3 Little Letters - One Little Word

"I am the resurrection and the life.Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live” [John 11.25 NRSV]

These are familiar words to most of us… and stumbling blocks to some of us. And would always be, or so I thought until I attended a traditional Anglican funeral service recently. There as the priest came down the aisle towards the front, the words she said began ”I am Resurrection and I am Life …” These words caught me by surprise. They were saying something new, something different from the well-known words. Leaving out that tiny word ‘the’ made a world of difference to my understanding of the words.

On doing some research I was able to find that two of the funeral services printed in the Anglican Book of Alternative Services begin this way. ”I am Resurrection and I am Life, says the Lord. Whoever has faith in me shall have life, even though he die. And everyone who has life, and is committed to me in faith, shall not die for ever.” [John 11.25–26 BAS]

I found my thoughts wandering away from the service at hand, as I took in the difference that word ‘the’ made in how the sentence could be understood. I could feel my self saying “Yes, in the person and teaching of Jesus I have found resurrection. Yes, I have found meaning for my existence there, found a new life.

‘The act of bringing something that had disappeared or ended back into use or existence’ is one of the meanings for resurrection in the Cambridge online dictionary and that certainly jibes with my experience. To say that Jesus is THE resurrection always seemed to me to put down and negate the experiences of those who had differing religious beliefs, who had found another way to experience that resurrection.

Is Jesus Life? Following the example and teaching of Jesus certainly leads to new life, to new understanding, to a new way of seeing at others, to a new way of acting in the world, sometimes even to the extent of turning lives upside down. But is Jesus ‘the’ Life? Again, as with him being ‘THE’ resurrection, I find myself unable to negate the religious experiences of all the other World Religions.

To hear that priest say ‘I am Resurrection and I am Life, says the Lord…’ resonated within me to the core of my being.

As Eugene Peterson phrases this verse and the next one in The Message:“You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?”

And I would say ’Amen’ to that.

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