So when Jesus comes to the town, he finds them mourning the death of Lazarus. They were disappointed because Jesus had not come sooner. They had expected him to do something to save Lazarus from dying. But Jesus surprises them by saying, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha says, “Yes, I know that he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.” But Jesus says, “No, you don’t understand. I am the resurrection and the life. All who believe in me, even though they die, they will live. Do you believe this?”
That question is directed to us, each of us here and now. “I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?” We say in the Creed: “I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.” We have learned to say that. Let me ask you a very personal question. Do you really believe in the resurrection—the resurrection of Jesus and your own future resurrection?
Someone once asked me: “When did you first believe in the resurrection?” I thought back to my first communion. I was still a child, only 7 years old, I guess, going to the parish school. In the catechism we learned that Jesus is contained in the Blessed Sacrament entirely—body and blood, soul and divinity. That was quite a mouthful to learn and recite. As a child, that meant to me that Jesus comes to us in communion person to person. I didn’t understand all the language about it but—not through the mind but from the heart—I realized that, in receiving the bread of the Eucharist, I was receiving Jesus himself and there was direct bodily contact between myself and Jesus.
Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, but Jesus comes into us. Lazarus was only going to die again, but not an eternal death. His death would be something more: life with and in Jesus. The same is true for us. Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb, but when we receive communion, Jesus comes into us with his life and resurrection for us—life now and as a promise of our own future resurrection. When and how that it will happen I don’t know, but with the whole church from the time of the apostles: “I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.”
At death we leave this world of space and time. Eternal life is beyond time—it’s everything at once. I don’t think we have to wait until the end of the world to enter eternal life. No one knows if, how, or when the earth will end, and I don’t want to wait that long for my own resurrection. I want to die and rise again. I want to meet Jesus right at my death. When I welcome Jesus inside me at communion, I am preparing to welcome him and be welcomed by him at my death. So there is so much to look forward to—so much to live for and die for!