Hoping is Trusting – 26 March 2023

John 11:1–45

In the Lazarus account, what in Judaism is “superseded”? What gets fulfilled and replaced? In Judaism, under the Old Covenant and the Law, what followed death? Mourning. . .

But here, Martha breaks with the Old Testament. Instead of remaining indoors to weep, or doing the same at the tomb of her brother, she meets Jesus. Jesus, who tells Martha “I am the resurrection and the life,” goes on to assure her that “He who believes in me will live.” For God is God of the living, not the dead, and all are alive in him.

So, all of a sudden, resurrection life is what follows death, and mourning is irrelevant to the New Covenant. Good-bye, shiva! This is as clear an instance of “supersessionism” as one can find, and although Christians did indeed mourn, they did so without any of the Jewish religious meanings that had been effectively “superseded.” –– Lucy Bregman

Romans 8:6–11

For Paul those who were not “in Christ” were fleshly; those “in Christ” were spiritual. He uses flesh in a similar way to the passage from Ezekiel that speaks of bones. Paul claims those in the flesh are concerned with things that effect death while those who live according to the Spirit are concerned with things that effect life and peace. . .

This text incorporates understandings of God that would later be distinguished in trinitarian theologies. Paul does not present trinitarian premises. His point is to contrast the life of the redeemed from the death of the unredeemed but his distinction between God, Christ, Spirit as well as the Spirit of the one who raised Christ really is suggestive of the Trinity.–– Regina Boisclair

Ezekiel 37:1–14

Ezekiel has a vision of hope when the future seems hopeless. Ezekiel lives in exile. He is part of the remnant of Israel deported into Babylon after Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple was desecrated. The people were stripped of their homes, their land, their material possessions, in some cases, their families, and, of course, their faith. Their faith made claims about land and location. Their faith offered strength through the story of displaced people being given a place—slaves from Egypt brought to the Promised Land. Now that land belongs to the Babylonians, and those to whom it was promised have been forced to move away. . .

The land known as Judah—Israel—had been the land of God's people for over half a millennium—twice as long as this soil has been called the United States of America. When the land suddenly has somebody else living on it and you have to move to another place, what happens to God? Most people assumed God stayed in Jerusalem and, furthermore, the people assumed they had been cut off. They were like dry bones lying in a valley. “Can these bones live?” God asked, and the obvious answer was, “No.” . . .

Ezekiel knows better than to rule out God even when he can't possibly conceive of an alternative to the reality staring him in the face. Hopeful living trusts in the future in spite of the future-denying present. History viewed this way is linear, not cyclic, and thus, it is susceptible to change by those who would enter hopefully into covenant with God. –– Jennifer Copeland

Regina Boisclair, a Roman Catholic biblical scholar, is Emerita Professor at Alaska Pacific University, Anchorage, Alaska.

Lucy Bregman, professor of religion at Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, is the author of several books including Beyond Silence and Denial: Death and Dying Reconsidered (WJK, 1999) and Preaching Death (Baylor Univ., 2011).

Jennifer Copeland, a United Methodist ordained minister, served for 16 years as chaplain at Duke University and as director of the Duke Wesley Fellowship. She is currently executive director at North Carolina Council of Churches in Raleigh-Durham.

Homily Service 41, no. 2 (2008): 54–62.