The Trouble with Jesus
by Constance Hastings
Gather Your People
Somehow, these did. Moving through an emotional fog which they knew would never disappear, the eleven disciples gathered, or rather they cowered, afraid for their lives. Still, they had a strange need to be with each other because they shared an intimate understanding of Jesus. Each had been called out of ordinary lives to be taught by their Master. If only in collective memory, by being together they could keep that part of him with them.
Likewise, the women followers did the same. Sabbath rest had ended, but no one slept. The horror of that Friday kept their vision full of Jesus’ blood and cries. The burial happened late in the day when there was no time to honor and anoint him one more time in death, what they knew would be their last act of love for him. With slim faith and less hope, they made their way to the tomb where they had seen him laid. If the Roman guards kept them away or if the huge stone blocking it proved immovable, at least they tried. Anything to help them feel in the end they had not completely abandoned him.
Let the Inexplicable Be Said
In the dim morning light, they may not have trusted at first what they saw. The heavy boulder which had sealed his burial tomb was off to the side. Inside there was nothing, no body, no indication of entombment. Their thoughts confused. No plausible explanation presented itself.
Into their consciousness appeared two men whose apparel was beyond white, clean, emanating a light not seen but moving. The women, knowing they were in an otherworldly presence, fell to their knees.
Step Back to Remember
Get some perspective with what’s going on. It had happened before. Late one night more than thirty years ago, a celestial messenger had entered human awareness announcing Jesus’ birth. The recipients that time were shepherds, of similar status as these women, poor maybe, without power, only meant to serve and take care of those who controlled their lives. “For unto you is born this day…a Savior,” the sheep keepers were told.
Now, when his story seemed over, once again these women had a message just as amazing, “Don’t be afraid! You are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He’s been raised from the dead.” Both terrified and beside themselves in joy, they hurried to tell the disciples when Jesus materialized on their path. Beyond thought and astonishment, they fell and held his feet in adoration and wonder.
The shepherds and the women were told the same thing: God is controlling this. While the message was beyond any they could have thought of or even imagined, the import of it was even greater. The promised Messiah had come, and what the Messiah had promised has now come true as well. The worst of all fear has been defeated. Death holds no sting.
As the shepherds ran to Bethlehem to find the baby lying in a manger, the women rushed to find the disciples. The good news both carried was not altogether believed. Those whom the shepherds told “wondered” at their story. Mary Magdalene and the other women were dismissed as speaking nonsense.
Be Amazed
Why does Jesus’ good news, the announcement of his birth as well as his resurrection, come first to those who are not considered the ones-in-the-know, the movers and shakers, the influencers of world and culture, the good people who do the right things? If knowing Jesus is knowing God, why doesn’t God tell first those who could do something about it and aid in its dissemination?
Jesus had told them almost near the start: “God blesses those…who realize their need for him, those who mourn, those who are gentle and lowly, those who are hungry and thirsty for justice, those who are merciful, those whose hearts are pure, those who work for peace, those who are persecuted because they live for God.” He describes those who are perceived as poor, wounded and powerless as blessed, bringing joy to God. Who more so would receive and accept a message based in reversal, a turning around not necessarily of fortune but from a self-centered desire based in autonomy to an acceptance of a life based in love of God and neighbor?
Reverse What You’ve Known
What better way then to seal the deal? The finality of death was reversed to life that will not end as Jesus faced down death to come back to life again. In other words, the worst that the world could know, what Jesus knew by giving his life on a cross, is not how life ends.
So again, this Easter, how do you get out of bed in the morning when your whole day will be shrouded in darkness? How do you rise when grief sinks deep into your soul? Why should you open your eyes to a pain that shouts an absence of hope? Like Peter, do you want to believe but are not yet certain what Jesus’ death and resurrection might mean for you? Can you move forward into this day forward your own miserable faults and the heaviness of the world upon you?
Choose to Fully Wonder
Wonder how God did such an unbelievable, implausible thing as coming to the world in the flesh, as one who could be known, heard, spoken to face to face. No god does this sort of thing.
Be surprised that God knows who needs this message of good news, the poor who see no hope in their future and those who live poorly by what the world has done to them and by what they do to others. They are no different from shepherds or women regulated to lives of servitude or the Peters who never seem to get it right. No god does this sort of thing.
Most of all, be awed that God reversed what is the most devastating part of this life we live, the inevitability of death, physically, emotionally, spiritually. No god does this sort of thing.
No god that is except God in Jesus, risen from the dead!
Christ is Risen. Christ is Risen Indeed.
Matthew 28:1-10
