Yesterday we looked at John 11 - the story of Jesus raising Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha from the dead. Prior to the miracle, everyone in the story was struggling: 1) Jesus had to put off helping someone he loved and was troubled at the sight of people still living with hopelessness; 2) the disciples were afraid of going back towards Jerusalem for fear of death; 3) Mary and Martha had lost their brother; and of course, 4) Lazarus was dead, literally hitting rock bottom, lying on a rock dead. It was as if they were all in the tomb together. Sometimes it feels like we are living in a tomb with no way out. Sometimes it feels like rock bottom.
In the movie American Treasure, Nicolas Cage’s character seems to have lost everything, his family’s reputation, livelihood as a treasure hunter, and abandoned to die in a rocky tomb 5 stories below a cemetery. Rock bottom. But, in a twist, he and his friends find a door out of the tomb into a treasure room, the treasure he’d been seeking his whole life.
Jesus is the light, the life, the Resurrection, living water, God’s Son, the one who glorifies God and who is glorified by God. He was also at rock bottom, dead and laid on a rock in a tomb sealed with a stone. But it wasn’t rock bottom for Jesus because he rose from the rock and ascended into heaven and sits now at the right hand of God so that rock bottom would never be the end for us. Jesus took a tomb and turned it into a treasure room. He is the treasure we seek. There is no death with Jesus, but life and life abundant. Not just after we die, but right now, in this life. That is the true treasure. That Christ is the treasure that lives in us. We aren’t rocky tombs, but treasure chests.
In that treasure room scene in American Treasure, Nicolas Cage and his crew look in awe and amazement at what they can see with their eyes. Then one of them dips a torch into a trough and it lights a series of torches and flaming troughs that spread throughout the room and beyond what they could see on their own, the light going back and back and up and up revealing billions of dollars’ worth of treasure.
Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is like the revelation of the first bit of treasure Nicolas Cage could see without the help of greater light. The empty tomb of Jesus on Easter is the big reveal, the treasure fully lit, ablaze with light and goodness. Remember today what treasure is available to you. Remember the treasure that was bought for you by Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection.