When You Wonder if You and Your Loved Ones Will Be Raised From the Dead.
Dear friends in Christ Jesus,
On February 20th, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary were stunned by the death of their 11-year old son Willie. President Lincoln grieved deeply. Mary Lincoln was distraught. Three years later, President Lincoln was assassinated, and his wife Mary was emotionally destroyed and spiritually confused. Records show that Mary then went on to consult mediums and spiritualists, and began talking to the dead.
The Bible records a similar tragic event. The death of Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus. These sisters, who were close friends of Jesus grieved deeply (Jn. 11:33). However, instead of consulting mediums and spiritualists, Mary and Martha contacted Jesus (Jn. 11:3). When Jesus saw the tears of His close friends Mary and Martha, “Jesus wept” (Jn. 11:35). Mary, Martha, and Jesus all shed tears. However, they did not grieve as Mary Lincoln did and as those who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13). Again, Mary and Martha did not consult mediums, they went to Jesus. While Mary Lincoln was emotionally destroyed, Mary and Martha had and found their comfort in Jesus. In their grief, Jesus said to Mary and Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies” (Jn. 11:25). Jesus’ words were not just a momentary emotional consolation. No, they were an eternal reality. Jesus’ words raised Lazarus from the dead (Jn. 11:43-44), and guaranteed resurrection for you and all believers, a resurrection into Paradise forever.
Yes beloved, as He did to Mary and Martha, Jesus speaks the same way to you regarding your loved ones who have departed this life in Christ Jesus. You will see them again. These are not empty words. Jesus speaks the same words to you that He spoke to Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live, even though he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die” (Jn. 11:25-26).
So how can we be sure that we have a saving faith? That we believe in Jesus as He asks us to? Thereby guaranteeing our resurrection (John 11:26)? Beloved, this saving faith, the resurrection assurance, is what God gives to you and me as a free gift when He “unites” us to Jesus in His miracle of Baptism. To help you understand what God does for you in Baptism to assure you of your eternal resurrection, consider the following:
All over the world, people have two types of plants. Some plants are called annuals. They come up one and then they die. Other plants are called perennials. They keep coming up year after year, from a root that never dies. There are even scientists who are trying to graft annual plants to perennial roots, creating an annual that will never die. And what scientists are striving to do in plants, God has already done for you in Christ Jesus. For every person is born from an annual. That is, each of us has one life, after which we will die. However, God has Good News for us. When we look at Scripture such as Isaiah 11:10; Romans 15:12; and Revelation 5:5;22:16, each of these references point to Christ as the perennial, the Eternal root. Thus, when our heavenly Father, through His miracle of Baptism unites us to Jesus who is the Eternal Root, even though we may have been hammered down or even cut off to die in this life, we have the comfort that we are indeed connected Jesus who is the Eternal Root that will live eternally. Yes beloved, we will live forever when our heavenly Father eternally grafts and attaches us, who are mortal, to His crucified Son Jesus, who is immortal.
As St. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians: “This perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’…thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:53-57).
Beloved, when your mortal loved one, who has been grafted to the immortal Christ dies, you may shed momentary tears. So, too, Jesus wept when Lazarus died. However, you need not be devastated and destroyed like Mary Lincoln was after losing her child and husband. Instead, because you and your loved one are united to Jesus, the Immortal Root, you can joyfully and confidently say with Job: “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes shall see and not another” (Job 19:25-27).
Therefore, let us give thanks this day and always that our Lord has destroyed the power of death. Let us give thanks for the assurance that we have in knowing that our loved ones who have been united to Christ through the blessed waters of Holy Baptism will also live even though they die. Let us give thanks for Jesus, who is the Eternal Root, onto which all who are attached may die, but not eternally. Thanks be to God! Amen!