Readings
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
John 20:1-18
Happy Easter.
We have come together to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. To celebrate that he is risen. But I ask you. What is resurrection? Have you taken time to think about it? For most of my early life I thought of the resurrection of Jesus simply as him coming back to life. That he was raised from the dead and never would die again because he’s God.
But what I didn’t think about then and what we need to remember today is that Jesus was also a human being. He was completely human. So if he simply was resuscitated, then that would mean that he would have died again. And furthermore, any child who has lost a pet can tell you what we all know from our own experience with friends and loved ones. When someone dies they’re dead and they don’t come back.
So resurrection has to be more than simply resuscitation. I submit to you that resurrection is nothing less than total transformation. Jesus didn’t just come back to life, he wasn’t simply reanimated. When Jesus went through his resurrection he attained a new and different way of living.
We need only look to today’s Gospel to see that he was not resuscitated but transformed. After Mary Magdalene finds the empty tomb and brings witnesses to confirm it, she is overwhelmed with grief. And after being questioned by two strangers sitting in the tomb about her grief she is asked again about it by another stranger whom she presumes to be the gardener. Now we’re told that this unknown person is Jesus, but that’s a narrative tool for our benefit. For Mary the man standing before her is a stranger. She begs him to show her where Jesus’ body is and it is only after he calls her name in a familiar way that she recognizes it to be him. Jesus has been transformed to the point that he was initially unrecognized by someone who knew him intimately.
There are more examples from later Gospel readings that we will hear in the weeks ahead. Jesus after his resurrection could pass through locked doors. He could walk with his disciples for miles along a road and only be recognized when he broke bread with them. He could have a fish breakfast with his disciples and not appear as they had known him in his earthly life.
But Jesus wasn’t a ghost. Let’s be clear about that. He was something far more mysterious. He could break bread with his disciples, he could cook for them, he could be touched by them.
Through it all Jesus appeared to his disciples in quiet and gentle ways. He didn’t simply burst forth from the tomb and overwhelm the disciples with his presence. As we can see from the examples I’ve already mentioned, he came as I said, in quiet and gentle ways. And while they had the assurance of his presence, it is clear that they couldn’t simply revert back to the way things used to be. Everything had changed. The transformation was permanent.
Ultimately Jesus’ death and resurrection mirrored the pattern of his life and the pattern of God’s creation. Namely that when one thing ends another begins. That the very nature of the universe is one of transformation.
God loves us so much that he will not abandon us in our losses, but promises us a new beginning with each ending. That doesn’t mean we will be free from suffering any more than Jesus was free from the suffering he endured on the cross. But the cross was not the end of the story and the suffering and endings we face aren’t either.
This is no small thing. The transformation of Jesus and its implications took his disciples a while to comprehend, both in heart and mind. That’s why we have 50 days to Easter. It’s an opportunity for us to take time to wrap our hearts and heads around what the implications of Jesus’ resurrection are for us.
This season is an opportunity to recognize the risen lord in our lives, coming to us in ways that we may not recognize at first. Coming to us in quiet and gentle ways. It is also an opportunity for us to build our faith in the face of loss and pain knowing that God is with us and that transformation awaits us.
The resurrection of Jesus and our celebration of it this Easter season shows us that we have nothing to fear when facing an end, whether that’s the end of a job, the end of a relationship, or the myriad other endings we face, including the end of our life on earth.
Because our hope is in the resurrection of Jesus and the truth that he is with us in our transitions, we can rest assured that he is leading us evermore into our own transformation again and again.
And so, even as we proclaim “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!” We can take hope in the risen nature of our lives. That we are risen as well. Alleluia!