Easter Imagined (Isaiah
65:17-25; 1 Corinthians 15:12-26)[i]
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Easter Sunday
Luke reports that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, another woman
named Mary, and several other unnamed women came to the place Jesus had been
buried. Luke’s telling of this, as it
relates to the women, may be the most helpful of the four gospels. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the women are
grouped together and come to the tomb together.
They see the angel and then the risen Lord together. In John, Mary Magdalene has individual
experiences.
If the gospels were written, as
historians suggest, at the earliest 35 years after the events surrounding the
resurrection and maybe 50 years later, then it is plausible to think the gospel
writers were fuzzy on details. We know
there were women and they were the first witnesses to the resurrection. We can’t be sure of how many or exactly what
they saw.
Some Christians are comfortable with
the thought that the reporting was inexact.
Others hear this and say, “Wait a minute! If the reports in the four gospels are not
precise to the finest detail, then the entire Bible is flawed and must be
disregarded.” But look again at Luke.
In his account of the procession
from Jerusalem out to the site of the crucifixion, he mentions a large group of
people, many of whom were women. As he
is being led to his death, Jesus talks directly to his female disciples who
showed more courage in their faith than did the men (Luke 23:27-28). These women who were Christ followers, who
provided financial support to Jesus and the 12 (Luke 8:3), continued to hang
around all through the crucifixion and onto the 3rd day.
They came as a group to anoint his
dead body, but not necessarily only one group.
Luke indicates many women, more than those he named. Perhaps what is told in Mark and Matthew
deals with one group of women who made their way to the tomb. John’s account of Mary Magdalene’s individual
experience may relate another wave of Jesus’ female followers coming to honor
him one last time. A skeptic wanting to
weaken the Gospel accounts by focusing on discrepancies could disregard my idea
as mere speculation. But, the facts as
we have them are that Luke mentions many women and does not give a specific number. There is no declaration from any gospel
writer that one group of women made one trip to the tomb the Sunday after the
crucifixion. The implication is that
between the female and male disciples, multiple trips were made. My suggestion is speculative, but
plausible.
It is certain that all of Jesus’
followers, women and men, were pretty sure the Jesus story was done. Some sectors of Jewish society believed in a
resurrection. But that belief was in an
end-times resurrection of all people.
Both the evil and the righteous – all – would be raised for
judgment. Several New Testament scholars
who claim that Jesus was truly dead and truly resurrected make the point. Jews at that time, even those who believed in
the concept of resurrection, did not think the Messiah was going to die and be
resurrected. They did not think a single
person was going to be resurrected prior to the general resurrection at the end
of history.
They were sure that Jesus was dead. They were sad, but not confused. They went to the tomb the way you and I would
go to a cemetery. They went to visit a
burial site and to remember the one who had died. There expectations were clear.
We know things did not go as expected. But even though we know how it turned out,
how tears were turned to laughter, we may have a much difficulty with
expectations as did those disciples who went to anoint a dead body and instead
met a resurrected savior.
Expectations are tricky. Several years ago, I planned a hiking trip to
Glacier National Park. It was my dad, my
good friend, and me. We would backpack
in the Rocky Mountains for five days and nights. Neither my dad nor I had ever been to the
Rockies. Our friend was from
Colorado. He tried to describe it. We looked at photos of the national park. We recalled our numerous experiences of
backpacking in the Appalachian Mountains.
But the mountains are higher out west.
The vegetation is different.
There is less humidity. The
wildlife is different. I had great
expectations for the trip. I anticipated
a lot of fun. And thankfully, that trip
greatly exceeded my expectations. As
much as I tried to imagine Rocky mountain beauty, imagination was all I had
until I was there.
That was 13 years ago. Because the actual experience was so far better
than what my expectations could imagine, I will someday go back, I hope. Other times, I have great expectations and
the anticipated event doesn’t quite end up as well as I hoped it would. This past baseball season, I expected the
Detroit Tigers to make the World Series.
They did. I imagined the joy I
would feel when they won it. My
expectations crashed to earth as their hitting dried up and they were swept by
San Francisco. Expectations can be
tricky.
We know that the women expected to find Jesus’
dead body and were utterly blown away when they instead met Jesus alive and in
the flesh. That’s the story. When historians analyze it scientifically,
the best conclusion from the available evidence is that the resurrection
actually happened. Even if other
accounts from the Bible are scrutinized and even is some of the evidence is
discounted for being unreliable, still, the weight of historical proofs that
are as close to indisputable as can be indicates that Jesus really did live,
die, and rise to life. Whatever else we
conclude about Christianity, the resurrection happened.
Paul says as much in 1 Corinthians 15. “If Christ has not been raised … then your
faith has been in vain. … But in fact
Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died”
(v.14, 20). That phrase “firstfruits”
means more resurrections are to come, following his. Paul continues, “[Christ] must reign until he
has put all enemies under his feet. The
last enemy to be destroyed is death” (v.25-26).
