Spiritual Hiccups - The Time is Now

Very often when I lead a funeral service, I begin with these words.  "I am  the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though  they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me  will never die."  These words are from the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, and a portion of that story is today's gospel reading.  They are a staple at funerals, but I wonder if they should be.

Jesus says these words in response to Martha, Lazarus' sister, who has just said that she knows Lazarus will be raised "in the resurrection on the last day."  Martha already believes in the resurrection.  And is doesn't seem to be some sort of faulty view of resurrection.  It is pretty much the same thing the Apostle Paul says many times.  On the last day, when the trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised.

So Jesus is apparently not correcting her view of resurrection.  Rather he seems to be correcting her view of the time.  If Jesus is the resurrection, then the last days have broken into the present.

But we Christians have had 2000 years to lose the urgency Jesus' words require.  We've lost a sense of the new age dawning, and have perverted resurrection to mean "going to heaven when we die."  For that matter, I'm not so sure I want this age to end and the new age to arrive.  I've got this age pretty well figured out, and I happen to be reasonably secure and comfortable.  Let's leave resurrection and the age to come to some future date.  That way I don't have to change the ways I live.  I just have to believe the right stuff.

I once had a Jewish friend ask me an old question.  "If Jesus is the Messiah, where is the Messianic age?"  Too bad we Christians have gotten so disconnected from our Jewish roots that we've forgotten the two go together.

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