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The surprise of the resurrection
Think
back to the last time that someone surprised you. What does surprise do to you?
Some people love
surprises; others like surprises as long as they know exactly what the surprise
will be!
Our common experience is
that surprise is highly disorienting; we don’t know where to turn or what to do
next.
Even pleasant surprises,
when unexpected, can throw us out of step.
I think we can see the
hallmarks of surprise all over the different gospel accounts of the
resurrection — they haven’t even bothered to tie in all the details to give us
a narrative where everything neatly fits together.
Each of the gospels
offers their own perspective on this surprise.
In Mark’s gospel, the
women run from the tomb and don’t tell anyone (in which case, how does Mark
have a story to tell?!).
Even being retold many
years later, the gospel accounts still capture the sense of surprise. Not only
was their the surprise at the resurrection, but this sense of surprise keeps
unfolding.
Not only is this Jesus
the Messiah for the Jewish people — it turns out He is saviour for the whole
world.
The first generation of
disciples are constantly caught out by the surprise of the new thing that God
is doing.
Peter in the house of
Cornelius, Paul on the Damascus Road — hardly an expected encounter — and Paul
himself carrying this good news across the whole known world.
It is
all such an unexpected surprise. So does Easter Sunday catch you by surprise?
As winter is followed by
spring, so for us Good Friday is followed by Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.
I don’t suppose anyone
woke up this morning and cried out ‘Easter Sunday— I wasn’t expecting that!’
As the seasons roll on,
the church calendar helps us in many ways, but I wonder if in this regard it
doesn’t serve us well.
You probably expected
Easter Sunday, expected an Easter egg, expected to come to church and perhaps
even expected to hear this reading.
Yet the message of Easter
is not (apologies Mr Cameron!) about taking responsibility, and hard-working
families, and doing your duty.
It has nothing to do with
that! Easter is about the unexpected thing that God does — that He surprises us
with His grace.
No-one was expecting
this. No-one was expecting one person to be raised from the dead, now.
Of course, faithful Jews
were looking for the resurrection of the dead — but this was going to come at
the end of the age, when (as Isaiah prophesied) the heavens and the earth were
going to be wrapped up like a worn-out garment, and there would be a new heaven
and a new earth — and the dead would be raised, and all would be judged.
That is what they were
expected — but this, Jesus’ resurrection, caught them completely by surprise.
It caught the women by surprise.
John here focusses on Mary Magdalene, but we know she went to the tomb with the
other women — no-one would have gone to the tomb with the spices to prepare the
body on their own, in the dark.
They needed to roll away the stone, to unwrap, embalm and rewrap
the body. This was a team task.
These were women who had travelled with Jesus, many of whom
(Luke tells us) had provided for Him and His ministry from their own means.
These were the women who had not deserted Jesus — the ones who,
when the men fled, remained standing at the cross.
These were the ones who had witnessed the final brutalities of His
death.
When they came to the tomb they expected to find death and
indignity — to find a broken body, not even given the dignity of proper
preparation for burial.
But the unexpected surprise
was life in place of death. ‘He is not
here — He is risen!’
He is no longer the broken, bloodied mangled and undignified
body that you were expecting — He is alive! That was God’s unexpected surprise.
It
caught Peter and John by surprise. Peter and John, called to
the tomb by Mary — what were they expecting?
Peter and John — the first to be called by Jesus, to hear that
word ‘Come, follow me!,’ the first to
leave their nets to follow him, he first for whom their hearts began to beat
faster at the hope that the longed-for kingdom of God was at last at hand in
the ministry of Jesus.
They were the first to become ‘fishers of men,’ the ones who, in this end-times judgement, were
going to catch up God’s people and sort the good from the bad.
Peter, the impulsive one, who always blurted out what others
were thinking but dared not say out loud.
John, the beloved, the one who leaned against Jesus at the meal
to ask about his betrayal.
They came to the tomb — expecting what? Expecting all their
disappointment to be confirmed, for the final seal to be put on their despair.
Perhaps for Peter, to be confronted with the result of his own
failure and betrayal. That’s what they expected.
But the unexpected surprise
was hope — not yet certainty, as John comments ‘We had not yet understood the Scriptures we had not understood that
this was foretold,’ we had not understood Jesus even though he told us at
least three times that the Son of Man would be handed over — and yet on the
third day would be raised again… as Paul adds ‘according to the Scriptures…’
And yet, they saw hope — they saw the clothes lying there.
They saw that the strips that had been wound around Jesus’ body
were still in place, where His body had been — and that the head
cloth that had been wrapped around His head was still in the place that His
head had been.
This body had not been stolen! It had been raised from death — there
was hope; there was an answer to their disappointment and their despair.
And
then we come to the story of Mary — the climax of this
episode. Now there is lots of speculation about who Mary was, and what she had
done, and her relationship with Jesus — all of it unfounded.
This is in fact the longest account of her in the gospels. But
she had known Jesus’ healing and deliverance; she had known His presence; she
had known His touch on her life.
Three times she laments His
absence. She runs back to Peter and John and says ‘He has gone — I don’t know where they have taken him.’
To the angel she says the same thing, and even to Jesus, before
she recognises Him, she expresses her desperation at His absence.
She longs for His presence — and
that is the unexpected surprise.
Jesus, there, present, in
front of her. ‘Don’t hold on to me — because
I am going to be present with you, by the Spirit, in a way you do not yet
understand.’
This is what they expected at the tomb:
death, disappointment and desperation.
And yet God’s unexpected surprise — His ‘Boo!’ to the first
disciples — was life, hope and presence.
And why did they keep telling
this story — why tell it again and again — why, when this first generation were
reaching the end of their lives, did John and the others write this down?
Because it is not just their story — it is our story too.
Into our experiences of death, God brings unexpected life.
Into our experiences of disappointment and failure, God brings
unexpected hope.
Into our desperation in the face of loneliness, God brings His
unexpected presence.
He did then — and He wants to
do it again today. Christ is risen — He is risen indeed!
Hallelujah!
Ian Paul: theologian, author, speaker, academic consultant.
Adjunct Professor, Fuller Theological Seminary; Associate
Minister, St Nic's, Nottingham; Managing Editor, Grove Books; member of General
Synod. Mac user; chocoholic. Tweets at @psephizo
scholarship. serving. ministry.
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