April 11, 2004

The Beginnings of Resurrection Faith

Luke 24:1-12

Easter is a season of beginnings. It is the time when Christ was brought back forever from death to the life that has no ending. “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (Romans 6:9). It was the time not only when Christ was raised forever, but when those who are united with him by faith were brought to share in his unending life. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (I Peter 1:3).

In the New Testament world, however, bodily resurrection was a notion that many found difficult to digest. To those influenced by Greek philosophy it was not only absurd; it was repugnant. The material body was evil, subject to decay, and the sooner one escaped from it into the pure life of the eternal world, the better. Paul had people in the Corinthian church (not to mention others) who harbored such views. With Jews – or at least some of them, notably the sect of the Pharisees – bodily resurrection was an accepted article of faith – but at the end of the age ... not now.

It is easy, then, to see how Jesus’ most devoted followers should have been uncomprehending of his repeated statement that he would be killed “and on the third day rise again” (Luke 24:7). It is equally easy to see how, when they buried him in his tomb, they believed he would remain there until the last day. It is even more easy to understand how nonplussed they were when his tomb was found to be empty on the third day, and reports were circulating that he had been raised from the dead.

It is from this perspective that one approaches Luke 24:1-12. Looking back from this side of the resurrection it is hard to understand their sluggishness of perception, their total surprise, their absence of elation, and still more their tentativeness of response and sometimes downright skepticism and derision. But from the other side of the resurrection, their slow and questioning reaction is easier to understand when one tries to stand in their mental shoes.

When we approach the resurrection of Christ from their side, we may trace out the character of their progress as well as its pace. In so doing we find a series of features, gathering around specific foci, which constituted the steps by which they ascended successively from total absence of expectation, to considering Christ’s resurrection as a possibility, to laying foundations on which they would eventually build a full resurrection faith.

The beginning feature which set the process in motion was the empty tomb. “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body” (2-3). This was an indubitable fact. Of equal importance, and confirmatory of this fact, is the response of the women. “They were perplexed about this” (4). That is to say, this was not what they expected. Their simple expectation was that the body of Jesus would be where they had left it. Luke notes the care they had taken to observe where the body had been placed on Good Friday. “The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments” (Luke 23:55-56).

What all of this adds up to is that on Easter Day they returned to the tomb to complete the burial procedures left unfinished on Good Friday. In a word, they expected to find a body: not any body, but the body of Jesus. They did not expect that the body would be gone. They apparently had no apprehension that the body might have been stolen, though there is no mention of this. Nor did they fear that they might have forgotten which was the right tomb: they had taken care to note this, as Luke 23:55 implies. Above all, the last thing they expected was a resurrection. That idea was furthest from their minds. They were looking for one thing and one thing only – a dead Jesus.

Facts have to be explained. The women had no explanation. ‘Perplexity’ was their response. But there are some hints as to the direction in which the explanation was to be sought. To begin with, the full reading of Luke 24:3 in many of the best manuscripts (and translations) is: “they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus” (3). In short, was there something so different about him that death could not put an end to him? Again, in verse 12 (also present in many manuscripts though omitted from some translations. It is thoroughly Lucan in style) we have the report of the reaction of Peter, who, when he heard the women’s story, went to see for himself. What struck him was not merely that the tomb was empty; but that the grave clothes were still lying there by themselves. This amazed him as well it might. Even if Jesus had not really died – a wildly improbably suggestion in any case – but only appeared to have done so, would he simply have got up, dusted himself off, but left the linen cloths where they were? Though Peter probably could not have framed the thought, it looked as though the body of Jesus had vaporized, come ‘through’ the grave-clothes leaving them unscathed.

To put all this together: the tomb was empty, but it had been emptied in an odd way. There was no thought among the disciples of resurrection. But there was a fact which had to be explained: the empty tomb.

The narrative now takes a second step: from the empty tomb to the witness of the angels. What the two angels said to the women can be summed up swiftly in three statements. First, Jesus has risen (5). That being so, the women had come to the wrong place. You will not find living people in graves. Second, not only has Jesus risen: he should have done so. The angel then proceeds to remind them of the kind of Jesus they had known. He had spoken of himself as the Son of Man, a supernatural figure who came from heaven, and to whom God would give his kingdom: a kingdom what would last forever (Daniel 7:14). Not only so, but Jesus had told his followers while he was still in Galilee that “the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again” (7. Cf. Luke 18:33). Luke draws attention more than once to the failure of the disciples that Jesus would fulfill his divine mission in his suffering and death (Luke 9:44-5; 18:31-34). That is to say, resurrection is the kind of thing that should be expected to happen to a person like Jesus.

The third message of the angels to the women is the single, simple word: ‘Remember’. “Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee” (6). If they would go back and recollect his teaching, what he had said to them as they traveled with him, it would all make sense. In short, there was a consonance, a harmony, a coherence between who Jesus was and what he said; and there was a similar consonance between what he had said and what happened to him. Being raised from the dead was part of that consonance.

From Luke’s account in chapter 24:1-12 we are able finally to learn something of the roots of resurrection faith. Everything depended on how they interpreted the basic fact of the empty tomb. There appear to be been at least three activities that went into it. The first was remembering. The angelic messengers instructed them to ‘remember’ (6), and verse 8 shows that they did so: “Then they remembered his words.” Remembering involves more than recollection. It is possible to remember everything and understand nothing. Remembering in the sense intended here involves understanding. It is summed up perfectly in Jesus’ words to the pair traveling to Emmaus: “`Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures"”(26-27).

A second activity that went into the making of resurrection faith was witness (9). Even if what they said was only factual, and faltering (and derided, as verse 11 indicates), nothing would have happened had they not spoken what they had witnessed.

A third factor in the beginnings of resurrection faith was personal searching (12). Peter heard the report of the women, but he wanted to know first-hand. So he made for the tomb to see for himself and in doing so observed another fact that had to be explained. If he could not explain it at the time, it was not long before he could. “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!”(34).

The truth of the resurrection was not something that exploded in the faces and minds of the first witnesses. If we sometimes think it should have done, perhaps we should be grateful for the secure way in which they progressed: looking, reflecting, and interpreting. The resurrection, which we celebrate today, is not less secure but more so for the way in which, they came to believe it. With and because of them, we may confess that faith with them. “Christ is risen.” “He is risen indeed.” “Hallelujah!”