Tag: Death and the Kingdom

The Dead Don’t Speak, and Their Silence is Deafening

THEME WEEK: Death & the Kingdom – John 11
Old Testament: 1 Kings 13 & 14
Poetry: Psalm 122

“Heaven tourism” is a great money maker. 

Perhaps you’ve never heard the term, but I know you’ve seen the book. Or books.

Don Piper claimed to spend 90 Minutes in Heaven (6 million copies), while Bill Wiese had the greater misfortune of spending 23 Minutes in Hell. (Unfortunately only 1 million copies sold)

Heaven is for Real sold more than 10 million copies by 2014, and it’s movie earned $101 at the box office that same year. 

However, not every book can be a winner. After his story being told by his father in The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven, Alex Malarkey denied that he ever went to heaven, that he had any memory of it. He claimed he said those things because it gave him attention. 

For a while in Christian writing, everyone seemed to be claiming that they had had near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and visited heaven and hell.

I’d like to tell about one of these stories from the Bible. 

I’d like to, but I can’t.

In John 11, Lazarus, a good friend of Jesus, a person who believes (like his sisters Mary and Martha) that Jesus is the Messiah, dies. Jesus goes to Bethany, having already told his disciples that Lazarus was dead and that he was going to bring him back to life. He speaks to the sisters of Lazarus. He weeps over the death of his friend. Then he goes to the tomb. Though Mary protested that they should not remove the stone (“Lord he stinketh” John 11:39 KJV), Jesus told her that if she would believe she would see the glory of God. After declaring the glory of God in prayer, Jesus said “Lazarus, come forth.” And out of the grave came the dead man. They unbind the man so that he can move freely. 

Then Lazarus writes long scrolls called “Four Days in Sheol”, signs a theater deal, and makes hundreds of talents on the royalties. Because if anyone walks through the pearly gates, it’s a personal friend and follower of the Messiah. 

… OR … 

The only other time Lazarus gets mentioned again is in chapter 12 when “the Jews” decide to try and kill Lazarus along with Jesus because Lazarus was a walking, talking, breathing, LIVING reminder of the power of God on display in Jesus Christ. 

Please don’t miss that this is the point of the story! Jesus is not simply a healer, not simply a bringer of resurrection. Jesus is the resurrection himself. 

Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26)

Christ promises those who believe in him that they will live, even though they die. But this resurrection is not taking place now, as if there is some sort of eternally present resurrection. Jesus’ statement that he is the resurrection is made in response to Martha. She had just said to him, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” 

What we need to see is that Martha is not wrong. She knew about the timing of the resurrection of every believer; she just didn’t realize the blessing that was about to happen to her. 

If it is true that the dead cannot praise God (Isaiah 38:18), if it is true that there is no work, planning, knowledge, or wisdom in the grave (Ecclesiastes 9:10), then maybe we should take to heart the deafening silence of Lazarus. He didn’t tell us anything because their isn’t anything that we need to know beyond what Jesus has said about himself in this chapter. We shouldn’t be waiting to fly away to glory when this life is over, but instead, we will be raised by the Resurrection and the Life Himself when this age comes to an end. Christ will open the book of life, and if we put our trust and hope in him, he will read our names. 

Now that’s a book worth reading. The Resurrection is For Real. 

-Jake Ballard

Reflection Questions:

  1. What does it mean to you that Jesus IS the resurrection and the life?
  2. Do you have a hope in the resurrection on the last day (of this age) like Martha did? If not, is there more study you can do about this hope – not in heaven tourism books but in God’s book.
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Death and the Kingdom : Realism vs. Nihilism

*THEME WEEK: Death & the Kingdom – Ecclesiastes 9
Old Testament: 1 Kings 11-12
Poetry: Psalm 121

One artist recently crooned the words “I’m not important and neither are you, so let’s do whatever we wanna do. Bask in our cosmic insignificance, soak up this blip we’re livin’ in, ‘cause nothing matters anyway. Isn’t that great?” He goes on to say “I don’t mean to be a downer. I don’t even think it’s sad.” The idea behind the song is that because nothing we do really matters, we can do whatever we want and know that in the end we haven’t really changed the course of the universe or the planet. It’s a prime example of Generation Z’s gleeful, enthusiastic nihilism. (“Nothing matters, let’s party!”)

Sometimes, we mistakenly read some of the words of the Teacher of Ecclesiastes in the same light. The Teacher’s point in Ecclesiastes is not that everything is meaningless. (Eccl. 1:2) Instead, we should translate the word meaningless differently. If you read Eccl. 1:2, you might read “meaningless”, “pointless”, “vanity”, or “futility”. The Hebrew word behind these translations is “havel/hevel”, which means smoke or vapor; something like the mist of the morning that disappears. It is not necessarily pointless, but transitory, fleeting, impermanent. The real point of Ecclesiastes is in chapter 1, verse 3 : “What does a person gain from all of his labors under the sun?” What lasts? What’s eternal? What is not “hevel”?

In chapter 9, the author makes the sobering and realistic comment that humans, the entire person is “hevel”. Both righteous and wicked, good and evil, all will experience the same life (9:2), a life of a bunch of crazy events, and then death (9:3). The author says it’s better to be alive than dead, and we should eat and drink (9:7), dress in white and take care of our bodies (9:8), and enjoy the people we love (9:9) in response to our view of death. Is the Teacher just as Nihilistic as our Gen. Z artist? Does nothing matter anyway, everything is meaningless, so let’s party as we wring some joy out of it?

NO! “The righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God.”(9:1) Go, eat, drink “for God has already approved what you do.” (9:7) The author of Ecclesiastes gives a spiritual but real view of this world. Spiritual, because God is at the center of the lives of the good, but real because death is the end of the ride here. The dead “know nothing”.(9:5) There is “no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol [that is, the realm of the dead] (9:10). The author is serious about life. It is important to live it well, but also to enjoy it, because whatever death is, it is NOT life. The author of Ecclesiastes doesn’t give us reincarnation, nor does he tell us that we will live in a new world, nor is there any mention of heaven or hell. Death is the end. 

Until it isn’t. Because if the point of Ecclesiastes is “what lasts?” The answer is found in chapter 12. Verses 13-14, “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.” Fearing God, keeping God’s commandments, that is what lasts. And then humans are judged. That every deed is brought into judgement is one of the strongest implications of the future resurrection in the Old Testament. Our lives now, every choice we make, sets us on a path to joy or despair, life or death, seeing the face of God or God turning his face from us. For those who have placed God at the center of their lives, God will approve of what they do.

Humans are hevel, but humans are also the only things that will last. Humans are fleeting and temporary but some, those who follow Jesus the Messiah, the one sent from God, and keep his commandments, will one day be eternal, be those which last. 

“I’m not important and neither are you.” Yes, we are both hevel and made eternal by grace. 

“So let’s do whatever” God wants us to do. 

“Bask in” love of the Father and the Son. “Soak up” the grace and blessings of the world that we are living in. 

Because, we matter. Infinitely.

Isn’t that great?

-Jake Ballard

Reflection Questions:

  1. How does one’s view of death contribute to their philosophy of and actions in life?
  2. What is the Teacher of Ecclesiastes’ view of death? How is it similar and/or different from yours?
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