It’s easy for Christians to fall into a rut: Church is a thing you do, prayer is a box to check, and faith seems far from “the real world.” This fall we let Jesus himself confront our ruts. “Do you believe this?” he asks (Jn. 11:26).
To believe in Jesus is to experience him. It’s more than logic, argument, and doctrine. It is intimate knowledge of God himself. This fall, let Jesus himself speak to you in his seven “I AM” statements in the gospel of John. How is he changing you? What response is he inspiring in you? To believe in him changes everything.
Invocation
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Ponder:
Ponder the I AM statement: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Consider how Jesus said “way,” singular. Ponder how our society is pluralistic – many ways. What do you think when you hear Jesus’ exclusive claim?
Word
John 11:24-25
“Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live…”
Meditation: Hurt and Hope by Julianna Shults
“So, how many siblings do you have?”
It’s a simple enough question. It pops up in small talk all the time. You can make a lot of educated guesses about someone based on their number of brothers and sisters and where they fall in their birth order.
My stomach falls and chest clenches at this question. My younger brother Alex died in 2018 and a day doesn’t go by where I don’t miss him terribly. It seems wrong to not include him in my answer, even to strangers. Yet, nothing kills the buzz of a light-hearted, get-to-know you conversation like death.
We don’t hear idle chit-chat when Jesus arrives after Lazarus’ death. Martha comes straight at Jesus. She knows Jesus could have healed Lazarus, preventing his death. She is confident she will see her brother again at the resurrection. She stands with the Savior in front of her brother’s grave holding both deep pain and clinging trust.
Martha, like many of us, feels the indelible mark of loss. She wants to know why. She wants death to have never come. Yet, she clearly trusts in Jesus as the Son of God who came to save us from the death she feels acutely in that moment. In faith, Martha shows we can hold both the hurt of profound loss and hope is Jesus at the same time.
Jesus tells her “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” Jesus’ promises that through faith in Him we do not need to fear death, even when we feel its sting. It can be tempting to pretend death isn’t there. Push down our grief and keep the conversation light. It is only because we have Jesus that we can face death with confidence.
Sin and death in this world can leave behind grief that will last for the rest of our time on earth. But that is not the end. Resurrection will come, maybe not as immediately as Lazarus experienced, but soon. We have a God of resurrection.
We will all feel the heartbreak of death in our lives. Even as we mourn, we are confident that someday we will see all those believers who came before resurrected in perfection. I can only guess that how many siblings I have won’t matter in that moment at all. Until that day, we hold hurt and hope together, clinging to Jesus, the resurrection and the life.
Savior, thank you for being with us in our grief. Thank you for the joy of the resurrection. Help us always to have hope in you. Amen.
Prayer
Jesus, you said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” In a world of competing ways, show me the narrow path that leads to you. I have tried paths that lead to nowhere. You alone are truth and life. Draw me close to you. Amen.
Benediction
Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. (I Tim. 1:17)