Capturing the surprise of the resurrection
Recall back to the last time that someone surprised you. What does surprise do to you? Some people love surprises; others similar surprises equally 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 practice adjacent. Even pleasant surprises, when unexpected, tin can throw us out of step.
I remember we tin can see the hallmarks of surprise all over the different gospel accounts of the resurrection—they haven't fifty-fifty bothered to necktie in all the details to requite 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 withal capture the sense of surprise. Not simply 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 run across—and Paul himself carrying this good news across the whole known earth.
It is all such an unexpected surprise. And so does Easter Dominicus take hold of you by surprise? As winter is followed past 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!' Every bit the seasons ringlet on, the church calendar helps us in many ways, but I wonder if in this regard it doesn't serve us well. Yous probably expected Easter Sunday, expected an Easter egg, expected to come to church and perhaps fifty-fifty expected to hear this reading.
Nevertheless the message of Easter is not (as David Cameron claimed a couple of years ago) about taking responsibleness, and hard-working families, and doing your duty—nor is it especially (every bit Jeremy Corbyn has just claimed) near welcoming refugees. Easter is near the unexpected thing that God does—that he surprises us with his grace. No-one was expecting this. No-one was expecting ane person to be raised from the dead, at present. Of grade, faithful Jews were looking for the resurrection of the dead—merely this was going to come at the terminate of the age, when (every bit Isaiah prophesied) the heavens and the globe were going to be wrapped upward like a worn-out garment, and there would be a new sky and a new globe—and the dead would be raised, and all would exist judged. That is what they were expected—just this, Jesus' resurrection, caught them completely by surprise.
It caught the women past surprise. In the narrative of John 20, the writer focusses on Mary Magdalene, but nosotros know she went to the tomb with the other women—no-ane would take gone to the tomb with the spices to gear up the body on their ain, in the nighttime (and note the tell-tale 'we don't know… in John xx.2). They needed to roll away the rock, 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 the states) had provided for him and his ministry building from their own means. These were the women who had non 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 fifty-fifty given the dignity of proper preparation for burial.
Merely the unexpected surprise was life in place of death. 'He is non here—he is risen!' He is no longer the broken, bloodied mangled and undignified body that y'all were expecting—he is alive! That was God'southward unexpected surprise.
It caught Peter and John by surprise. Peter and John, called to the tomb past Mary—what were they expecting? Peter and John—the first to be called by Jesus, to hear that word 'Come, follow me!', the showtime to get out their nets to follow him, the kickoff 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 offset to become 'fishers of men', the ones who, in this end-times sentence, were going to catch up God'south people and sort the skillful from the bad. Peter, the impulsive one, who always blurted out what others were thinking just dared not say out loud. John, the honey, the ane who leaned against Jesus at the meal to ask about his expose. They came to the tomb—expecting what? Expecting all their disappointment to be confirmed, for the final seal to be put on their despair. Maybe for Peter, to exist confronted with the event of his ain failure and betrayal. That's what they expected.
But the unexpected surprise was hope—non yet certainty, as John comments 'We had not yet understood the Scriptures we had not understood that this was foretold,' nosotros had not understood Jesus fifty-fifty though he told us at least three times that the Son of Man would be handed over—and yet on the third 24-hour interval would be raised again…as Paul adds 'according to the Scriptures…' And yet, they saw hope—they saw the cloths 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 material that had been wrapped around his caput was still in the place that his caput had been. This body had not been stolen! Information technology had been raised from expiry—there was promise; there was an answer to their thwarting and their despair.
And and then nosotros come to the story of Mary—the climax of this episode. Now at that place is lots of speculation about who Mary was, and what she had done, and her relationship with Jesus—all of information technology unfounded. This is in fact the longest business relationship of her in the gospels. But she had known Jesus' healing and deliverance; she had known his presence; she had known his bear on her life. Three times she laments his absenteeism. She runs dorsum 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, earlier she recognises him, she expresses her desperation at his absenteeism.
She longs for his presence—and that is the unexpected surprise. Jesus, in that location, nowadays, in front end of her. 'Don't concord on to me—considering I am going to be present with you, by the Spirit, in a style you practise not yet sympathise.
This is what they expected at the tomb: death, thwarting and desperation. And still God's unexpected surprise—his 'Boo!' to the first disciples—was life, hope and presence.
And why did they proceed telling this story—why tell it once again and again—why, when this kickoff generation were reaching the end of their lives, did John and the others write this down? Considering it is not but their story—it is our story besides. 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 and so—and he wants to do information technology again today. Christ is risen—he is risen indeed! Hallelujah!
This article began life as a sermon and a talk at an all-historic period service with illustrations involving gherkins, pickled onions and beetroot in 2015.
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