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I received a text from a friend about my recent episode, "How Do I Get Out of This Place?". The text read,
"Are you saying Lazarus was resurrected by Jesus? If so, how is Jesus' Resurrection similar and different from Lazarus' ?
Be cognizant of the term Resurrection. There is a difference between Resurrection and Resuscitation."
That's the end of the text.
Not everyone I meet really makes much of a distinction between "resurrection" and "resuscitation". For those who distinguish between the words, Jesus resurrected -- not just resuscitated.
I'm writing this episode the day after Easter in 2025, and I'm still talking about Jesus' resurrection -- not resuscitation. Yeshua -- Jesus -- has overcome death permanently. Unlike his friend Lazarus whom you could say was "rescusitated" even though he was dead for four days. My version of John 12 says Lazarus was "raised from the dead."
There's a quote coming up later in this episode that talks about Lazarus and the life he lived after his rising from the dead.
While I'm talking about resurrection, I'll mention a Catholic Pope died earlier today. The preceding Pope has written something very on target about resurrection. I want to quote Pope Benedict as he differentiated between "resurrection" and "rescusitation".
https://www.catholic.com/qa/resuscitation-or-resurrection
"The miracle of a resuscitated corpse would indicate that Jesus’ Resurrection was equivalent to the raising of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:22-24, 35-43 and parallel passages), and Lazarus (John 11:1-44). After a more or less short period, these individuals returned to their former lives, and then at a later point they died definitively."
Then Pope Benedict wrote about Yeshua:
"Jesus’ Resurrection was about breaking out into an entirely new form of life, into a life that is no longer subject to the law of dying but lies beyond it—a life that opens up a new dimension of human existence."
"In Jesus’ Resurrection a new possibility of human existence is attained that affects everyone and that opens up a future, a new kind of future, for mankind."
I found that quote on catholic.com and I lightly edited it.
(Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week—From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, ch. 9)
It might be nice if different parts of life with the English language used the same words, but that doesn't always happen. Our medical, biblical, liturgical, legal, and everyday uses of words don't always mean the same thing.
But on this day after Easter, we can say "Halleluja! Yeshua HaMashiach -- Jesus The Christ -- is Resurrected to die no more!"
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