The Resurrection and the Rest of Your Life

This is not the first Easter season my family has spent in an oncology unit. 

Earlier this week, my brother and I met up in a cancer hospital waiting room, where he was scheduled for his next round of CT scans. After he checked in, a nurse walked us to a room and my brother sipped a lemonade swirled with IV contrast while I pulled up our church’s video devotional for the day. 

It wasn’t until we left the imaging center that I realized the historical significance of the day. It was Holy Monday, the morning after Palm Sunday. 

Exactly two years earlier, my brother and I had sat side-by-side in a Palm Sunday service, and no one around us knew he had less than twenty-four hours left before his first round of chemotherapy. I remember holding onto him with one hand and wiping away tears with the other. That service marked the start of our family’s cancer journey so profoundly, I wrote about it in “Five Prayers for a Cancer Patient.” 

During that sermon, we had studied Mark 11, walking with Jesus as He entered Jerusalem. But for the next few weeks and months, Jesus walked with us: through chemo and cancer, loneliness and loss too deep for words. He wept with us in dark hotel rooms and held us steady when we were too scared to hope. 

When I realized earlier this week that my brother’s testing had fallen on the same Monday that his cancer journey had begun, I wept at my desk. Today, he is in remission. Lord willing, he still will be when we get the test results next week. But that’s not the only reason we’re different than we were when walked into that church service 1,732 miles from home two years ago. 

On Easter Sunday that year, we worshiped our Savior through a livestream in the hotel room, but we continued learning how to live in light of the empty tomb long after April ended. 

Encountering Jesus—walking with Him through both suffering and resurrection—changes you. When you trace His steps all the way to the cross and begin to grasp the weight of His love, when you witness His power over death and realize what He has already overcome—you don’t walk away the same.

Knowing Jesus doesn’t just provide comfort in the middle of hard chapters; it redefines the entire story. Because when you are loved by the risen Savior, knowing Him doesn’t just change how you feel—His resurrection changes the rest of your life. 

The Night Between

This week, as I waited for my brother’s initial results to come back, I reached for my Bible, wanting to follow the Holy Week timeline and draw near to Jesus. You’re likely familiar with the big plot points that take place in the final days leading to His death: Sunday marked Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Mark 11:1–10). On Monday, He cursed the fig tree and cleansed the temple, overturning the tables and throwing out those buying and selling (Mark 11:12–19).

But there’s a verse between the major events of those days which, until this season, I’d never noticed. Not all Gospel authors included it. One scholar explains the reasons for this, saying, 

Matthew characteristically abbreviates his narrative and omits this notice. Jesus’ whole purpose in entering Jerusalem is to go to the temple, so Matthew takes his readers straight there. The scene depicted fulfills Mal 3:1b. The Lord is suddenly coming to his temple.¹

But Mark slows down. 

[Jesus] went into Jerusalem and into the temple. After looking around at everything, since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. (Mark 11:11)

That night, Jesus observed the temple, and His awareness that the premises were not being used as God intended set the stage for what He did the next day. But that’s not the detail that caught my attention during this read through. 

When Jesus had arrived in Jerusalem, the city that had been electrified by His presence. But at the end of the night . . .

Mark’s account is noteworthy for what does not happen. The whole scene comes to nothing. Like the seed in the parable of the sower that receives the word with joy but has no root and lasts but a short time (4:6, 16–17), the crowd disperses as mysteriously as it assembled. Mark is warning against mistaking enthusiasm for faith and popularity for discipleship.²

Mark 11:11 says instead, Jesus went to Bethany, a village near Jerusalem, which was the home of a few of his dearest friends. True disciples. A small group of spiritual siblings who had been forever changed by their time with Him.

