What does it take to make the dead live?
Have you ever been dead?
I love the greeting where someone responds, “Well I woke up not dead again. It’s a good day.”
There are many kinds of death.
What does it take to make the dead live?
A belief that is so strong, strong enough that the dead rise.
It is a wonderful thing to have someone who believes in us. In you.
It can raise the dead.
Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
Jesus’ friends. Lazarus dies. Jesus weeps.
Jesus calls out to Lazarus to come out, and that he be unbound.
Lazarus wakes up. The dead man walks
What does it take to make the dead live?
All this that we may believe.
When I was a teenager there was a pop song about people walking into the light of streetlights, walking out of the darkness of lives that were empty and shallow. “Streetlight people.” They were told, “Don’t stop believing.”
I’ve been singing that song all week.
John’s Gospel is all about coming into the light of belief that raises the dead. There are many kinds of death. The belief that raises a dead world into life.
It is a wonderful thing to have someone believe in us. In you.
The powers of darkness try to stop the rampant spread of belief.
After the waking of Lazarus there is no turning back, belief starts sprouting up everywhere.
So, Jesus must die. Lazarus must die as well. They both must die to stop belief from spreading. An epidemic of life.
After today, their fates are sealed. The plot against them is set.
The ever-deepening irony of John’s Gospel, that the people of belief don’t believe, becomes even more biting when the power of unbelief kills Jesus, in order to stop belief, only to see him rise as well.
Unbelief is turned back on itself, and the risen one opens wide the gates of belief. Death and darkness are vanquished.
There is no stopping believing.
Are we people of belief who don’t believe?
John’s Gospel is very clear about this. To believe in Jesus is to do as he commands, which is only one single command, to love one another as he has loved us.
That’s it. Do we serve one another? Do we wash one another’s feet? Do we humble ourselves before each other?
That is believing in Jesus. That is belief in the Gospel according to John.
That is what wakes the dead.
Are we people of belief who don’t believe?
Don’t stop believing. It is life, and light, and love, and freedom. Belief wakes the dead. Belief unbinds the prisoners. Belief sets the captives free. Belief is the light of the world. Belief washes feet.
We are believed in.
God believes in you, with a belief that is so strong that it raises the dead.
What does it take to make the dead live?
Don’t stop believing.