Resurrection in the Present Tense Text: John 11:17-27
Introduction: The Stench of Reality
Our modern world has a deep-seated allergy to the finality of death. We have become experts in euphemism. People do not die; they "pass away." We do not have corpses; we have "loved ones." We do not have graveyards; we have "memorial parks." We do everything in our power to put a respectable, therapeutic gloss on the grim, biological reality of decay. We want our grief to be tidy, manageable, and, above all, private.
But the Bible will have none of it. The Bible is not embarrassed by the stench of the grave. John, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, makes a point of telling us the blunt, malodorous fact: Lazarus had been in the tomb four days. This is not a detail for the squeamish to skip over. It is a theological sledgehammer. Four days in a hot middle-eastern tomb meant one thing: decay. Putrefaction. This was not a swoon. This was not a coma. This was irreversible, biological corruption. The situation was, from every human standpoint, utterly and completely hopeless. The stench was the exclamation point at the end of death's sentence.
Into this world of hard, physical realities and shattered hopes, Jesus arrives. He does not come with sentimental platitudes or therapeutic reassurances. He does not say, "There, there, he's in a better place." He comes with a staggering, world-altering claim about Himself. This passage is a collision between the absolute finality of death and the absolute sovereignty of Christ. It is a confrontation between the grief that paralyzes and the God-man who is the resurrection in person. And in the middle of this collision, we find a woman named Martha, whose faith is a glorious, messy, honest, and robust thing. She teaches us that a faith that wrestles with God is far more biblical than a piety that is too polite to ask hard questions.
This is not just a story about a man being brought back to life. This is a revelation of who Jesus is. He is not simply a miracle-worker who can reverse death. He is the very principle of life itself. He does not just give resurrection; He is the resurrection. And He brings this future reality crashing into the present tense.
The Text
So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia away; and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them about their brother. Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary was sitting in the house. Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die, ever. Do you believe this?” She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, the One who comes into the world.”
(John 11:17-27 LSB)
Faith Under Pressure (vv. 17-22)
We begin with the setting of the stage, a scene of sorrow that is both deep and public.
"So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia away; and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them about their brother." (John 11:17-19 LSB)
The four days are crucial. According to some rabbinic traditions, the soul was thought to hover near the body for three days, hoping to return. But by the fourth day, when decomposition was undeniable, all hope was extinguished. Jesus did not just show up late; He showed up, from a human perspective, too late. He allowed the situation to move past the point of all possible ambiguity. This miracle was going to be undeniable, performed in broad daylight, just two miles from Jerusalem, with a crowd of official mourners from the city as witnesses. God loves to work when the odds are impossible, so that no one can mistake His handiwork for anything else.
In the midst of this formal, public grief, we see a sharp contrast between the two sisters.
"Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary was sitting in the house." (John 11:20 LSB)
Mary is immobilized by her grief, sitting in the house, receiving the consolations of the mourners. This is not a criticism of her; it is a description of profound sorrow. But Martha, true to her nature, is a woman of action. She hears Jesus is coming, and she goes. Her grief does not paralyze her; it propels her. She takes her sorrow, her questions, and her theology on the road to meet the Lord. This is a picture of a robust faith, a faith that engages, a faith that argues, a faith that shows up.
And what she says when she meets Him is a marvel of raw honesty and tenacious trust.
"Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.”" (John 11:21-22 LSB)
Her first statement is saturated with both faith and pain. "Lord, if You had been here..." This is a profound statement of faith in His power over sickness. She has no doubt that Jesus could have healed Lazarus. But it is also a thinly veiled complaint. It is a question hanging in the air: "Why weren't you here?" This is not the language of sterile, stained-glass piety. This is the cry of a real heart, wrestling with the hard providence of God. And God is not offended by such honesty. He invites it.
But she does not stop there. The hinge of the entire passage is her next phrase: "But even now..." In the face of four days of death, in the face of the stench of decay, in the face of her own profound disappointment, she throws down an anchor of faith. "But even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You." This is staggering. She does not know what to ask for. She has no category for resurrection on the fourth day. But she knows who Jesus is. She knows He has a unique, privileged relationship with the Father. Her faith is not in a particular outcome, but in a particular Person. This is the essence of true, biblical faith.
