John 6 Interlude | Part 1: Overcoming death

Overcoming Death

This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.

John 6:39-40 NASB1995

This confrontation in John 6:26-58 between Jesus and some zealous, hungry Jews is both stumbling and amazing in content. The motives of the men were not aligned with Jesus’ or his Father’s. In pushing back against their willfulness to make him king, he spoke words that were purposefully over their head. True, but stumbling. These were grade schoolers stumbling into a college class. They could not understand. Neither could his disciples. In speaking the raw and direct truth, he allowed their mind to sizzle and short-circuit — and walk away. Without violence. He provided a compassionate way to take the wind out of their sails. Besides the food and his relative popularity, there was nothing else that connected them to him. With his disciples it was different. He had already created an attachment with them. They could hear Jesus’ words and still trust, even though they did not get it.

There is one message that is persistent in this section: The meal Jesus gives me is victory over death. Whether young or old, it’s a topic near to every human and I want to explore it a little further.

Even though today his offspring can better handle his words there is an important lesson to keep in mind: If Jesus was willing to stumble an ardent devotee at the very beginning — one who based their faith not on relationship, rather than on the benefit they recieved— then most assuredly he will do it again. Understanding is based on trust and connectedness, not my ability grasp every detail nor my zeal for his kingdom.

Life is the new normal

Death has been our reality. That sounds like a pretty stupid thing to say. It is all we have known while living on planet earth. Life as man knows it ends. The mortality rate of humans is nearly 99.999% with only two biblical exceptions. Even then, Enoch and Elijah did not remain on terra fima for us to gawk at. The entire cycle of life as we know it and see it is: life, growth, seed, death, then new life again. Rinse. Repeat. Jesus is the interruption to that cycle. And he knows it and is telling the least likely to hear it. The victory over Death, the new standard, is speaking to them now in person! It’s one thing for a Father to tell the kids, “someday we will go to Disneyland,” and it’s quite another to say it with tickets in the pocket and car waiting in the front driveway. You can almost feel the emotion and the excitement in Christ’s voice. For four thousand years men have been subject to death, but Christ is the ticket! It’s in our hand.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15:22

The transition to this new kingdom reality will not feel clean. Even if I have super-faith, it’s hard to wrap my mind around what a life without death looks like. It is fundamentally a shift in operations — just like when you move to a new home and must meet the neighbors, find new grocery stores, familiarize yourself with the house’s personality and new creaking floorboards at night. Or like changing schools, getting a new teacher, new classmates, new subjects to study. Or when you marry and the next morning you wake up next to your life-long companion and wonder what you have just done. The reality of deathlessness is mind-altering. And it’s real and available for me to experience. Even so, since Jesus spoke those words, there have been 2,000 years of not very clean transition. The change appeared with Jesus. A specific point in history. Christ raised Tabitha (Mk 5:39-42) and Lazarus (John 11:41-44) and he himself was raised (Mtt 28:1-6) – the first fruits of all his family of which I am a member (1 Corinthians 15:20). If that was not enough, he gave his disciples authority to raise the dead as well (Matthew 10:8). But his words still remain: “I myself will raise him up…” There is a day coming when it will be complete. The question remains: If he’s demonstrated his authority over death, why do we need to wait? Why is life (or deathlessness) deferred?

Death is an enemy

Paul calls him the “last enemy” to be destroyed. (1 Corinthians 15:26). He was the first enemy to be given authority over man (Genesis 2:17). Death is real. He has a name. And when his horrible reign has ended and he is disposed of in the fire with his teammate, Hell (Rev 20:14). They are the third and fourth that are tossed into the lake of fire as soon as it is open for business — following only the Beast and False Prophet (in Revelation). In the garden he took ownership of the keys to the car of life which were violently snatched out of Adam’s hands.

