Editorial: It is True: The Lord has Risen . . .

Editorial: It is True: . . .

As the gospels present the story, . . .

. . . Christ’s resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday morning came as a complete surprise to his followers. And perhaps it might be more accurate to say that it came as a shock.  Obviously, they did not expect this to happen. They had buried Him in haste as the evening drew on, for at sundown the Passover would begin, a time when no burials were allowed.

The women returned to the grave early Sunday morning, with the intention of completing their preparations for His burial, not at all expecting to find the stone rolled back and the tomb empty. Mary Magdalen did not even recognize Him when He stood before her – she thought He was the caretaker. The Apostles reacted with disbelief to the women’s account of the empty tomb; Peter and John ran to see for themselves. The two disciples on the way to Emmaus believed that they were talking with a perfect stranger; they had not the slightest idea that this was the risen Christ. And Thomas the Apostle refused, for a whole week, to believe that He had indeed come back from the dead.

It’s easy for us to wonder at this surprise. We have heard the story of the resurrection so many times that we rather take it as a matter of course. After all, as we know, Christ had foretold that He would rise again on the third day. He had made it quite clear to His apostles, His disciples, and to anyone willing to listen, that He would be mocked and scourged and spat upon, that He would be put to death and would return living from the dead.

. . . The Lord has Risen . . .

Why then this disbelief, this surprise, this shock on the part of the people who were closest to Him for the three years of His public life? They had seen Him raise the dead to life, give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. They had seen Him walk on the water and turn water into wine. And they must have been particularly impressed at the spectacular raising of Lazarus, just a few days before His crucifixion.  Certainly, those present at His death and burial would have remembered these miracles; they would have recalled the evidence of His power over life and death.

The Gospels don’t tell us why they were surprised and shocked at something they should, we imagine, have expected.  One would think that, after what they had seen and heard during those three years with Him; they would have looked forward, with joyful anticipation, to His rising from the dead.

But these followers of Christ, we must remember, were people of their time.  They lived in an obscure outpost of the Roman empire, and their ancestors had been waiting for centuries for the Messiah to come and redeem them.  Christ had proclaimed Himself to be that Messiah, performing one miracle after another to convince them that He was the Chosen One of God.

They accepted Him wholeheartedly as the promised Redeemer.

They were looking forward to the kingdom that He would establish. But, as people of their time, they were looking for an earthly kingdom, with their Messiah as a great and powerful conqueror, one who would return them to the glories of the kingdom of David and Solomon.

Their Faith Returned To Them

And it is not too difficult to imagine that, even as He hung dying on the cross, they were awaiting some great miracle whereby He would come down from the cross in a blaze of glory, dumbfound His enemies, and lead His followers in triumph into the city of Jerusalem. They could not accept the notion of a Messiah who was crucified, not even one who would die in order to open for us the gates of heaven. His death, when it came, was the death of their hopes, and His burial was the burial of their
Messianic expectations.

But their faith returns to them. Deeper and stronger and ever-growing, after they saw that He was truly risen from the dead. It continues to grow until, with the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And it impels them to follow the command of Christ; “Preach the gospel to every creature.”

It is a faith that we share with them and with the entire People of God, a faith that, with the grace of God, will last through all adversity until we rise with Christ at His second coming among us: “Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.”