Last Sunday we looked at a couple passages, Psalm 30 and Ezekiel 37, which used resurrection imagery to describe what God does. Being raised up from seemingly hopeless situations was the theme for both David and Israel centuries before Jesus. Lest you think that we exhausted all references in the Hebrew scriptures which speak of God being the one who raises the dead . . .
The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up. 1 Samuel 2:6
See now that I myself am he! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand. Deuteronomy 32:39
A time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, Ecclesiastes 3:3
Notice the order is always death then life (or healing). These texts are not talking about birth and death, as if they are saying God determines the beginning and end of our lives. They talk about death and life in that order. This is resurrection language! Though God may metaphorically bring down to “death”, this is in order to raise us back to “life.” The end God is planning and creating is always resurrection and life! He is the One who brings new beginnings out of apparently lost causes. The first passage is Hannah praising God for having conceived even in her barrenness.
The spiritual insight in both these verses and from Christ is that only the dead are truly prepared to live. This is why we are called to die with Christ, so that we will be raised with him (Romans 6:8, 2 Timothy 2:11). A losing of self, dying to self, or giving up our lives is how we move from futile attempts to hold on to what cannot be kept to having what cannot be lost. Jesus would call this indestructible gift treasure in heaven or eternal life. Death in this spiritual sense is essential for the move from the false to the true, from trusting what is untrustworthy to relying on what is real.
It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
the living should take this to heart.
Ecclesiastes 7:2
The writer of Ecclesiastes is not advocating some depressing and morbid focus, but rather obverting how we must know our own finiteness in order to live well. Paul says the same by pointing out that strength is found in weakness. Until we know our inescapable vulnerability, we cannot live freely, joyously, or courageously. To live as children of the resurrection we must first die because real hope is born out of disappointment. Unless we become disillusioned with false hopes, lose confidence in temporary things, we will never hope in and hold onto what lasts.
Our capacity to thrive despite the current crisis and its threats to our health and economy is proportional to how much we have moved from death to life. Fortunately, this is the very gracious work which God has always been doing. In the “deadness” of our own weakness and limitations is exactly where believers have always discovered unconquerable hope by grace.
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