This reflection was composed for compline at Trinity College, Cambridge

Reading: John 11

A real death is the way to a real resurrection.

Death is absolutely terrifying. As modern neuroscientists have pointed out, there is no conceivable mechanism by which our consciousness might leave our body in tact when we die. Humans are not born with an immortal soul. Most likely, death is total oblivion, and if that doesn’t scare you then I don’t know what to say to you.

When one of Jesus’ best friends dies, he weeps. God, the very creator of the universe, weeps at the sight of death. There is some comfort for us death-fearers here, we aren’t afraid of death simply because we don’t understand it or because we don’t have enough faith. God weeps in the face of death. God has all of the understanding and all of the faith. It may seem like pointing out the obvious, but death is bad in and of death’s self.

What then, can we say in the face of death? What words of comfort can we offer when promises of an immortal soul floating somewhere ring so false and hollow in the mourner’s ear? Jesus’ comfort is this: “Your brother will rise again.” Jesus calls to Martha’s mind her faith in a God who can resurrect. A God who at the end will make all things new. There is no immortal soul, but something far better, a promise that we will be restored as bodies, as our full selves made perfect. Good bodies in a good creation.

Better even than this comfort though, are Jesus’ next words. “I am the resurrection and the life.” This I am saying brings Martha’s far off hope into the here and now. Not only will Lazarus rise again, but his very resurrection and life stands in front of her as a human.

Jesus decisively brings God’s victory over death into this world, not by giving us a doctor’s note out of it, not by letting believers avoid it, but by turning the most awful of experiences into the very path to resurrection.

God works all that is bad, all that is corruption, and all that is decay into a beautiful new life. In Christ, we are brought through that brokenness into life. In our co-crucifixion with Christ, we come out of sin, through death, and into life.

This isn’t just metaphor though. When I say death I don’t mean difficulty or struggle. A very real death is the place where Martha sees God face to face and confesses Jesus as Messiah. A real death is the way in which God’s abundant life is revealed.

A real death is the way to a real resurrection.