Easter Sunday, March 31 2013
Acts 10:34, 37-43; Col 3:1-4; John 20:1-9
Happy Easter!
You’ve probably seen those great Renaissance paintings of Jesus stepping out of the tomb as the guards fall back in terror and awe. No such scene appears in the Gospels. Rather, what the Bible offers us in the way of evidence of the resurrection is two stories: the empty tomb, as in today’s Gospel, and the resurrection appearances, as recounted by Paul.
For us today, the empty tomb means that Jesus is not dead, but the first witnesses could not know that. The empty tomb alone isn’t strong evidence for anything. When the women—Mary Magdalene in today’s Gospel—find the tomb empty, they feel horror and dismay—as we would feel in their place.
Today we also know that Jesus was not resuscitated, that is, brought back from what used to be called dead. My husband was resuscitated. Almost four years ago, he suffered a cardiac arrest at a conference on Long Island. For no apparent reason his heart just stopped beating. For three or four minutes, he had no heartbeat. Fortunately, there were trained people with him and a defibrillator on the wall. His colleagues used it to resuscitate him, and he recovered completely. The bad news, of course, is that he still has to die some day. Nobody gets out of here alive.
The second major Easter story is of the resurrection appearances. They tell us that although Jesus died and was not resuscitated, he isn’t dead any more. He is alive, but in a different way, because he does not ever have to die again.
To me, it’s interesting to note who Jesus did not appear to. He could have appeared to Pontius Pilate and said, “Hi Pontius, remember me? I’m the troublemaker you thought Roman power could silence. But I’m back.” Or he could have appeared to the high priests and said, “Hi there, Annas and Caiphas, see! God raised me from the dead. He accepts me as His messiah, even if you didn’t. So much for your animal sacrifices and your wealth and your precious status.”
But Jesus did not appear to Pilate or the priests. Jesus was not about proving he was right or lording it over his opponents. He appeared to his scattered and disheartened disciples. They had put their trust in Jesus that God’s reign was breaking into history already now and is growing here. They trusted his message that God loves the little people who don’t count, and that the power of God’s love, peace, and justice is greater than the power of wealth, status, and armies. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Then they saw wealth, status, and Rome crush him, and they ran like scared chickens.
Atheists tell us that of all the unlikely beliefs in the Christian religion, the resurrection of Jesus is the most preposterous. People don’t rise from the dead. Now, every modern Christian has to decide whether they believe in the Easter appearances. I’m an engineer with degrees from three great universities and I believe, in part because it’s pretty clear that the disciples did back in the first century. People didn’t rise from the dead back then either. But seven weeks after Easter, those scared chicken disciples descended on Jerusalem like lions, unafraid of the temple priests and unafraid even of death. What happened to change the disciples were the resurrection appearances. They saw, heard, and touched living proof of God’s power in Jesus.
The resurrection appearances were for the sake of the disciples and for us. Jesus lives; that is God’s vindication of Jesus and his message. Easter gives us hope: that compassion will triumph over cruelty, that truth will triumph over lies, that justice will triumph over raw power, that peace will triumph over violence, and that life will triumph over death.