Introduction

What is life? What is death? Is there life after death? These questions are buried deep in the mind of every man. We often push these questions into our sub-conscious, but they have a way of surfacing to the conscious level every now and then, and we usually mull them over for a while before we return them to the sub-conscious. Often these questions arise again at the death of a friend, a relative, or even a famous person. Severe mental or physical suffering can also rouse them. These questions have existed in man's mind from the beginning. They are always there, begging for answers.

One of the oldest, if not the oldest, books in literary history is the book of Job. We find Job asking, "Where is man after he takes his last breath?" (Job 14:10) and, "If a man dies, does he go on living?" (Job 14:14). Job's questions arose from his grief over the deaths of his ten children in a tragic accident and out of his own intense suffering. But for Job, there were no answers.

Centuries later, "The Age of Philosophy" was born and men spent their entire lives seeking the answers to these questions. Still, by the end of that age, the philosophers had not come to any satisfactory answers. Near the end of the Age of Philosophy, Mary and Martha, sisters living in the small village of Bethany, mourned the death of their brother. They had sent a message to Jesus asking Him to get there as quickly as possible, because the one He loved was deathly ill (John 11:13). Despite the urgency of this message, Jesus chose to relax at the Jordan River for a couple of days before beginning the two-day journey to Bethany, which lies on the Mount of Olives, on the wilderness side away from Jerusalem. By the time he approached the village with His disciples, His friend was dead, he had already been buried four days earlier.

When the sisters heard that Jesus was coming up the road from Jericho, Martha left the other mourners and ran to meet Him. As she came to Him, she exclaimed, "Jesus, if you had only been here earlier, my brother would not have died!" She was disappointed in Him. In a polite way she was rebuking Him by saying, "What took you so long to get here? Lord, where were you when we needed you? Why didn't you respond to our prayers? You could have prevented death and averted our sorrow and grief? Why didn't you?" Isn't it interesting that we still ask Him the same questions when a loved one dies today.

Jesus answered Martha with comforting words: "Your brother will live again." Not fully understanding what He meant, she answered, "Yes, I know that Lord, in the last day in the great resurrection." She must have been thinking of the prophecy of Daniel 12, where he speaks of the general resurrection of the dead; some to everlasting life, others to everlasting contempt. But Jesus answered, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet he shall live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John 11:25-26).

Having made this radical statement, He then asked Martha directly, "Do you believe this?" She answered, "Yes, Lord: I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God." The statement Jesus made has to be one of the most radical any man in history has dared to make. If He were not the person who made it, it would immediately be cast off as the vain babble of a fanatic. Imagine Napoleon telling his loyal troops before a battle, "If you believe in me, you will never die." Imagine Hitler or Kadaffi, or even our own President making that claim. You would conclude right away that they were crazy and you probably wouldn't give it another thought. But because of who Jesus is, we cannot just pass over this radical remark. We must consider it seriously.