Life from death [Lent 5; St. John 8:46-59]

Jesus speaks to you today, saying:

“⁵³ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?”

On Good Friday, you will hear the Jews make a startling declaration. They publicly confess that they have no king but Caesar. At that point it was either admit that Jesus was a king or take Caesar and you know they hated the former more.

Thus they declare a prince of this world as their ruler. Today, you hear something similar. The Scribes and the Pharisees love to claim Abraham as their father; their direct blood-line to the promise of God. They will also do the same to the prophets.

But here, they are not. Notice what they say. They say, “Our father Abraham”, but then note that he died. They say, “Our prophets”, but also note that they died. So who really is their father? Who really is the one that rules over them? Who is this mysterious Caesar that they have voted for unanimously?

As the Jews see it, they are hearing God’s words and are living by them. They have Abraham, Moses, and all the prophets written down for them. They have their faithful teachers preaching and teaching them and yet Jesus says that they do not hear God.

The reason is this: they are dead in their sin and death is their true father. Rather than have Jesus be God, they challenge Him with their god: death. Abraham died and even the Prophets died, Jesus. Are you greater than our God, death?

Can you blame them? Is it easier to believe in death, which you experience everyday, or to believe in life after death of which no one has reported to you?

Think about it. Death is seen as a friend, because he lets you live a full life and then takes you in your sleep. Death eases your burden by removing you from this life. Death quietly waits until you are ready and gives you rest. What a kind and merciful master!

Repent. The dead do not hear God. The dead do not see God and death is not the friend you force him to be. Sure, in your youth, when illness is far away, death is a great adventure waiting just around the corner, but he is really an unwanted intruder, snatching and grabbing when and where he chooses.

Yet, here is where you find yourself: in death’s grip. It is a sure thing. Youth can not prevent it. A fountain or a grail are not going to remove it. Make-up, vegetables, or even right-living all turn on you, when you need them the most.

You find yourself in sin. You find yourself taking up arms against your brothers and hauling them before unbelievers to judge them. You find yourself dead in sin. You find yourself not listening to God. You find that you have no king but Caesar.

Jesus says that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the God of the dead, but of the living. He says that the Father will glorify Him. He says that He speaks the Word of God. He says that there is a day in which your father Abraham was glad to see and that day involves death.

You and the Jews ask Jesus, “Who do you make yourself out to be, Jesus?” “Are you greater than our god, death?” “We’ll put you on a cross to prove that you aren’t.”

Jesus answers by saying that Abraham has already seen His day and he rejoiced. Jesus answers by saying, “Watch me go to the cross, and I’ll prove it to you.” And when He does, Jesus, who is both God and man, does not become less, but more.

Where last week, Jesus told us of eating heavenly bread, at the cross Jesus eats death for you. You see Jesus crowned with glory because of His suffering and death in order that He would taste death for everyone (Heb.2:9).

The God of all creation; indeed, the only God out there, lowers Himself to sit at your “god’s” table and death lays it all out. The spread is awful. The fare is each and every person’s death since Abel. The main course is your sin and dessert is God on a cross.

And death is swallowed up in life (2Cor.5:4). Death is swallowed up in victory (1Cor.15:54). Jesus makes what the devil has kept in his mouth to come out and the nations no longer stream to him (Jer.51:44).

Jesus has swallowed you, uniting with you; baptizing you into His death in order that you would share in His resurrection (Rom.6:5). The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God in Jesus’ suffering and death is eternal life (Rom.6:23).

The Lord did not create death. He did create the resurrection. The Lord did not create you for death. You body can not handle it, quite literally. As the Jews tempt Jesus, they teach you this by saying that all the really special, godly people died. Even though God was with them, feeding them, and working through them, they still died.

True, but now that even God has died, death is no more, and in faith, though you die you will live. You will know suffering. You will experience dying, but you will never know death. Jesus has taken that away. Even Abraham and the prophets did not die, but fell asleep.

In baptism, you share in this wonderful Gospel. In baptism, you are united, flesh and blood, to the Body that death could not hold onto. In baptism, you are one with the one true God and one true man who has tasted death and yet come out alive. There is no more reason to fear death.

You do not have to bow to it. You do not have to plead with it. You do not have to make bargains or strike up deals with it. Death now serves God in every way. The only power it has over you, now, is to remove you from its shadowed valley.

That’s it. It can not tear you from Jesus. It can not remove faith from you. It can not destroy what God has promised you. It can not take anything from you, for what death has taken, Jesus gives back in the resurrection 100 times over. Death is now a slumber; a portal, from this life of sin to the promised life of eternity, in Christ.

Where this world turns on you and all your efforts yield no fruit in front of death, Jesus turns to you and yields imperishable fruit. Jesus turns to you and offers this fruit in His Sacraments, for there is no other way to obtain fruit from the Tree of Life except from the Lord of Life Who hung on a tree.