YA Reflection
Easter Sunday 2010
Alleluia! He is risen!
The Good News is never old news. We think of the somberness of Holy Thursday and Good Friday—-it is a pretty melancholy scene until once again, faith bursts open the door to belief in the Resurrection. “The Lord has truly been raised…” Can you make this same declaration? What difference has the resurrection made in your own life?
Happy Easter to You!
~Marty Lucas
Jn 20:1-9
On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,
and we don’t know where they put him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his head,
not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.
Earlier this week, a woman was called into her supervisor’s office to hear that times are hard for the company and they had to let her go. Earlier this week, someone received terrible news from a physician. Earlier this week, an old couple received a phone call from their son who lives far away. The son said he was sorry, but he wouldn’t be able to come for a visit over the holidays after all. Someone else heard the words, “I have never loved you.” Earlier this week, someone’s hope was crucified. And the darkness is overwhelming.
“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark…” This is how our discovery of the risen Christ often begins—-in darkness. No one is ready to encounter Easter until he or she has spent time in darkness where hope cannot be seen. Easter is the last thing we are expecting. Easter Sunday is not really about bunnies and chicks, candy baskets, springtime, or girls in pretty, new pastel dresses. It’s about more hope than we can handle.
No one ever knew exactly what to expect of Jesus during his life, but clearly his disciples all had higher hopes for him than that he would be crucified. So when Mary Magdalene arrives at the tomb and discovers it empty she is startled and horrified. “They have taken the Lord from the tomb and we don’t know where they put him.” Then there seems to be more than a bit of running back and forth to the tomb. This is still what most of us disciples of Jesus do today when we think he is “missing”. We run around a lot.
Following Jesus is a never-ending process of losing him the moment we think we have him captured, only to discover him anew in an even more unmanageable form. Every expectation of Jesus is only another futile effort to get him back in the tomb, back to the way it was.
However, we cannot cling to the hope that Jesus will take us back there. The way out of the darkness, out of the tomb, is only by moving ahead. And the only person who can lead the way is Jesus, but not the old Jesus we once knew. Until we discover a new vision of Him, a Savior who has risen out of our disappointments, our failings, our shortcomings, we’ll never understand Easter. What any of the Gospel stories of the Resurrection really ask is not “Do you believe?” but “Have you encountered a risen Christ?“
After seeing a risen Jesus, we see that there is no normal. Now, we can’t even count on the darkness.