easter day

‘He is not here, but has risen.

Surprises, because they are unexpected, can be delightful or they can be shocking. The doorbell rings and you go to open the door. There you discover a group of friends who have come to give you a surprise birthday lunch; they are laden with gifts and food and bottles. What a wonderful surprise. But shocking too. Because it’s your birthday you are having a lie-in and so you’re not dressed or shaved – or your hair is still in rollers. Either way you’re just not ready to receive guests. So you are both surprised and shocked. Multiply those emotions by at least a hundred times and I would think that you would be somewhere near how the women felt at the empty tomb. Surprise and shock.

They had come to the tomb to anoint the dead body of Jesus with  spices. They hadn’t bought those spices on the off-chance that maybe Jesus was dead. They knew that he was dead. And so when the stone guarding the entrance to the tomb had been removed and the tomb was open and empty they were shocked. And then came the surprise. ‘Why do you look for the living amongst the dead’? ‘He is not here but has risen’.

From this moment the delightful surprise takes over. And the women do what we often do with delightful and surprising news – they share it. St Luke tells us that they went and told the eleven and the rest. No-one can deny that the Easter message was and is both delightfully surprising and shocking. Delightful for the women and the disciples because they had Jesus back with them. His work would continue. His message was even more powerfully true – even death fell defeated at his feet. But it was shocking also. Shocking because if God had done this in Jesus who knows what he might continue to do. And what might that all mean for those surprised and shocked disciples. What might it mean for the world? What might it mean for us?

The awkward thing about God is that he never does what you expect him to do in the way you expect him to do it or at the time when you expect him to. And that was most certainly true of the resurrection of Jesus. You see Jesus' disciples and the women at the tomb will have shared the general Jewish belief of the time. They will have believed in the resurrection of the dead. But they would have expected that resurrection to happen when all the dead would be raised at some dramatic moment in the future. At that moment (which they called the end time) God would intervene in the world and bring in his Kingdom of peace and justice and righteousness. God would reign effectively. They believed when that time came, the dead would be raised and a time of peace and prosperity would begin. It would be a new and glorious world free from suffering and sin and death. God’s justice, and God’s righteousness, and God’s love would reign supreme. No wonder then that everybody was both surprised and shocked outside the empty tomb. No wonder they had trouble getting their heads around Jesus’ resurrection. Because Jesus had risen from the dead – but on-one else had.

Jesus had risen from the dead -  but the world still seemed to be the same place that it always was. The Romans were still in charge.  The poor were still poor.  Sin and suffering were still very much around. Things were as bad as ever they were – or so it seemed. So what does it mean?

The raising of Jesus means that God’s reign has indeed  begun. But it is not yet complete. We are living in the end time but not quite fully here and now. In Jesus rising we have a little taste of the weekend to come but it’s still Monday morning. If Jesus is raised death and sin and suffering have been defeated. But not finally and completely – at least not yet.

A few weeks ago Isobel and I were out for a drive. It was a gloomy and cloudy and rainy day. The sky was over cast with low lingering grey  clouds – depressing. But then all of sudden through a hole in the cloud there came a clear and bright shaft of sunlight that lit up a distant hillside. It was a promise of spring in the depth of winter. A shaft of clear bright and welcome light in the midst of cloud and darkness. It was still winter.  But spring was breaking into it lightening its gloom – and with a promise of more to come. You see the world is still as it is. Sometimes dark and gloomy and depressing. With all its wars , its heartache its poverty and its sinfulness. Life still plays dirty tricks on you. People still let you down. Sickness and suffering still strikes at the innocent and death stalks us all. But within all of that we are blessed to see glimmers of the new world and the new life and the new hope which Jesus resurrection has made possible.

Every day in our lives we can see with the eyes of faith signs of Gods’ final reign of love which Jesus resurrection has inaugurated; reminders that Jesus is indeed raised. In the midst of conflict and aggression we can see from time to time moments of reconciliation and compassion. When we see that Christ is raised. Sometimes we are privileged to see great and costly acts of forgiveness. Signs of the breaking in of God’s reign of love. When a community works together to  make  a better place to live together we catch a glimpse of the new world waiting to open up. When the petty and sometimes not so petty arguments that spoil our human relationships are healed and resolved we catch a glimpse of a new and transformed humanity already begun in Jesus.

Those who have lost a loved one begin to move from the pain of grief into an acceptance born of hope of a new heaven and a new earth – and all because of Easter. Yes, and when you hit the buffers and all you can do is sit in the darkness for a week or two. Then the Risen Lord and his world made new comes to you in the shape of a  beloved and faithful wife, loyal colleagues and messages from kind Christian friends such as you. The light of the new world shines from within the darkness of the old – and when it does Christ is raised in us and in our world. The occasions may be only momentary. And we quickly move back into the harsh reality of every day. But their effects linger assuring us that a renewed creation is possible and surprising though it may seem the world is in the process of being transformed. And it’s all a glorious surprise. But it’s a shock also. Because if God’s new world is coming but not yet here –there is still work for us to do. In the light of Christ’s final victory we still have to dig for that victory, to work for his Kingdom, to pray for it’s coming amongst us.

As resurrection people we are called to refuse to accept that the world is it is. We are called to work towards a better way of being human – Christ’s way-  and to long, pray and work and hope for that something more. If we are resurrection people then others should see in us the signs of that new life and the new hope and that new world which Christ’s rising has begun. It’s a surprise and a shock but we are Easter people and Alleluia is our song.