From Future Doctrine to Present Reality (vv. 23-26)
Jesus takes Martha's raw, rugged faith and begins to shape it, to sharpen it, to elevate it from what she knows to who she knows.
"Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”" (John 11:23-24 LSB)
Jesus makes a promise, and Martha gives the correct, orthodox, doctrinal answer. She believes in the resurrection. She has her eschatology straight, which is more than we can say for the Sadducees. She affirms the great hope of the Old Testament saints. This is good. Doctrine is essential. But for Martha, the resurrection is a future event, a theological category filed away under "last things." It is a comfort for later, not a power for now.
And so Jesus proceeds to blow the doors off her theological categories. He takes this abstract future doctrine and personalizes it in the most radical way imaginable.
"Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die, ever. Do you believe this?”" (John 11:25-26 LSB)
This is one of the great "I AM" statements of John's gospel, a direct and unmistakable claim to deity. He does not say, "I bring a message about the resurrection." He does not say, "I have the power to resurrect." He says, "I AM the resurrection." The entire reality of future glory, of life conquering death, is embodied and present in Him. He is not a tour guide to the resurrection; He is the destination. He is not a dispenser of life; He is life itself.
He then unpacks this claim with two parallel statements. First, "he who believes in Me will live even if he dies." This speaks to the reality of physical death for the believer. The body may go to the grave, but the person, the soul united to Christ, lives on. Death is but a doorway. Second, "everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die, ever." This speaks of the second death, of eternal separation from God. The believer has passed from death to life already (John 5:24) and will never, ever taste the damnation of eternal death. He has secured for us an eternal life that death cannot touch.
Then comes the piercing question that brings it all home: "Do you believe this?" Jesus is not content with doctrinal assent. He is not asking, "Do you understand this proposition?" He is asking, "Do you trust Me? Is your faith in the event, or in the I AM who stands before you?" He forces her, and us, to move from theology as a subject to theology as a relationship. The object of our faith is not a set of doctrines, however true, but the living Person who is the sum of all doctrine.
The Good Confession (v. 27)
Martha's response is one of the great confessions of faith in all of Scripture, rivaling that of Peter at Caesarea Philippi.
"She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, the One who comes into the world.”" (John 11:27 LSB)
Does she fully comprehend everything Jesus just said about being the resurrection and the life? Almost certainly not. How could she? But she knows who she is talking to. Her answer is not a detailed unpacking of His theological statement, but a profound confession of His identity. "Yes, Lord." She submits to His authority. "I have believed..." Her faith is a settled conviction, not a sudden whim. And what does she believe? "That You are the Christ," the Messiah, the Anointed One. "The Son of God," the one with a unique, divine nature. "The One who comes into the world," the long-awaited fulfillment of all of God's promises.
Her faith was in the right object. That is the crucial thing. Saving faith is not defined by its intensity or its intellectual perfection, but by the worthiness and power of its object. She may not have understood everything, but she trusted the right person. And because she trusted the right person, she was about to see the glory of God.
Conclusion: Your "But Even Now" Moment
Every one of us will face, or is facing, our own Bethany. We all have our own situations that have been in the tomb for four days. It might be a marriage that seems dead and buried. It might be a prodigal child whose heart seems cold and hard beyond all hope. It might be a besetting sin that has defeated you so many times you can no longer imagine victory. It might be the looming reality of your own mortality. The stench of hopelessness is real.
The temptation in those moments is to live in the past tense of regret: "Lord, if only You had been here..." If only I had made a different choice. If only they had not done that. If only You had intervened sooner.
Martha teaches us the grammar of rugged faith. It is a faith that looks the grim reality squarely in the face, acknowledges the pain and the questions, but then pivots on that glorious phrase: "But even now."
But even now, in this mess, I know who You are. But even now, when all seems lost, I know You are the Christ, the Son of God. But even now, I know that whatever You ask the Father, He will give You.
The gospel is not that Jesus will fix everything in the sweet by-and-by. The gospel is that Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, has invaded our present tense. He is Lord over the stench. He is Lord over the decay. He is Lord over the fourth day. He stands before you now, in the midst of your impossible situation, and asks the same question He asked Martha: "I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?" Your only hope, your only sanity, is to answer with her: "Yes, Lord. I have believed that You are the Christ." And when your faith is in Him, you too will see the glory of God.