A true story: Grieving sisters in Oviedo, Spain, were all dressed up and ready to go to their beloved brother’s funeral, but they got a call to say, “Cancel the flowers.” The sisters of Gonzalo Montoya Jiménez did. The day before, Gonzalo was found dead in his prison cell. Marked with drawings for an autopsy, he was sent to the morgue for further examination by the coroner. But before he pressed the scalpel to Jiménez’s chest, the dearly departed began to snore. Imagine the questions that swept through their little Spanish town: Is it real? Can the dead rise?
If you follow Jesus’ parable of the seed in John 12:24, the dead can rise.
Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. John 12:24
I grew the sunflower you see here—from seed to bloom. What is done naturally when a seed follows its orbit from death-to-life, is done spiritually and supernaturally one Easter morning. In the John 12:24 parable, Jesus found it necessary to teach three things about the one greatest event of His and our lives. First, He taught He must die; second, God is sovereign over death, and lastly, death has a God-purpose—resurrection.
Prior to the Seed Parable, Jesus proclaimed himself the “Resurrection and the Life” to the sisters of their dead brother, Lazarus, in John 11:1-6,17-27,43. In that proclamation, Christ is calling His followers to believe in the resurrection as a personal reality, a present reality, and a powerful reality, to be a seed like Him who dies, yet destined to rise.
First, believe that the resurrection is a personal reality. In John 11:26, Jesus asked Martha if she believed in the resurrection.
25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25,26
The question had to do with her personal relationship with Christ, that if she believed in the fullness of Christ and His mission. You need more than an intellectual assent of the truth of the dead rising. You need a personal faith in the complete Christ who was sent as “the Seed of a woman who will crush the head of the serpent in Gen. 3:16—the proto euangelion—the first gospel message that God had a plan to save the world of its sin and defeat death. Marth’s answer was complete, “You are the Son of God (27).”
Second, believe that the resurrection is a present reality. By Christ adding “and the life” in verse 25, Christ was saying to her that resurrection is not just some distant last day event, but it is part of a higher, unbroken spiritual reality and eternal destiny. We see in Jesus’ prayer in v.42, him thanking God for what has “already, but not yet” done—the raising of Lazarus. Resurrection, spiritually, is a 'now' event. You can rise from disappointment, rise from heart break, rise from failure.
Lastly, believe that the resurrection is a powerful reality.
43When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." John 11:43
With Jesus’ words, “Lazarus, come out!” Jesus powerfully changed the physical and spiritual position and condition of Lazarus from dead to living, from bound to free, a dead seed brought to bloom, a fruitful life. This echoes Paul’s words in Romans 6 that those who are spiritually related to Christ—the baptized—are to walk now (present tense) in the “newness of life.”
This Easter, reflect on your relationship with the “I Am the Resurrection” Christ. Make your faith in him personal. That which you think is dead can be revived again--a dream, a career, a relationship. Make your faith in him a “now” faith. Don’t wait to live a God-glorifying life. Finally, expect a powerful, new walk, unweighted by past failures.
So, cancel those funeral flowers. Grow a “Son” flow in your garden.
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