In the lead up to the most dramatic miracle he performed, Jesus consoled Martha regarding her brother Lazarus, lying dead in a nearby cave. Martha fervently trusted Jesus, her personal friend and regular guest in her home. She believed that Jesus could have saved her brother, and that Lazarus would live again in the next life. Then Jesus pressed further.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Martha soon experienced the vast power behind these words. Before her eyes Jesus called Lazarus from the grave. I am the resurrection and the life shifted in her mind from hoped-for promise to stark, blazing fact. Jesus literally gave life back to her dead brother.

Do you believe this? Jesus’ question to Martha appeared rhetorical, but in actuality he asked her if she truly believed that the man standing in front of her controlled life and death, decomposing flesh and the laws of biology.

Martha believed Jesus as much as she could before the raising. Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. But shortly thereafter she believed on an entirely different level. She realized that the Son of God indeed stepped into the world, dined at her table, dried her tears, and breathed life into her brother.

The central question of our lives is the same one Martha faced—what to do with Jesus? Do we believe his teachings about actually being God in the flesh, the resurrection and the life? Our answer makes all the difference, in this world and the next.

Jesus’ statement about himself, and his actions to back it up, remain valid. Even after all these centuries he questions you and me in the same way—do you believe this?

John 11:25-26

Photo by Lexi Laginess