Our Lord asks Martha, “I am the Resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
She responds, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”
He asks this after she confesses her faith in the future Resurrection, but this question points to something different. It points to the fact that he is the Resurrection. That when we live life with him, we will not die. Martha saw the Resurrection as a future event that would one day happen, but Christ wanted her to live the Resurrection as her current reality.
So here is the question for us: do we believe that? Do we believe that Christ came to save us not just at some unknown point in the future, or that he is living with us here and now through the power of the Holy Spirit to save us right. now.
It is easy to profess our faith that Christ will save us in the future. It’s not so easy to profess our faith that Christ will raise us from the death of sin right now as he calls us to holiness.
If Christ asked you right now, this question: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
How would you answer?