“Resurrection power”
44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound
with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them,
“Unbind him and let him go.”
Jesus has resurrection power. We have seen it before in the gospels. Jesus has power over death. People live again because of him. Lazarus was dead four days and Jesus
raised him. Is this why he
delayed? To make sure people knew
Lazarus was really dead? In this
way, Jesus displayed his power over the grave. Death cannot hold the Son of God.
We have to be cautious about this text. If we are not careful, we may place on
Jesus the requirement for him to raise people from the dead in order for us to
follow him. People want Jesus to
do all sorts of things for them in order for them to give him their lives. But we must be careful here. A couple of reasons stand out. First,
Lazarus eventually died….again. He
was not raised by Jesus to eternal life.
Well, not in this life. In
fact, there had to be many people who had dead relatives that they wanted to be
raised but Jesus didn’t raise them.
This points to the fact that physical healing is not the be all, end all
of what following Jesus is about.
Does God heal? Certainly he does!
Is he able to heal anyone at anytime? Surely he is able!
But God desires something deeper for us. Resurrection.
Not in this life, but in the one to come.
Lazarus did die twice, but he was also resurrected twice,
the second one being for forever.
And in the same way, if we treasure physical resurrection over the
eternal resurrection Jesus desires to give us, we miss the point.
We don’t love Jesus because he heals every disease we have
or raises every family member we have but because he gives us eternal
life. We are not promised that we
will escape death here on this earth.
In fact, one out of every one person dies. But, in Jesus, we are promised eternal life & escaping
of eternal death.
Have you been resurrected?
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