I Am The Life

A few weeks ago we began this grouping of Jesus’ I AM statements with Jesus stating in John 14:6 “I AM the Way” and “I Am the Truth”. Today we’ll take the final part of this statement, “I AM the Life”.

What do we long for more than life, and particularly a full, abundant, rich life? We fight to keep our physical life going as long as we can. Humans have a remarkable sense of survival. Though some of us have given up on life, most of us fight through even the hardest of circumstances. We cling to life, even when we seem to have been shorted in the quality that life offers.

My sister fought cancer with everything she had. She knew the type of cancer she had most likely would take her down, but she wasn’t about to just give in. She made plans, and told everyone what those plans were. She wanted to plant tomatoes and enjoy them when they ripened. She wanted to go to Hawaii. She wanted time at the beach. She wanted to celebrate her next birthday, with ice cream cake. And when she was at her worst in the chemo process, she’d bring up those plans. She did get to taste a bit of tomato I grew for her. The week of her death she did celebrate that birthday and had a bite of ice cream cake. Unfortunately the cancer won out, but up to the end, my sister fought to live.

Genesis teaches that God created humans to live eternally. It was disobedience that brought death to Adam and Eve. They immediately died spiritually, and began the process of dying physically. Physically, every one of us since the beginning has died, is facing death right now, or will die. Death is a given; we just don’t know when or how. Death wasn’t part of God’s original creation, but sin ushered it in. Everything eventually dies. As much as we’d like to physically live forever, and as much as we try to hold on to youth and life, eventually death takes us all.

We tend to associate most of life with our human body. It’s all we know. But the Bible teaches that the body isn’t the true essence of life. We have something that energizes that body and animates it. We often refer to that essence as the soul. The soul is the eternal part of us. When we die, the soul departs and leaves an empty body behind. Jesus seemed more concerned with that part of us we call the soul.  In Mark 8:36, 37 Jesus asks, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

We need to note that when Jesus walked on earth He didn’t heal everyone. He could have, but He didn’t. Why? There is the story of the friends who lower their paralyzed friend through the roof of a house where Jesus was speaking. (Luke 5:17-26) Before Jesus physically healed that man, he first forgave him his sins.  What does that tell us?  Perhaps it is more important to have our sins forgiven, our spiritual health made whole, than to be healed physically. What good is our physical life if we have not seen to our soul? Lazarus, in John 11, was raised from the dead, only to die again sometime later in his life. The hope of an eternal life with God beyond our physical death is the greatest healing Jesus’ offers us. And our soul’s only hope is God’s re-establishing with us the relationship lost in the garden with Adam and Eve’s disobedience.

Jesus came to give life. He said he came to give it abundantly! (John 10:10) Jesus had power over both the physical and the spiritual life. He demonstrated his power over physical death by raising several people from the dead. The most impressive was his friend Lazarus, who by the time Jesus arrived had been gone several days. (John 11)  His sisters knew that if Jesus had gotten there in time, their brother would still be alive, but now they are despondent; it’s been too long. Jesus asks one sister, Martha, if she believes in Him. She says yes, and believes that someday she will see her brother again, at the resurrection. Jesus said, “I AM the Resurrection and the Life.” (John 11:25) And then he proceeded to raise Lazarus from the dead.

That really set the ball moving for the leaders to seek Jesus’ death. We know that Jesus gave His life, so that, as John 3:16 says, “Whosoever believes in Him shall have eternal life.”  Jesus came, lived and died for us, so that ultimately death could be defeated and those who believe would have life forever, physically and spiritually. Back in John 11 Jesus follows his statement about being the Resurrection and the Life with, “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die. Whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” John 14:19 “Because I live you will also live.”  And John 1:4 “In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.”

Jesus is life.

We have lots of phrases regarding “life”. We desire to live life to the fullest. We try to live life a day at a time. We wish to live a purposeful life, a good life.  My father-in-law used to say he was “living the life of Riley.”  I don’t know who Riley was, but whenever my father-in-law was having a good time, or eating a great meal or experiencing a wonderful experience, he was living the “life of Riley”.  Obviously we all want to live that life.

Unfortunately, life isn’t always as good as Riley’s. We get sick; we lose a job; we struggle with relationships. Life can throw pain and suffering at us as easily as good times. Cancer was probably lurking in my sister long before it was detected. She was living life as fully as she could and then disaster struck. She was gone in six months from discovery. Riley was nowhere to be found.

Jesus offers us life abundant. What does that mean? Some claim that true Christians don’t have pain and sickness, so if life takes a turn, like my sister’s, something is wrong with your faith.  But Jesus doesn’t put that caveat on his statement. He simply states that he came to give us abundant life. He can offer that because He also simply states He is life. So what He is offering is Himself. If we come into a relationship with Him we can enter into His abundance.

So what does that mean? No sickness or sorrow or pain? Not in this life, but certainly Heaven will be free from anything that brings tears. But in the here and now, what is Jesus’ offering? When we think of abundant life, what do we imagine?

Physical death isn’t the end. If we have placed our faith in Jesus, we are promised eternal life, spiritually and eventually physically with our own body resurrection. (I Corinthians 15) As my sister’s body was dying, she found great hope and peace in knowing that her soul was going to live on in Christ’s presence. She might be physically dying, but her soul was spiritually alive. She had placed her faith in Jesus, and so even in the face of physical death she found abundance in Jesus’ promise of eternal life. And even more, she believed someday her body too would be made new. Romans 8 asks the question, what can separate us from Christ’s love? Paul answers, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, not any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

When we stood in my sister’s room, after her death, her body was still there. But the person who animated that body was gone. In fact, I believe her soul had begun to take flight in the days prior. She was closer to heaven then she was to earth. We loved that body. It was so hard to say goodbye and leave that beloved body behind. But we knew she was not gone. Her soul was experiencing the abundant of abundance, the real life of Riley, with our Savior in Heaven.

Can anyone else make such a claim to be The Life? Jesus did, and He promised if we believe Him we would have life too, and life abundant and eternal.