Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?  (John 11:25).

Have you ever had a little child look at you quizzically as you tried to explain something like why vegetables were good for him or why she couldn’t play in the snow in her pajamas?

If so, you have had a glimpse into what it must be like for Jesus as He endeavors to communicate with us. But only a glimpse.

Whereas we come from the same reality as the child we are talking to, Jesus comes from an entirely different reality—one that is Present Tense. Period.

We know this because God called Himself “I Am” when conversing with Moses via the burning bush (Exodus 3:13-14) and now Jesus, conversing with Martha, says “I Am the Resurrection and the Life.” He did not say that He had been the resurrection and the life, or that He would be the resurrection and the life, but that He is--present tense—resurrection and life.

This means that when Jesus walked around Palestine 2000+ years ago, He was the resurrection and the life.

We look at this quizzically, don’t we? We think, “But He hadn’t been crucified yet, so how could He say He was the resurrection?”

We, the quizzical children in this scenario, can be forgiven for thinking of everything in past / present / future terms. After all, this is all we know. And this is why Jesus came to us, on our terms, to our territory. He lived life by the sun and seasons as we do. But He was—and is—like an adult living among children.

The children-people then, like us children-people now, don’t expect anyone to live again after death.

So Jesus—the Resurrection and the Life—explains this by raising Lazarus from the no-doubt-about-it dead.

How did Jesus do this? He did what He is—the Resurrection and the Life. When He shows up, Resurrection Life shows up. And “when” is always. It is now. It is Present Tense. Period.

This is why testimonies are so powerful. Think of Lazarus’s! Think of the ones we’re hearing at church these days. There is no better way to communicate truth to children—us—than stories. And that is what testimonies are—stories of Resurrection and Life. 

It’s okay to listen quizzically to the stories—those recorded in Scripture, those throughout history, and those we are hearing now—and to take time to absorb the present tense reality of Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, they convey. We may just find ourselves shifting into believing—and thereby experiencing Him, Resurrection and Life, right here, right now.