Jesus Lives!

Acts 10: 34-43. This thumbnail sketch of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus ends with the statement that all who believe in Jesus can be assured that their sins are forgiven. The main theme is the universal scope of Jesus’ life and mission (verse 34) even though his roots were in Israel (verse36)

Colossians 3: 1-4. Whilst we are assured of future glory in the future, Christians have to live in this world now. For believers, our true location is in God or “hidden in Christ”. This is not a doctrine of mindless euphoria, because this new status carries with it a new imperative. “Seek the things that are above” (verse 1), so the Christian community must live out our new “risen” status in practical terms.

John 20: 1-18. This is my favourite of the various different accounts of that first Easter morning because of its intensely personal nature. Mary Magdalene sees Jesus in the dark of the garden and doesn’t recognise him. I have always found it significant that recognition came when Jesus addresses her by name. Then she calls him teacher. When he stresses that he is yet to return to the Father she refers to him as Lord. We are not ever in this world going to discover exactly what happened. But the main point is that Christians believed something stupendous had happened. They believed that God had vindicated Jesus. The disciples were transformed, and the church was born. Can we share in their gladness and trust, and let the risen Christ transform our lives?

I will reflect on the meaning of the resurrection in this reflection.

I will draw on all the gospel accounts and St. Paul to do this, not just the account from John which recounts the meeting between Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the Garden, even while it is my favourite of all the accounts.

Let’s be frank. All the gospel accounts differ from each other and there are discrepancies both large and small, but whatever the historical accuracy  of the various accounts we get nowhere discussing whether they are all historically accurate or not.

To understand Easter Sunday we need to discover the meaning behind the resurrection rather than enter fruitless discussions as to whether there was one woman or three go to the tomb, whether there was one or two angels, or whether Jesus appeared only around Jerusalem as in Luke, or Galilee as in Matthew.

And to help us differentiate between historicity and meaning I’d like you to consider the parables of Jesus.

I have never talked with anyone who has ever been bothered about whether there really was a man who had two sons and one left and ended up working with pigs, or whether there really was a man who was attacked and robbed who was ignored by a priest but helped by a Samaritan. Their factual basis doesn’t affect one iota the fact that these parables contain TRUTH.

They are truth filled without necessarily being historical events.

By saying this I am not suggesting that the resurrection was not a historical event, only that the historical accuracy of what may or may not have happened is far less important than the meaning of what happened on Easter Sunday, which is why I invite us all to consider the resurrection in that light.

The three truths that are attested to by the Bible common to all the gospels and Paul are;

1.     Jesus lives

2.     Because Jesus lives it follows that Jesus is Lord

3.     Because Jesus lives and Jesus is Lord, this is seen as the beginning, the “firstfruit” of the general resurrection of all things known in the Old Testament as “The day of the Lord”.

The combined testimony of the gospels tell us that Jesus is alive and continues to be experienced but in a very different way and these things are still true for all of us and our experience of Jesus today.

 He is no longer confined to time and space.

He can journey with his followers without being recognised.

He can be experienced in different places at the same time.

He can vanish at the moment of recognition.

He can be experienced in the breaking of bread and

He will abide with his followers to the end of the age.

As we read in John’s version of events, our recognition of Jesus is very personal. Mary Magdalene only recognises Jesus when he addresses her by name – “Mary”.

The essential truth of “Jesus lives” is that Jesus is a figure of the present, not just the past and this is grounded in over 2000 years of Christian experience – and even if you haven’t experienced that Jesus says in the gospel.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe”

Because Jesus lives this leads us to our second affirmation that Jesus is Lord.

Because Jesus lives, God has said yes to Jesus and everything that he said about himself and his relationship with the Father is just as he said it was and so Jesus is Lord.

Interestingly when Mary Magdalene first recognizes Jesus she calls him “Teacher”. When Jesus then says he has to ascend to his Father she then refers to him as Lord.

It also says that God has vindicated all that Jesus said and the way he lived his life, and a giant No to the powers that put him to death. The Kingdom of God trumps all the oppressive and unjust systems of this world and affirms that they will never have the final word.

Jesus Lives and Jesus is Lord leads us to the final disclosure of reality articulated by Paul which is that the resurrection of Jesus is the first act – the first fruit as he says of the process that will eventually bring all things in the world together in God. The fervent hope that God will break into world history and start a giant clean-up of a violent and unjust world started with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

We cannot divorce Easter Sunday from Good Friday. To do so risks sentimentality and vacuity.

Easter is the reversal of Good Friday. We believe not in resurrection alone but death and resurrection.

This is true not only for all mortal life, not even just for every dark and bleak situation in life, from genocides to Pandemics.

It is essentially true for every human response to Jesus.

We also have to die to old ways of doing, and being and being re-born to a new way of seeing and doing.

This is the Christian WAY that results from uniting ourselves with Christ in his death and resurrection – a process that Paul equates with baptism into Christ. Immersion in water (the original way of baptising) represents death and resurrection.

That means that we move from being self-centred to being more God-centred, which for most of us is a livelong process. Paul calls this “Christ living in us” or through us, which involves us becoming more Christ-like.

Easter means that God’s great clean-up of the world has begun, but it won’t happen without us.

St. Augustine said “We, without God cannot, God without us, will not”

Just as we cannot separate Good Friday from Easter, we cannot separate either of them from Pentecost, when God’s Spirit inspires his followers to take up their cross, and follow him on the way that leads to life.

This is the Christian way – the way of personal transformation – based on Jesus Lives and Jesus is Lord.