On a Sunday in 2015 an airstrike killed over a hundred people near Damascus when Muhammad Rahan failed to return home from the market his family began grieving and started the three days of mourning knowing that he had been lost.
On the third day of mourning which was a Tuesday into the home walked Muhammad. His beard and his hair were still covered in dust from the rubble where he had been trapped until he could dig his way out and all of a sudden the family’s weeping turned to shock and then to joy. The Muhammad they thought was dead was alive again.
When was the last time you were at a funeral think about that imagine the scene if somebody had walked in opened the coffin and said to the dead person come out and that dead person had gotten up and walked out. Just imagine it would have been complete pandemonium and shock eventually joy.
That’s exactly what happens here in the seventh and final sign of Jesus in the Gospel of John. When John wrote the gospel, he structured it around seven signs that Jesus performs. He turns water into wine, he heals the Royal official son, he heals the paralytic at the pool, he feeds five thousand people, he walks on the water, he heals the man born blind and the final one nothing less than a resurrection.
In John 11, Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the dead because Jesus doesn’t do funerals, he only does resurrections. Jesus declares himself the resurrection and as a result the Jewish leaders in the Sanhedrin begin to plan to kill Jesus.
The clear theme of this remarkable story of the seventh sign of Jesus is life. Very simply Jesus gives life. That should not surprise us given that all things came into being through him in the first place.
So let me ask you. Is there an area in your own life that you would describe as dead. What would that area of your life be a relationship that seemingly has died, an emotional capacity that seemingly has been extinguished. An addiction that has destroyed a part of you or your life or something else
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends, that they turn over the dead parts of their lives to You and trust to bring new life that it becomes a remarkable holy moment. Strengthen our faith that we may have life in His name. Abundant Life now and eternal life then in other words Jesus wants your funeral to be a resurrection too.
