Each gospel brings out a different view and perspective of the resurrection. Luke’s emphasis is on more everything is different now that Christ is risen, about how the world changed overnight, and how the news of that change went out from the disciples.
The moment was like the first time a deaf person is able to hear after a cochlear implant, or a colorblind person sees color for the first time. Or even something traumatic, like a car accident, or sprinting down a hall in the dark and hitting a new checkin desk at a full sprint. Everything changes in an instant, and it takes a moment to understand that the world will never be the same.
The group of women who made the first discovery were heading out after Sabbath in order to prepare the body in ways that there was not time for after the crucifixion. What they found confused them.
Sometimes the search for Jesus is confusing and elusive. But that’s because he is a person, not a doctrine. Meeting Jesus is more like a conversation, a relationship, then it is a set of rules, beliefs and rituals. We are seeking a living, breathing, resurrected Savior.
These women knew the living, breathing Jesus, but even after all that time they did not know the fullness of Who he really was and what He came to offer. Jesus can be confusing, and in response we all tend to create imagined Jesuses in our own image. To the extent that confusion can lead us away from those mistaken perspectives, that confusion can be a good thing. Here, it certainly was – they thought Jesus was dead, but confusion eventually led them to the truth of His resurrection.
And then, suddenly they were met with two men in dazzling robes. They ask a question we can ask ourselves still – “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” We can do this easily – looking for the living Christ among the dead things of the world, in dead religion, in dead ritual, in dead culture.
But they also provide the way to address the women’s confusion – pointing back to the words of Christ Himself. That is always the answer.
The disciples respond with doubt and disbelief – Thomas gets the bad wrap, but he was certainly not alone. Peter, though, responds differently – leaping up and running to the tomb. This Peter, who had just denied that he even knew Jesus, must have seen some small opportunity to make right what he had broken. Like says that Peter “marveled” or “was amazed.” We can see an echo of this in both the hymn “Amazing Grace” and the life of its writer, John Newton.
The reality of this story continues to confuse and amaze, and we continue to have the opportunity to meet the risen Christ and watch the whole world change.
– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, April 4, 2021
