On this day everything changed, and everything changed because of what God had been doing on Friday when it looked as though things couldn’t get darker, and on what God did on this day. But at first it was a day of confusion. Some of the faithful women followers of Jesus had gone to the tomb with spices they had prepared, but the stone had been rolled away! Then an angel appeared to them saying that Jesus has risen. Yes, he had said something about that hadn’t he, but at the time it made no sense. Yet he was the tomb empty. So they ran off to tell the other disciples. Peter and John went to the tomb and Peter ran in, and yes the tomb was empty. A little later Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene. She thought someone had taken the body of Jesus away, she had just wanted to mourn. Then Jesus revealed himself to her. He was alive! In the evening the disciples were in a room behind locked doors, full of fear and now of confusion. What was going on? Then Jesus appeared to them as well, locked doors being no obstacle to him. Jesus was indeed a live!
Imagine what Pilate was thinking, I thought I’d solved that problem. So he sought out the guards for an explanation. Would there be riots? Actually there weren’t any riots because of this, but a revolution had indeed begun, one which would before too long envelop the Roman empire.
What about the priests? Problem solved, or so they thought. But now? If we only we could produce the body we could squash this nonsense. But there is no dead body, all we have is an empty tomb. It was there days that were now numbered.
Resurrections don’t happen, or so the sceptics say. In a sense they are right. The resurrection of Jesus was a unique event, it had never happened before, it has not happened again. Yes, one or two people have come back from the dead, but just to continue life as before and then to die again later. This was different. Jesus was still Jesus, he had a body, but it was different, and he would never die again. How can this happen? Let me reply with another question, how can the universe happen? God did it. Once there was nothing, then there was a universe. Jesus was dead, but God raised him from death. One day we will die, but God will raise us from death in the same way that he raised Jesus from death. One day the resurrection will not be a unique event, but one repeated millions of times over.
But what about now? Do we just wait for that day? No! The disciples needed to be convinced of the resurrection, and Jesus gave them many convincing signs. This was no illusion, no matter of wishful thinking, no conspiracy story. Then the disciples had work to do. They had new life to live, starting to live life as we were always meant to live life, in relationship with God. We are forgiven, we are cleansed, a work of transformation has begun in our lives, and we have work to do. Work done in partnership with the risen Lord.
He is risen and that is good news!
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