Luke 24:1-12, 1 Corinthians 15:19-26
Today is a day of surprises.
I have a birthday coming up. Birthdays often have surprises. My birthday will start with a trip to the airport to meet our son and his family. That’s not a surprise as we know they’re coming. By the same token it may include a surprise or two. My birthday will end with a Session meeting. That’s not a surprise it’s been on the schedule for a long time and we try not to have surprises at meetings – that’s why we have an agenda. Still, through the day I hope there’ll be a nice surprise or two. Overall, life is generally predictable. We mostly know what is going to happen.
Has anyone ever had a really good surprise? How did it make you feel?
Easter morning was full of surprises for Jesus’ followers. They had seen Jesus killed and buried, so they awoke on the Sunday with one subject dominating their thoughts: ‘Jesus is dead!’
Then when Jesus rose from the dead it was totally unexpected.
What surprises me most about Jesus’ resurrection is how so many of us can pass it off and behave as if it’s not that surprising at all. As David Lose says, “If you don’t find resurrection hard to believe you’re probably not paying attention.”
Yet when the followers visited the tomb, there were various surprising things which pointed to something amazing. Let us consider some of the surprises that the disciples encountered.
Surprise 1 – ‘The Stone’
The women went to the tomb to annoint Jesus’ body for proper burial. But even as they went they were aware that their plans could be frustrated. A very large stone had been placed over the entrance to the tomb and no matter how strong they felt – and I doubt they felt strong at all – and no matter how many of them there were – three are named and others referred to – they knew they hadn’t a hope of moving the stone to get access to the body. So when they got there the stone should have been blocking the entrance to the tomb. ‘Was it?’ ‘No’. (Luke 24:2). The women would have been really surprised at this. The nigh-impossible task they expected wasn’t going to be necessary after all.
Surprise 2 – ‘The Body’
Dead bodies stay where they have been put, inside a grave! They can’t move on their own. The women looked inside the tomb. ‘Was the body still there?’ ‘No’. Luke 24:3 says that the women could not find Jesus’ body and were not sure what had happened to it. This was most unexpected and they were wondering what was going on.
Surprise 3 – ‘The Angels’
Angels are not normally seen hanging around places. ‘Were there any angels around?’ ‘Yes’. The men in gleaming clothes who appeared were described by the women as being angels (Luke 24:23). Having been mystified by surprises 1 and 2, the women were now terrified.
Surprise 4 – ‘The Message’
When an angel delivers a message, it’s normally important. ‘Was this message important?’ ‘Yes’. This message contained vital information about what had happened to Jesus; he had come back to life, just like he told them he would. Jesus had told his followers what was going to happen, but they could not understand, so this message was a big surprise. The message helped make sense of all the other surprises and convinced the women that Jesus had risen to life. These four surprises were enough to convince the women, ‘but were the other disciples convinced?’ ‘No.’
Have a look at what they actually thought. “But the Apostles thought that what the women said was nonsense [Gk: leros], and they did not believe them.” (Luke 24:11). To quote David Lose again, “That’s actually a fairly generous translation of the Greek work leros. That word, you see, is the root of our word “delirious.” So in short, they thought what the women said was crazy, nuts, utter nonsense.
Surprise 5 – ‘The Burial Clothes’
Dead bodies don’t take off the clothes they are buried in. ‘Were any grave clothes left behind in the tomb?’ ‘Yes’. Peter went to the tomb and he found the strips of burial clothes lying there. (Luke 24:12). He saw this as a clue that something amazing had happened. If grave robbers had stolen a dead body they would not have wasted time removing the clothes.
It took a lot to convince the disciples that Jesus is alive but they got there. Jesus met his friends, one after the other, until he had caught up with them all. Meeting Jesus was the real clincher that took people from disbelief to conviction. And it has done the same for everyone since from Paul right down to today. Jesus still meets people and shows them that he is alive. Many are surprised.
Jesus’ resurrection was such an amazing surprise for the disciples and although we’ve heard the story over and over, it is amazing news for us, too. And there is so much which follows from the resurrection. It reminds us that Jesus keeps his promises, and that Jesus is powerful. And, as Paul spells out in 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection is the substantive reality of the Christian faith. Without it we are not forgiven, not saved, not loved; we have nothing to look forward to. The resurrection guarantees that we are saved, loved, forgiven and all things will be as the Bible says they will. One day his followers will all have new resurrection life as Jesus did (1 Corinthians 15:19-26). Death is not the end of Jesus’ story, nor the end of our story.
Do you find Jesus’ resurrection at least a little hard to believe? Good. At least you’re taking it seriously. And you’re in good company. Along with the rest of Jesus’ disciples, we may “struggle to believe simply because we recognize the incredible scope and titanic implications of the biblical witness that when God raised Jesus from the dead God was creating a new reality; overthrowing death, sin, and all that would oppress us; and declaring once and for all that life is more powerful than death and love more enduring that tragedy.” -David Lose
And if, perchance, you simply accept the resurrection as a part of your faith, I invite you to allow the wonder of God’s activity in the resurrection to break in upon you in a new way. So I invite you first to think about what makes believing in the resurrection difficult. One thing that crossed my mind is the fact that Jesus raised at least two people from death himself. Others have also risen from the dead even in recent times. My question then is what makes Jesus’ resurrection unique? My answer is Jesus. Other possibilities could be: We’ve never seen anything like it. We all say that the two givens in life are death and taxes. What about the natural order? It’s not something any of us have experienced… What for you increases the difficulty of believing Jesus’ resurrection?
So, you can see that disciples from the beginning forward have had good reason to wonder and even doubt the resurrection, the next thing I invite you to consider is what is possible given that it is true? A very small sample of ideas includes: that death does not have the final word, that love and life are stronger than fear and death, that we can expect to see again those we’ve loved and lost, that God has a future in store for each and all of us, that anything is possible with God. What would you add?
Resurrection faith came slowly to most of the disciples. But when it came it changed everything. It’s just this kind of faith that we preach every Sunday, but especialy on this day, the Eighth Day, the Day of new creation that begins with resurrection and continues until God creates a new heaven and new earth and renews and redeems all things. Welcome to God’s new reality here and now.