Before death, God intended man to live without regard for time in his body. It’s difficult to grasp this, but it was more of a reality for those early peoples. There simply wouldn’t be an end point. After the sentence of death in Genesis 3, the life span of man after the fall was nearly 1,000 years. This changed dramatically after the flood — which makes me think something was tweaked in the physical environment on the earth that narrowed our natural life. Even more after the flood. Originally, our cells would simply regenerate and self-heal. The coding in our DNA compelled us toward life. And it still does, but not entirely now. Age produces decay. Something changed. Our earthly bodies and our environment now reflect the heavenly reality of a newly realized death sentence. We have all sorts of bastardized DNA in our bodies, each declaring all manner of sickness and disease with one goal: to rob life from me. Uncle Charlie, Aunt Freda, Grandpa Griswald, and mom and dad all contributed their particular strain of evil to this grand DNA re-coding project.

Until Christ.

Now there is a refreshed DNA recoding project in my body. And Christ made the outcome clear: Life! My new birth isn’t just a clever mental game to re-align me with a new spiritual objective in my life. It is a real, earth-shaking, foundation-altering, physical reality. The fallen coding in my DNA that my parents, grandparents, and ancestors passed on to me — ends here. Death is defeated. Jesus gave this promise to the children of God. He demonstrated what it looked like. He made the payment. He himself was raised and sits as a testimony to my future. And he tells us of the time it will be the new “normal.” Until that day, the kingdom suffers violence, and the violent among us take it by force. By choice. By faith.

Giving death a moment to speak

Until now, I have spent very little time thinking about death. Life is about what is, not what is not. Life is being present, alive, fully engaged, bursting with goodness and creativity, friendship and love. When I have lost a friend or loved one, I think about my loss, our loss, and move on. I personally haven’t considered my encounter with Death. And like anything I haven’t contemplated, my faith about ceasing-to-be-on-earth is not well-formed. Death is frightening. His boastful prospects are not my future, so why would I want to listen? Yet recently I have had a few loved ones going through that frightful stare-down with this adversary. When death takes someone, it’s not just the one that he takes, but he takes a piece of something bigger. We are interconnected in a marvelous and potentially frightening way. Just like when I play the wooden block game Jengo. It starts with the blocks stacked in a tower and each player in turn takes out a piece with the goal of keeping the tower from falling. Finally, one piece is removed that brings the remaining blocks crashing down. This is what death is doing to the structure of our lives. Which piece or person does he finally remove from my life before the tower comes crumbling down? Although fear makes me want close my eyes and bury my head in my pillow, pull up the covers and wait for it to pass, there is something deeply emboldening about Jesus’ words. Embracing his victory allows me to put on a new confidence, even a sense of invincibility. So now, instead of turning away from my foe, I look at him, acknowledge his boastful claims, and reconcile them with Jesus’ words. The conversation could look something like this:

Death says to me, “You have failed. Made the wrong choices. You’re guilty of sin. The penalty for sin in death is just. It was sanctioned by heaven’s courts. God himself. And by the way, I really do have authority over your body. Your future is the grave. Dust. An untimely death. Embarrassment. Exposure. Isolation. Loneliness. I have killed good DNA and replaced it with the bad. Now you are afflicted with ugliness instead of beauty. Limping and limitation instead of fierceness and boundarylessness. Although there are dreams and gifts planted within you —breadcrumbs of the divine — they are aborted. You may see them, but you will never realize them. Dashed hope. Failed efforts. In fact, the shorter your life the better. God allowed it, don’t you see that? It’s because he wanted the world to be rid of you. It couldn’t bear you very long — even now, 70-90 years are way too many. It gives you the false sense that you actually have time to accomplish something. That you actually have meaning, blah! Thankfully, I have friends: Toil, Hardship, War, Murder, Barrenness, Difficulty, Unloved, they all keep you distracted enough. You don’t have much time to consider your dreams. And even if you do, I’ll bring other friends to disrupt your sleep. No need to dream all those illusions.”

My reply? “But now, Christ.”