Jesus’ resurrection was with a purpose.
He died to take on himself the penalty for sin. His death undid the consequences of the
fall. His death accomplished victory
over sin and his resurrection accomplished victory over death. When we are in him, we surely will be
resurrected. We will all die, but our
deaths will be temporary. Our lives
after resurrection will be forever.
We have to deal with that. How do we anticipate and prepare for
eternity? What expectations do we
have? We know details of the story
Jesus’ disciples did not have when they went to the tomb that morning. But, we are a little like I was preparing for
the Rockies. I could read about Glacier
National Park and look at pictures. But
until I went, all I had was my imagination.
As Christ followers, we live as resurrection, Easter people, but until
we move past death and past the interim period spent in a paradise-type of
state, we can only imagine what that will be like.
We get glimpses in the gospels. The risen Jesus sat with the disciples at a
campfire and ate fish. He took bread in
his hands and broke. His was a tangible
body that occupied real space. Some of
the women took hold of his feet and he invited the disbelieving Thomas to touch
him. At the same time, he passed through
closed, locked doors. He suddenly
appeared amidst a crowd. To Paul on the
road to Damascus and to John on the Island of Patmos, his appearance was
spectacular and otherworldly.
These 2 dimensional photos help as we picture
resurrection in our minds, but photos, while they whetted my appetite for
Montana, did not enable to taste the mountain air. I had to go there. I had stand under the big sky to be
overwhelmed by it. Prior to being
resurrected, we have to live imaginatively.
Someone who lived several hundred years before
Jesus can help us. The prophet Isaiah
was given by God a vision. He was shown
God’s angry judgment against sinful humanity, but then he saw how God would
restore the world after judgment. Isaiah
did not know judgment would reach its fulfillment on the cross. But his picture of the restored world after
the judgment was completed adds depth and color to our imagined mosaic of the
world resurrected.
Isaiah writes God’s words, words God also gave
to John, the author of Revelation. “I am
about to create new Heavens and a new Earth” (Is. 65:17a). Think in terms not of a new Heaven and Earth
replacing what currently exists, but think instead of this earth made new just
as you and I are made new when we are in Christ. It is a renewal, a return to the perfect
goodness that was the earth when God created it, before Adam and Eve first
sinned.
Remembering how conquered nations are plundered
by invaders, Isaiah says in his vision of the new Heaven and Earth, “They shall
not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat”
(v.20a). In other words, there is no
need to fear invasion or war. In God’s
new world, we can concentrate on building things and growing things without
fear of war. It is a world of production
and peace, growth and new life.
“Be glad and rejoice forever in I am creating,”
God says, “For I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a
delight” (v.18). The ultimate expression
of the peace and serenity comes at the end of Isaiah’s vision. “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like an ox; but the serpent – its food shall be
dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on
my holy mountain” (v.25). If I was
walking in nature and a lion came walking toward me, I would be stricken with
fear and would frantically seek some place I could go to be safe from the
powerful predator. What kind of world is
it where the fiercest of animals quietly grazes alongside harmless,
domesticated beasts?
We can’t really see it, but we can imagine. We can imagine complete freedom from
fear. We can hope for a world where
there is no need for any envy or jealousy.
Happiness and joy never get old and never run out. We can’t know it now, but we can imagine and
imagine does not mean pretend or fantasize.
Imagining is the act of anticipating what we know will one day be
reality. Imagining gives hope.
Imagining also directs our approach to life as
we anticipate resurrected, eternal life.
Because we know we will live in the world Isaiah described, we work
toward that world in our everyday relationships. We are peacemakers. We seek the good of others. We are driven by love and we long to love our
neighbors even in the most difficult of circumstances. We forgive, we do not
seek revenge, and we go the extra mile to help others in need. All of this is an outpouring of the
resurrection of Jesus and an imaginative expression of our own resurrections
which are coming on the Day of the Lord.
Today is our biggest day. Nothing matters more for Christ followers
than Easter. Douglas Groothius writes,
“Without there is no Christianity.”[ii] For the rest of the world, the 4 billion or
so people who do not believe Jesus rose from the dead, today is not a big
deal. More cards are sent at Christmas
and on Valentine’s Day. A bigger deal is
made of anniversaries and of New Year’s Eve.
Easter passes almost unnoticed.
Our job is not to prove that Jesus really rose. The argument can certainly be made, but it is
a fact of history whether people believe it or not.
Our job as His followers is to live the reality
of resurrection every day. In this way,
we show who Jesus is – the savior, the forgiver, the Lord. We point the way, and He draws the world to
himself. And regardless of how others
feel and regardless of whatever temporary setbacks we suffer, we know
resurrection is our permanent condition.
So we live imaginatively and we live in unending joy.
AMEN
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