NOTES for Joh 11:17-27

In the brief words spoken to Martha, the Lord Jesus affirms truths that are central to the whole New Testament revelation. The first and most important of them is that life is Himself. Not the processes of living, not the events of a biography, and not even a relationship with God. For a human being, life is the Son of God, who came into this world for our sake. That is precisely why the Lord does not limit Himself to instructing the disciples or to the Last Discourse, but institutes the sacrament of the Eucharist, in which He gives us the whole fullness of Himself.

And the second important truth, like the first, concerns what the Lord says about faith. Bishop Cassian Bezobrazov, author of one of the finest commentaries on the Gospel of John, writes that faith in the biblical understanding of the word is the striving of the believer toward perfect unity with the One in whom he believes. Faith, therefore, as our striving for unity with Christ, makes us participants in His life and His resurrection. And through His death on the Cross for us, this possibility is already given to us now.