But now, Christ has  been raised from the dead, the first fruits [the forerunner, the example, the first of the many that will follow] of those who are asleep. 1 Corinthians 15:20

The timing of God

One thing that distinguishes God from his creation is time. On earth one thing follows another. In heaven, things may not be quite so linear. In fact here in John 6, Jesus has not even died yet, but he’s already leveraging the purchase price he will pay for my life and telling his followers about it — before he actually tendered his physical life as the payment. He’s operating outside the linear. That is where faith must operate. His intent, promise, and devotion, combined with a word from God are just as powerful for Adam and David as they are for Christ and now me today. Stepping into Christ is stepping into timelessness.

My natural body = time. My rebirthed body = timeless.

I see Jesus operating in this new zone of forgiveness, redemption, and the payment for sin. Sin and evil has qualified me for death; the goodness, love, and sacrifice of Christ now qualifies me for life. The payment has been made and the benefit may be withdrawn — sometimes even today, as we see Christ did in so many instances. I wonder why some may be raised now, and others not? Since Christ clearly demonstrated a victory over death, why can’t I count on it today?  I may never understand. But the word of God is clear: there is a time — in the future — when the transaction is fully complete.

Death is an ugly enemy, and it feels wrong to say this, but I must become comfortable with the fact that today my path to life will probably pass through through his territory. One day this will change. But not today. It is so humbling to go through the process of death. So inglorious. Never pretty. Whether a fateful splat in an accident, or a long battle with disease — it’s just bad. Shutting down the life in my body and yielding to death, seems so wrong to every internal instinct. Yet, however it comes, it is the threshhold to the next. Despite death, my heart cannot be separated from my Father’s, just like the fusion of metals in the heat. I am bound to life! Nothing can separate me from the love of God — even if for a moment I must concede to what happens in my body. The sooner I accept this, the sooner I will be at peace with whatever guillotine the adversary uses. Not a hair from my head is uncounted, nor a bird falls without Him knowing it. If I cling to life in this body like it’s my last stop in life, I’m abandoning the peace He offers for a battle He has already won. I was thinking this morning of a story by Madeleine L’engle about her husband Hugh who was diagnosed with cancer and starting to see the symptoms which affected his normally joyful, playful countenance. The family thrust him into aggressive cancer treatment. It caused nausea, weakness, dependency, disconnect, struggle, hair loss, and so many other horrible side effects. Ultimately the disease took him. Although there was a chance the treatment would work and family based their hope on this treatment, it simply extended the battle into months of pain. So I wonder, which was worse, the sickness or the cure? Would they have been remiss to avoid the fight? And if one makes it through such harshness, what type of life is left to live? Would it be wrong to fold the sword on top of my own chest, bow my head and acknowledge the inevitable… on my terms? Courage and life may manifest in many different ways — and it’s a deeply personal choice with today’s hope-filled medicine.

My future is filled with hope

When I consider the real struggle with death, the thing that worries me the most is the accusation of me being inconsequential and not living my dreams. Purpose, gifts, vision, a goal are all seeds for a life that was never intended to end. Yet what makes me put all my eggs in one basket — the basket of this body? If it falls off the table, what do I have? What about those with childhood diseases? Or those who died in service to their community or country? Or those taken from freak accidents or premeditated murders? There is a real future and a real hope in the kingdom of heaven. And just because I cannot see beyond the veil of this current life, the darkness of my understanding does not mean there is no life after death. Unfortunately, it’s not easily provable. I have never been there. But there is someone who has and he has returned and says it’s true. My Father also says it’s true —in no uncertain terms.

The kingdom deposits which God has made in my life are without regret. He planted them knowing full well the continuity of my life beyond my earthly body. My life being cut short is not a limiter. Those dreams and ambitions may be fulfilled in this body and in my new body which is coming, whether or not I am able to get over the hump which I cannot see beyond. What Jesus is saying here is profound and the although the water of understanding must sit on the hardened and callous ground of my flesh until it is slowly absorbed and nourishes, once the realization of his declaration goes in deeply, it is life changing. He’s telling me something very real. I have been looking at death through the eyes of fallen man. A grief-riddled response actually seems selfish and misinformed. “But I can’t talk to my dad any longer!” Who told me that? I must allow my core beliefs to be changed by Jesus’ words.

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