Resurrection is resistance

 

John 11: 17-45
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
March 22, 2026

Photo taken in a village in Guatemala of a Raptor energy drink bottle lying in a dusty dried up cornfield with a yellow daisy-like flower growing nearby.

Every Lenten season in Antigua Guatemala there are weekly processions and celebrations on Saturday and Sunday. When we walked back to our hotel last Saturday evening after dinner, the cobblestone streets were jammed with onlookers and blocked traffic as women and men dressed in black carried a 20 foot platform of a Christ the King figure dressed in purple with one of the saints kneeling before him and Mary Magdalene dressed in red behind him. The earsplitting sound of fireworks to ward off evil spirits whistled and streaked through the air just up the next block.



The next day on Sunday afternoon, another much larger procession came through the city square, this one depicting the Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrow—the path that Christ carried his own cross to Golgotha. Men dressed in red and gold as Roman soldiers carried banners, one for each of the fourteen stations of the cross. More soldiers followed, more than 50 of them carrying tall spears as they marched. Hundreds of men called cucuruchos were dressed in purple robes with purple head coverings, marching in lines on either side of the stone-studded road.

Then came more cucuruchos carrying censors that gushed out smoky incense, swinging them back and forth in large arcs. Finally, the centerpiece of the procession came slowly around the corner—a 40-foot platform weighing more than 2 tons carried on the shoulders of more than 50 cucuruchos, one of whom was also carrying a small child. Other cucuruchos lined the road to take their place to carry the platform, switching out seamlessly as the scene of Christ carrying his cross is depicted on the platform with a peacock to signify Peter’s denial. Following the platform was a marching band dressed in black suits, keeping the same solemn pace, playing a doleful but somehow hopeful funeral dirge.



It is considered a great honor and an act of deep devotion to participate in these processions, so as I reflected on what I experienced, I held back my question of why a colonized people would continue to uphold the traditions of their conquerors. I put aside the prophet Amos’s words of God despising our festivals, taking no delight in our solemn assemblies, thinking that somehow I knew better.



Instead, I looked at this procession through the lens of the story of the raising of Lazarus, a story in which Jesus does not shy away from death but instead he encounters the full weight of it. It is one of the hardest truths for us to comprehend and live: the way of change and transformation often leads us straight through hell—through pain, suffering, reversal, and loss. This does not mean we glorify suffering or inflict it on ourselves or others or use it as a tool to sanctify the horrors we human beings force on one another. Even though we have done all those shameful things and more in the name of Christ.



As these processions symbolize, encountering, embracing the full weight of death is a form of resistance against those who would try to oppress and control through fear. In other words, death has no power over us.



At the beginning of this story, if read only on the surface, Jesus does something quite disturbing. When he hears that his friend Lazarus is sick, Jesus says that his illness does not lead to death but that it is for God’s glory and so he delays his journey to Bethany for two days. When he arrives, Lazarus’ sisters Mary and Martha both say to Jesus that if he had been there, their brother would not have died. But Jesus did not come to us so that we could avoid death but that we could find our way through it.



Indeed, the whole of the gospel of John has story after story that leads directly to the death of Jesus. One of the first things Jesus does is the clearing of the temple and he gets in trouble with the authorities. He changes water in wine at a wedding and attracts unwanted attention to himself. The people want to make him king, which is never a good sign given their history with kings. He almost gets stoned to death for blasphemy. He heals on the Sabbath. He foretells his own death. He brings a dead man back to life.



The gospel of John was written sometime between 90-100 CE. Followers of Jesus had already experienced persecution under Emperor Nero and now under Emperor Domitian. By this time, news of Jesus’ resurrection was the driving force of his followers. To not only encounter and embrace the full weight of death but to also proclaim resurrection in the face of death and persecution is an act of rebellion and resistance. In other words, death has no power over us.



And yet every time the Church has come to an inflection point, between compliance and rebellion, the Church has chosen compliance with the status quo more often than not. When faced with the choice between decline and renewal and death and resurrection, the Church has chosen decline and renewal every time. Institutional survival, power, money, influence, fear, life at any cost usually wins out over death.



And yet the only way to resurrection, to change and transformation is through death, grief, loss, pain, reversal, letting go of the past. As I once heard it said, I cannot speak to you of resurrection if you cannot acknowledge that you have died.



All those I AM statements that Jesus makes in the gospel of John—I am the bread of life, I am the door, I am the vine, I am the good shepherd, I am the way, the truth, and the life, I am the resurrection—these are all resistance statements. Resistance against empire, scarcity, isolation, despair, lies, death, destruction.  Which means action: bread for the hungry, community that is honest, that follows the gospel, that is life-giving.



Resurrection is a recognition that our lives and our life together are about more than just ourselves. We are part of an unfolding story that is bigger than we can imagine in which there have been innumerable tragic losses but also billions of victories, large and small. It’s about doing the right thing even if we lose. Because the Way of Sorrow, the way of death and loss is also the way of compassion, mercy, justice, community, and deeper commitment.



It’s not about saving the Church or even saving Christianity. It’s about saving and liberating the unbreakable, unshakeable human covenant, the unconquerable human spirit, and this living planet we call home. And being a Christian in a church that follows the Jesus of the gospels is how I believe I can best contribute to this salvation, this wholeness, this liberation.



Resurrection is resistance, my friends! In other words, death has no power over us! Amen!

Benediction – enfleshed.com (adapted)


Go forth co-creating a world unafraid of heartfelt mourning—
Where death has no power over us,
where we offer one another not only consolation in our sorrow
but actions to alleviate suffering.
For God is with us in our grief
and God is with us as we tend the ways of joy.