There are several different accounts of the resurrection, and they don’t exactly agree with each other. But let’s say you’ve been part of a movement you thought would change the world, and then the government executes your leader, and then the body is missing.
You might be a little upset. Maybe you don’t always tell the story the same way.
Then people are telling the story to each other for a couple of decades in various communities until someone decides to write it down.
Some of the details may not match up. But the broader story is largely the same.
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
Every culture has its rituals for the dead. Some more elaborate than others.
The Jews had – and have – their own practices. But they usually cannot be carried out on the Sabbath day, which begins at sundown.
So on what we would call Friday, at sundown, no more work could be done, including anointing the body of Jesus with spices. At sundown on what we would call Saturday, the Sabbath was over, but it was probably not a good idea for the women to travel to the tomb at night.
So their first opportunity to bring the spices was on what we would call Sunday morning, as the sun rose. And somehow, in that perhaps day and a half, the body has gone missing.
The reading says
they were perplexed about this
– Luke 24:4a, NRSVue
That’s understandable.
It should not have been moved by a practicing Jew, as they should not have moved him, unless they had done it overnight.
When you’re grieving someone important to you, something like this is going to be especially difficult.
But then
suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.
– Luke 24:4a, NRSVue
My brain would be overloaded at this point. There’s just too much. But these women come to realize that Jesus has been resurrected.
Now if you were at the 6:30 AM service, you know that Mary of Magdala went back to tell Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved.
In this reading, Mary of Magdala, Joanna mother of James, and the other women go back, and they tell all of the eleven (the twelve minus Judas), and all the rest. There are a lot more people involved here.
At the 6:30 AM service Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved run to the tomb.
In this story it’s only Peter, because the rest of the disciples think the women are telling a story, a fantasy, a fiction.
In the coming weeks we will have readings where Jesus appears to the disciples in the upper room, or on the road, or on the shore of the lake. And in these cases the disciples are unsure whether it’s really Jesus, or don’t recognize him at all.
The women don’t realize what happened with Jesus’ body until they are reminded.
The disciples don’t believe what the women told them.
The disciples don’t believe it’s Jesus walking with them.
There’s a pattern here.
Something unbelievable has happened, and they don’t believe it. Well, if not unbelievable, at least unexpected.
This is a problem for us as well: we can have unexpected experiences and not see them for what they are, especially when we are grieving, or fearful, or hurting.
We don’t see Jesus in our regular encounters.
Now I don’t mean we personally run into corporeal Jesus, either the blond-haired blue-eyed Jesus with the Roman nose or the darker-skinned Jesus with the nappy hair. But we will encounter Jesus in those who live out his teachings of loving neighbor as self, and even loving enemies.
We will also encounter Jesus in people who are in need, as he said the way we treat the least powerful is the way we treat him.
I know it’s hard to see the good in times of trouble.
At night – at least away from the electric light of the city – it can get very dark. But as our eyes adjust to the darkness, on a clear night we can see more light than we expect as stars and the milky way come into view.
The light breaks through the darkness.
So my challenge to all of us is to look for Jesus:
Look for Jesus is those bright points of light in the good others do.
Look for Jesus in the opportunities we have to serve those in need.
Because the resurrection is not just about one empty tomb two thousand years ago.
It’s about the hope of Jesus coming back to life in times where it seems all hope is lost.
Amen.
Let’s sing NCH 461 Let Us Hope when Hope Seems Hopeless
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
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