Walking with Jesus: Easter Sunday

For Sunday, April 9, 2023

Acts 10:34, 37-43; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8; John 20:1-9

There’s a great line in John’s Gospel that is the best guide I have found in understanding the Resurrection. John describes Peter and John arriving at the tomb: John enters first because he is younger and faster. He sees the burial cloths but does not go in, then Peter arrives and goes in: “The other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that He had to rise from the dead.” [John 20:9]

They Do Not Understand — but somehow understand that everything about Jesus is unique. He talks with women; Jewish men do not do this in public. He touches diseased and crippled people: Jewish people feel that if they do so, they will be infected too. He associates with unbelievers: Gentiles, Samaritans; He dines with the hated class of tax collectors; He heals all, including Romans and pagans; and He raises the dead … even Lazarus, who has begun to decompose. But Scripture traditions show that the Messiah will not die and be decomposed as always has been the case.

Psalm 16:10 reads, “For you will not abandon to Sheol, nor let your devout one see the pit.” Acts 2:25 reads, “But God raised Him up, releasing Him from the throes of death, because it was impossible for Him to be held by it.” Both passages imply that it is impossible for Christ, the Messiah, the Holy One, to see corruption. The apostles are believing everything about this man but not understanding? So much of this has never happened before. They have nowhere to “hang their hat on” … this is new territory for them but totally believable at the same time, because this Man of God,  this Jesus ... this Messiah ... has done it all and they know that He is all about love: God’s love.

While they were together in the Upper Room after His Resurrection, Jesus said to Thomas: “‘Put your finger here and see My hands, and bring your hand and put it into My side, and do not be unbelieving, but believing.’ Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.’” [John 20:27-29] That’s each of us! It takes faith … love … hope … belief ... that God would not lie to us, that God loves us, that God has a plan for each of us to be in heaven with Him. That He has created us out of love and placed us here at this place and time because it is the perfect time for you and me to touch these specific people with love so they can know they are loved by God, and need — as we do — to love all in need of love.

Luke has written his first book as his Gospel and his second book as the Acts of the Apostles. In Acts today the Roman official, Cornelius, and Peter have been prepared and working up to this moment. For the first time Peter is preaching to a gentile audience as Jesus has said will happen. Peter begins by reviewing how Jesus has been fulfilling God’s saving work and he has been a witness to this. This has not ended in Jesus’ death because God has raised Jesus and the work has now begun.

In Colossians, Paul insists that we should focus on heavenly things. When we concentrate on things of the earth we lose sight of Jesus’ message of love, care, forgiveness, and responding to God’s needy, which is what it is all about. Paul says we should “clear out the ‘old yeast’ so that we can become ‘a fresh batch of dough.’”  We are God’s … God is in us … we are gifted to touch and love … let’s get going on the doing and loving.

Two kinds of stories in the early Church describe the consequences of Jesus’ Resurrection: Appearances stories show how Jesus appears as the risen Christ appearing as He really is. The second types of stories are Empty Tomb stories. These respond to the question: What happened to the body? Mary of Magdala comes and assumes the body has been stolen and runs to Peter for help. Peter and John come and see that no struggle has taken place and everything seems natural: Even the head covering is nicely folded. John “saw and believed” … yet the mystery remains. How did it happen? What does Easter mean to them? What are they to do? Jesus has told them He will meet them in Galilee … so let’s go to Galilee.

So I reflect on:

• Easter is encountering the Risen Lord: Where am I looking for that encounter? Have I started to look? Do I want to look? What is holding me back? Satan doesn’t want me to know that God loves me this much and wants to share Himself with me.
• I, like so many, come to the tomb with various losses, hardships, rejections. How does the empty tomb speak to me in my hurts?

Sacred Space 2023 states:

“This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad. Jesus is risen, never to die again. After the anguish of the last few days, it is the time of unbounded joy. I ask for the grace to enter into the joy of Jesus Himself, the seed that fell to the ground and died, and is now bearing abundant fruit, full of new life.”