Loved into New Life

Jesus had quite the history with Bethany. Throughout His lifetime, it had been the setting of both deep grief and breathtaking miracles. For Him, it was a place that provided rest and familiarity. He returned there days before He went to the cross: 

Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany where Lazarus was, the one Jesus had raised from the dead. Martha was serving them, and Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him. (John 12:1–2) 

Throughout the Gospels, Bethany wasn’t just a stopping place. It was the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, three of Jesus’ closest companions, whom He loved and who loved Him. Scripture doesn’t share where Jesus specifically stayed in Bethany the night after His triumphal entry in Mark 11, but I can’t help but wonder if He was with them—if perhaps, in their final conversations this side of heaven, they looked back on all the ways they were different because of Him:

• One sister was freed from hustle to wholehearted belief (Luke 10:41; John 11:21–22; 27).
• One sister sat with Jesus and saw He was worth more than what was most valuable to her (Luke 10:39; John 12:3).
• One sister learned to surrender to His plan in her most vulnerable moments of grief and confusion (John 11:21–22).
• One brother was proof Jesus can call people out of dead places (John 11:41–43).
• One brother experienced how Jesus’ restoration can point others to Him (John 12:9). 
• All three welcomed Jesus into their home (Luke 10:38), and it became a place where others met Him (John 12:9). 

We can only imagine how much their faith grew because of the changes they saw in each other. The same kids who had grown up teasing each other and getting in trouble together—who knew each other’s weaknesses and wounds—would have known better than anyone just how deep Jesus’ impact went.

Three nights later, on the Thursday of Holy Week, Jesus gathered with His disciples and said, “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). On Friday, He proved it. 

Before the rest of the world knew what it meant to be saved by Christ, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus knew what it meant to be loved by Him as a Friend. Jesus had met them with His extraordinary kindness and mercy, and friendship with the Messiah had changed everything.

From Bethany to Forever 

On Friday, after Jesus was crucified, His body was taken down and placed in a tomb. Scripture doesn’t record how the siblings responded, but it’s not hard to imagine the weight of grief taking them back to the memory of another death, another sealed tomb. For the sisters especially, echoes of Lazarus’ burial must have come rushing in—the scrape of stone against stone, the sting of Jesus asking, “Where have you put him?” (John 11:34), the sound of His weeping.

This time, it was Jesus in the tomb. The One who had once called life out of death was now Himself buried. 

Still, maybe Martha remembered the moment He had looked her in the eyes and said: 

“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.” (John 11:25–27)

Maybe Lazarus, who had also been wrapped in grave clothes, believed death wouldn’t have the final word. Maybe Mary, who had anointed Jesus for burial, held onto words He had spoken to her sister: “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” (v. 40). 

On Sunday, they did. 

Jesus rose, just as He said He would. Forty days later, when He gathered with His disciples before ascending to heaven, it was in a place not far from the home where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus had once welcomed Him (Luke 24:50–53).

Bethany, once marked by grief and graves, became the setting for glory. The place of mourning became a launching point of joy. And Jesus—who had wept with them, laughed with them, and walked with them—left a promise that still holds today:

“I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

His resurrection made it possible for Him to be our Savior and friend, one whose presence still changes us and who has promised to remain with us forever.

Still with Us

Though they are biblical figures from centuries ago, I can picture my brothers and I sitting across from Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and instantly connecting with them. This group of siblings knew what it was to grieve and hope and be held by Jesus in both.

Jesus didn’t guarantee them (or us) a life free from discomfort, suffering, or sickness, but He did promise them something even more precious: His presence. In our homes, in hospital rooms, in every moment and every place, until the day we see Him face to face.

Two years ago, the start of Holy Week marked a season that changed my family. This year, my brother likely won’t receive confirmation that he’s still in remission until after Easter Sunday, but the news we have today is enough: Jesus is alive.

The empty tomb isn’t just a moment in history to remember once a year—it’s an invitation into a relationship that redefines every day. This Holy Week could be the start of a friendship with the resurrected Savior that changes your life too. Not just comfort when life is hard. Not just hope for the future. But a real and living Jesus who meets you where you are, walks with you through what you’re facing, and calls you to experience life with Him, now and forever.

Once you encounter this Jesus, you won’t walk away the same. And because of the resurrection, you’ll never walk alone.

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¹ Craig Blomberg, Matthew, vol. 22, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 314.

² James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2002), 338.