I Am the Resurrection

In a small village outside Jerusalem, two sisters, Mary and Martha, watched their brother become ill and die. Because they dearly loved their bother, you can imagine their great suffering and mourning upon his death. Their friends and neighbors tried to comfort them but failed. Their sorrow was so great that upon seeing them, Jesus was filled with compassion and wept (John 11:30–35).

We have been experiencing the same emotions in our congregation. One needs to simply follow the paper on a weekly basis to see that we experience this in our community regularly.

It’s been my experience that nothing can really soften these painful emotions. I loved reading recently that “mourning is one of the deepest expressions of pure love” and “the only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life”.

Fortunately for us, Christ taught us much about death and resurrection and his words can help us as we mourn. It is at times like this when we really come to realize our own mortality.

In the 16th chapter of John, we see the Savior instructing His disciples “A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me … , because I go to the Father”. Finally, He explained that while they would “weep and lament” at His death, their “sorrow [would] be turned into joy.”

While it is contrary to the natural man, as we learn of what the Savior offers, we too can understand the meaning in the Psalmists words: “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalms 116:15).

To the grieving Martha, Jesus taught, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11: 25-26).

We too can believe in His wonderful message, especially during this Easter season. We can believe that He did in fact rise from the dead, and that through Him, we can do the same.

As He asked Martha: “Believest thou this?”, we can ask ourselves the same. Do I believe in Him? To the extent that we allow these truths to permeate our lives, we can also respond with great faith and a fortified testimony that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that we will be reunited with our loved ones and that we will live again with Him.