Do You Believe This?

When Christ steps into the room, death no longer gets the last word. 

The shadows may still fall long, but they no longer fall final. There is a strange and sacred shift that happens because Christ is Risen—not just in the sanctuary with lilies and hallelujahs, but in the soul. The language of faith changes. 

We begin to speak of death not as the end, but as the door.

Some things are too deep for clichés. “He’s in a better place,” or “She’s watching over us,” may carry comfort in their own way, but Easter dares to say something far more definitive: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."

And so, we say the word "death" out loud, not as a denial of grief but as a defiance of its power.

Death is no longer the forbidden word at the center of polite conversation. For Christians, it has been dragged into the light and defeated there. We can speak of it plainly, even point-blank, because Christ has already spoken over it with finality.

"...we say the word "death" out loud,

not as a denial of grief

but as a defiance of its power."

In recent months, we have felt the weight of aging and dying in personal ways.

Members of our congregation have watched loved ones fade, some slowly and others suddenly. 

We’ve stood at hospital bedsides and gravesides. We’ve received late-night phone calls. We’ve spoken hard words and prayed trembling prayers.

It is one thing to speak of resurrection in abstract terms, and another to speak of it when the air in the room is thick with sorrow. But that is precisely where the words of Jesus meet us—not in the sanitized pages of theory, but in the grit and ache of real life.

When Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life," He wasn’t standing on a hillside delivering a lecture. He was standing at the tomb of a friend, with tears still wet on His cheeks. 

More than that, he was speaking it to people who were alive to hear it.

He speaks those words to you.

The resurrection of Jesus is not a metaphor. It is not a symbol for renewal or a spiritual allegory for springtime. 

Easter celebrates the bodily raising of a dead man, witnessed by hundreds and believed by thousands, even unto death.

Consider this: every one of Jesus' earliest followers was a Jew. For them, the Sabbath was a sacred day. 

And yet something happened that caused a seismic shift, from Saturday to Sunday. They began worshiping on the first day of the week instead of the last. How odd…

Why? Because that was the day He rose.

Or this: they gained nothing. No riches, no security. And yet they preached the risen Christ until their dying breaths. They saw something that changed everything.

And even if there were no historical artifact, no corroborating document, no improbable explosion of a new Church into a world that was far more tied to its traditions than we are to ours... if all wehave is the Bible we would still proclaim it. It is the heartbeat of Christian faith. It is the article upon which the Church stands. 

And it is true.

"Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die."

That was Jesus’ question to Martha. But it's also His question to you.

Do you believe this?

In other words, "Do you believe in Me?" That's what Jesus is asking.

We answer as best we can. Most days our answer sounds much like the anxious centurion who responded to the same question with, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief." And clearly that's enough.

It's enough because our faith depends on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. It doesn't depend on your strength or reasoning. So of course it's enough. 

Your faith is enough because whatever else you might think about it, God gifted it to you. What better certification do you need?

Faith is not a theory exam. It is not graded on eloquence or emotional stability. Some Sundays you will speak the Creed with joy. Other Sundays, you will barely whisper it through tears. 

Christ hears both.

And in confessing Christ, Christ confesses you.

This is why we gather. This is why the Divine Service matters. It is not just a place to sing our hallelujahs, it is the space where Christ speaks His own hallelujah over you. It's a liturgy of new life spoken and sung by voices who, even though they die, they will live. 

It is the place where, even when all we can muster is a sadness soaked in silence, the Risen One says, "I know you. I call you by name. You are mine."

The Christian sanctuary is a room filled with the living dying - those who, though they die, they shall live.

Do you believe this?

We do. And we will. Because Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!