. I mean that every body dies. The body dies. If we identify with the body, then we will die with it. If we think that we are a little human consciousness that resides in this body – like the old-time idea of a homunculus - then we will die when the brain dies.
The truth is that we are not the body, nor are we the personality that seems to reside within the body. Salvation - or spiritual awakening or enlightenment – is waking up to what we really are, which cannot die. What we really are is not born and does not die. That is obvious when you see your identity as Being Itself rather than a human being.
Many people who have near death experiences – who die for a few minutes and then are resuscitated and have stories to tell of what happened while they were dead – lose their fear of death. In fact the last funeral I did was of a friend of mine – younger than me, by the way – who had a Near Death experience and told me about it. She had no fear of death afterwards.
Spiritual awakening is like this. It conquers the fear of death. That is what the famous story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is all about. It is found in the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John. The story is about how three different people – Mary, Martha, and Jesus - deal with death.
Mary and Martha were the sisters of Jesus’ friend Lazarus. Lazarus became seriously ill, and they called for Jesus to come to heal him. Lazarus was one of Jesus’ best friends. Surely he would come and save his life, they thought. He did not. When Jesus got the message, he waited two more days, until he heard that Lazarus was dead, before he came. By the time Jesus finally arrived, Lazarus had been in the grave for four days. To get the point across that Lazarus was really dead, the story tells us that his body was already stinking. This was not a near death experience. This was a death experience.
Jesus met with the two sisters, and they both got angry at him for not coming sooner, when he could have prevented Lazarus’ death. It is a very emotional chapter. Not only are the sisters emotional, it says that Jesus was moved deeply within him and wept. Being one with God doesn’t mean we do not cry or grieve. Jesus grieved.
There is a story about the Taoist master Chuang Tzu. His beloved wife of many years died. When his best friend came to his house to mourn with him, he found him sitting on the floor with an inverted bowl on his knees, drumming on it and singing. The friend scolded Chuang Tzu for not showing proper respect by grieving. He replied that when his wife died, he at first grieved greatly because he loved her deeply. Then he remembered that she had returned to what she was before she was born. So he sat down and sang a song of joy.
When Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, Jesus wept. Then he remembered who he was and who Lazarus was. In the story Jesus communicated this reality in words and in symbolic action by raising him from the dead. This is not history nor science. That is the way that literalists and fundamentalists will read this passage. But there are other ways to interpret scripture than literally. This is a symbolic story meant to communicate spiritual truth. That truth is found in the statement Jesus makes.
Jesus tells the sisters that Lazarus will rise again. They both say in effect, that they know that he will rise again at the last day. Jesus says he is not talking about a future Judgment Day. He is talking about a living reality here and now. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” He is saying that Lazarus lives even though he is dead, and the sisters will never die.
Jesus said, “Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” He is obviously not talking about physical death of the body here. We all die physically. Lazarus died physically. Jesus died physically. He is talking about spiritual life – eternal life. For Jesus resurrection is not about an event some day in the future. It is about now. “I AM the resurrection and the Life.”
Whether or not there is a physical body, we are Life. Jesus no longer has a physical body now but he is the Resurrection and the Life. That is the reality that Jesus is communicating. It is not about a mummy hopping out of a tomb that has to be unbound from its burial clothes. It is about us being unbound from our way of thinking about life.
Jesus said, “And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” I will never die. I know it not only because Jesus said it and I believe it. I know it. That doesn’t mean that this body will not die. It will. It does not mean that Marshall Davis will not cease to exist. It will. But what I am cannot not die, because I AM is not the body and was not born. I am one with the Eternal Christ and share Christ’s divine life of I AM. It is the one life. That is Nonduality.
The good news – the gospel – is that this is knowable here and now for everyone. To be saved is not to hope for a reserved place in heaven when we die if we believe the right things and act the right way. It is to wake up to that Reality that Jesus called Eternal Life now. We do not have to wait to go to heaven. We do not have to wait for the resurrection day. Now is the Day of Salvation. Now is Life. I AM.
That is what Jesus was pointing to when he said, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Resurrection is just another word for Eternal Life. Resurrection is being born again and Spiritual Awakening. Resurrection is Enlightenment. It is knowing Eternity now as our true nature and identity, just as it was Jesus’ nature and identity.
“I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even though he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” To believe in Christ means being one with the Eternal Christ. This is union with God. We will never die because we are Life. Life cannot die. Though the body be in a tomb, we do not die. That is the Resurrection and the Life.