John 11:25-26

John 11:25-26 was spoken at a funeral: "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Lazarus had been dead four days, and Martha meets Jesus with a line that mixes faith and complaint: "Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn't have died." John 11:25-26 is the answer given to that grief.

Jesus answers in the present tense. He does not say "there will be a resurrection" — Martha already believed that, as many Jews of the period did. He says "I am the resurrection". Hope stops being a distant event and becomes a person available right there, beside a grieving woman.

Notice the double structure: "will still live, even if he dies" and "whoever lives and believes in me will never die". One line for the one who has gone, another for the one who stays.

And it is worth reading on: a few verses later the text records that Jesus wept — before performing any miracle. That is why this chapter is read at so many funerals: it does not rush grief.