Jesus’ resurrection
Rev Indrea Alexander
Acts 2: 14a, 22 – 32; 1 Peter 1: 3 - 9; John 20: 19 – 31
One of the strongest pieces of evidence for Jesus’ resurrection is the transformation in the disciples. Cowed and dispirited disciples who in a hellish week had seen their loved teacher and friend arrested, tortured, killed, buried. Disciples who had scattered into the night of fear - suddenly, magnificently transformed into outspoken witnesses.
The gospel accounts tell us of them encountering the risen Lord outside an empty tomb, suddenly among them in a locked room, recognised over bread broken in Emmaus, BBQing on a beach when they come in from fishing. And they share these experiences with each other in tremendous excitement, hope and joy. And we only have some of these encounters recorded for us. As it says in today’s gospel reading, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name”.
The climax of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is the resurrection, and it is offered to us so we may believe and have life. This is the same gospel that we, as God’s church, are entrusted with to offer to others, so they also may believe and have life - children, teenagers, young adults, the middle aged, seniors. We are entrusted with good news for them, so they may believe and have life.
We are an Easter people, people who believe in new life and renewed life. People who have experienced new beginnings in our own lives through the power of Jesus Christ. People who have experienced the deep life-changing peace that Jesus breathed into his frightened friends in that locked room. And if that isn’t true for us yet, or isn’t true for us at present, it is the gift that Jesus offers afresh today. Joy and hope and an unbelievably deep peace in the face of all that life brings, through the power of the risen Lord Jesus.
“Peace be with you.” Jesus speaks words of peace, hope and liberation from fear to his friends that first Easter evening. He shows them the wounds of his crucifixion – his pierced hands and side, wounds of love. The disciples recognise him, and rejoice. When has God spoken such peace into your life? Breaking through sadness, hopelessness, despair? Perhaps it was spoken by someone on God’s behalf? Or maybe breathed straight into your life? Or maybe it is what you are seeking today.
Then Jesus speaks to them again - “Peace be with you”. He is preparing them for ministry, for when fear is overcome, a community is able to carry on the work of Jesus. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And he breaths the Holy Spirit upon them - empowering and emboldening them. Sometimes we, as individuals and as a church, become immobilised by fear. We don’t take initiatives because we fear they may fail. We don’t offer to pray for someone in case they take offence, or we fail to find the right words, or it just gets embarrassing. We don’t speak out about injustice in case we are a lone voice, or are dismissed as irrelevant or hypocrites.
But as we allow Jesus to breathe his Holy Spirit into all those fearful crevasses in our lives, we can live victoriously. Like Christians through the ages, we can echo the words of first Peter: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”
The gospel of John links the gift of the Holy Spirit directly to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The church is born directly out of the Resurrection and receives its power and commission on this Easter evening. But Thomas was absent. Others tell him “We have seen the Lord” but Thomas is a practical man. He knows the dead stay dead. He’s a see-it-for-himself man and he had not shared the experience.
What would the week have been like for Thomas after Jesus appeared to the others? Did he ask innumerable questions? Did he become infected by the joy and hope radiating from the other disciples? Did he have the grace to believe in their experience, or did he become more stubbornly entrenched in his position – unless it happens to me, I will not believe. A fairly typical human response!
A week later the disciples were again gathered behind shut doors. Perhaps they have become less fearful – because this time it doesn’t say the doors were locked. Jesus appears “Peace be with you.” Then he turns to Thomas – put your finger here and see my hands. Place your hand in my side. Jesus knew what evidence Thomas had claimed he needed before he could believe. “Do not doubt, but believe.” Thomas responds “My Lord and my God!” - the author shows Thomas, unlike the other disciples, acknowledging that Jesus is divine. My Lord and my God.
The disciples then carried the news of the resurrection into a world that knew that the dead stayed dead. They carried the news into a world much like ours today. A world that has its own frame of reference that cannot allow for something that comes from so far outside the square.
Theologians have grappled with the question of the resurrection in great big learned tomes.
Authors like CS Lewis have grappled in fiction with images of death and resurrection. In his classic work “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” the Christ-like Lion is killed on an ancient stone table to pay for someone else’s offence. But when his friends look for his body, the table is empty and broken in half. The Lion is alive, and explains that although the ancient law of justice was known, there was an unknown deeper law of love.
In the Harry Potter books, JK Rowling explores the power of love and death. While Harry was an infant, his parents were killed by the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, but the love that his mother had for him meant Harry miraculously survived, and Voldemort lost his evil power.
In Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”, the wizard Gandalf the Grey seemingly plummets to his death grappling with a fiery demon in the first movie. He unexpectedly reappears in the second movie, now as Gandalf the White. He is the same, but greatly changed. He has hurtled through infinity. He has passed through more than his middle-earth friends can begin to imagine. His reappearance does not fit within their understanding, but he is there, for a time, and they rejoice in his presence.
All sorts of people, not just authors, grapple with images of love, death and resurrection, because they still hold a power and a mystery that has not been resolved in 2000 years. Resurrection does not fit into the old frame of reference.
The gospel of John was written maybe 60 years after Jesus death and resurrection. It was written for a church consisting almost entirely of those who had not met Jesus before his death, nor in the 50 days between his resurrection and ascension to heaven. People who, like us, “have not seen, yet believe.” And as it says in the first letter of Peter: “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
Even Jesus’ closest friends - those who had spent the most time with him, heard the most teaching, seen the most of Jesus in action - had difficulty grasping who he was, and what that meant. But then they encountered the risen Christ.
The risen Christ continues to be present, seeking to be part of our lives today. Guiding, challenging, healing, comforting through his Holy Spirit.
And the work of Jesus continues through those who encounter and follow him today, empowered by his Holy Spirit. We are commissioned to share the Good News of Christ with others, so that they with us and with Thomas can respond to Jesus – “My Lord and my God!” So they, with us, can declare: “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!