(Audio)
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
None either of the women or of the disciples had any idea what was happening. They knew Jesus had claimed to be the resurrection and the life. But they had seen him die. They were still unwilling to give up entirely. But they didn't know what to hope for. They remained near to this tomb because being there seemed preferable to all the vain consolations the world could offer. He had said he was the life. Could he really be dead? It seemed so very final. Yet they remained near the tomb expecting they knew not what.
In fact, Jesus had explained what would happen to him. But the faith of those to whom he explained it was not yet deep enough to accept it. Even his making it clearer and clearer, culminating finally in the raising of Lazarus, was not enough for them to recognize the signs of it happening. Or perhaps they were afraid to recognize it happening. Perhaps hearts with hopes so crushed by the world, all but dead themselves, needed supernatural life infused to bring them alive with hope again.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
Perhaps this Easter morning we ourselves are the ones with hearts so crushed by the world that we dare not hope again. Maybe we find it much easier to believe any explanation than the hopeful one. We encounter empty tombs, opportunities to hope in the LORD, but attribute them all to grave robbers.
If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
As we discover the empty tomb this morning we are invited to see and believe with the eyes of our hearts. What we see is startling, both for the first witnesses, and for us. It is something no one would have guessed. It burst all the preexisting categories. It was not a story they or we would have ever thought to make up. The very otherness of this offer of hope is evidence in its favor. Do we hear the invitation to believe? The resurrection is calling us to let God redefine everything we know about him, ourselves, the world, and our relation to it. It is not simply a belief about something that happened once in the distant past that now seems historically interesting. Rather it is a belief by which we become we learn that death and decay no longer have the last word. Because this is true we ourselves need no longer be slaves to fear (Hebrews 2:15).
This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible,
not to all the people, but to us,
the witnesses chosen by God in advance,
who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
Jesus is made visible to us by the faith to which he invites us. This is the dawn from on high that breaks upon us. He himself is the light who enlightens all men. This is the first morning of the new creation, the day that the LORD has made.
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.
We are called to live from the new reality already present in Christ, where the not yet of the resurrection has already begun in the here and now.
Clear out the old yeast,
so that you may become a fresh batch of dough,
inasmuch as you are unleavened.
We are called to clear out the remnants of a past life, a life dominated by death. By Easter bells, we are called to have our hope healed and restored to a new world where with God all things are indeed possible.
He is risen! He is risen indeed!
No comments:
Post a Comment