The Raising of Lazarus

 John 11: Excerpt from R C Sprouls commentary on the Gospel of John.

The day before I preached on this passage at St. Andrew’s, the space
shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas while heading for a landing
here in Central Florida. All seven astronauts aboard were killed. I watched television coverage of the tragedy for hour after hour that day, but the same picture was shown over and over again.

It was the image of the spacecraft disintegrating and leaving a trail of smoke in the air. I couldn’t help thinking what a catastrophe this was for the families of the people who had been instantly destroyed, but I also thought that if there were believers among those crew members, just as quickly as they died, they were in heaven. If they were believers, they could not die. Yes, they died biologically, but biological death doesn’t disturb the continuity of living, personal existence for God’s people in the slightest.