They Say You Die Twice
AM Psalm 50 • PM Psalm [59, 60] or 93, 96
Job 29:1,31:1-23 • Acts 15:1-11 • John 11:17-29
Many of us have heard it said, “You really die twice; first on the day your heart stops beating, then again on the last time your name is ever mentioned.” This saying rings true for many of the ways that we failingly attempt to overcome Death. Death has plagued all humanity in all times, and people have followed religions and cults, or gone searching for miraculous methods and magic potions to stay alive; anything to beat that long old enemy, Death. Even in the secular age, people seek out technologies and techniques that just might be able to save them from final Death. It’s said that even Walt Disney’s head is frozen in a container, in a cold lab with countless other frozen bodies, waiting for their resurrection to eternal life—through undiscovered scientific means. Other people have found means of staying alive as long as possible, not by prolonging their bodily existence, but by making a name for themselves. Although names like Sam Walton or Elon Musk will probably be in circulation much longer than yours or mine, eventually they will be forgotten too. But Jesus is not as pessimistic about the power of Death to keep hold over us all.
“Those who believe in me, though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus tells this to Martha four days after her brother Lazarus died. Jesus’ statement is an interesting reversal of ‘You really die twice.’ Instead, he says, ‘You live, but you’ll only die once until you live again forever.’ In his confidence about life, he reveals something about his power. Death many be an old enemy of mankind, but before Death there was the eternal Son, “the one coming into the world.” Jesus, the Son, has great power. We hear in this lesson that Martha, like his sheep, upon hearing Jesus coming, went to him. Again, Mary, at his call went to him, just like a sheep who know its master’s voice. Nothing held them back. In tomorrow’s lesson we’ll find that even Death cannot hold back Lazarus from the power of Jesus’ call.
Written by Curtis Moneymaker
...who does not want to be frozen in a lab, but is hopeful about God’s victory over Death in Jesus Christ.