Tuesday, April 22, 2025

April 20, 2025 Easter Luke 24:1-12

 If there were a security camera in the tomb of Jesus at the resurrection I wonder what it would have shown?  Would it have been mostly hours and hours of just a corpse lying there before something happens?  (And from that perspective consider how absurd it would be!  Why would you put a security camera in the tomb of someone who was dead?  I suppose if the person had been buried with a lot of treasure, and you were hoping to catch some grave robbers, you might just do that.  Otherwise no.)

If there were a security camera there in Jesus’ case I imagine a great Monty Python sketch could be inspired by it.   They could create something where Jesus would be arrested for the resurrection.  The district attorney would say, “Jesus of Nazareth, we have security camera footage that proves beyond all reasonable doubt that you did not stay properly dead after being duly executed.  How do you plead?”  Of course it’s absurd, but we’ll come back to that later.

What would a security camera show?  Would it be Jesus waking up, taking off the wrappings, folding them and laying them to one side, pushing back the stone, and walking out of the tomb?  Or would the camera image be obliterated by a blinding flash of light from a great energy source and then reveal the grave cloths lying there and the tomb empty?  Perhaps the energy source would be so great that the camera itself would be destroyed.  Or perhaps there would be no blinding light, simply the disappearance of the body in a blink of time.  But if that’s the case, how was the stone moved aside?

Along those lines, was the stone rolled aside to let Jesus out, or to let the women in?  In the account of the resurrection in Matthew’s gospel the women see the stone rolled back, but Jesus is already gone.  How did he get out?  But that’s a different story.

In our age of fake news and social media distortions of just about everything, it is understandable that we want solid undeniable proof of something; especially something as outrageous as the claim that a man who was publicly executed does not have enough common courtesy to stay dead and in his tomb!  But the gospel writer Luke isn’t giving us the clear proof that we want.  In fact, Luke tells the resurrection story in a way that makes the whole thing all the more confusing.

Luke is an excellent storyteller.  If I were sitting around a campfire at night I’d want to hear Luke tell stories.  Unlike most people who start a story by giving you the background information you need for the story to make sense, Luke dives right into the action.  This often leaves us scratching our heads until sometime later when Luke gives us the background information.  That happens in today’s gospel reading.

We should note that what we read today actually begins in the middle of the story.  Not only does it begin with the middle of the story, it begins with the middle of a sentence!

Luke 24:1, where be began reading goes, “But on the first day of the week at early dawn, they came to the tomb carrying the spices that they had prepared.”  That’s the second half of the sentence.  The first half of the sentence is the final verse of Chapter 23, which we did not read.  That verse goes, “On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment, …but on the first day of the week….”

Okay, so maybe our gospel reading should have started earlier in the story.  But even if it had, Luke is still hanging on to many details we need.  For example, though we are mid-story Luke hasn’t told us who these women are and how many of them there are.  Luke will tell us who they are later on, but at this point we’re left to wonder.  We can’t picture the scene too crisply.  Is it two women?  Is it 32 women?

Whatever the case, this unnamed, unnumbered group of women come to the tomb and find the stone rolled away.  We’re familiar with that part of the Easter story so we’re probably okay with it.  But if we’d read earlier in the story we wouldn’t be okay with it!  You see, Luke hasn’t mentioned this stone before.  All he’s told us is that Jesus has been put into a tomb and the women saw it.  Only now do we find out about a stone being put across the opening.  And somehow – we’re not told how – it has rolled away from the entrance!

We’re also not told how the women felt about the stone’s movement.  Apparently they feel confident enough to venture inside.  That may make us scratch our heads.  Tombs are very small things – they’re incredibly cramped.  But somehow this group of women of unknown number has gotten inside.  And then, suddenly, two men appear in the tomb with them!  We the readers are left to wonder, “How big is this tomb that all these people can fit inside?” 

Among the many things Luke isn’t telling us is who these two men are.  We’re just told they’re dressed in dazzling clothes.  That’s a clue though.  You’ll remember that two men in dazzling clothes also appear at the Transfiguration.  They’re Moses and Elijah.  Also, later on two men will appear to the disciples at Jesus’ ascension.  Luke doesn’t tell us clearly, but it’s safe to say he wants us to think these are the same two men all along.

The women are understandably terrified.  It’s creepy enough being in a tomb, let alone having two men in dazzling apparel suddenly appear!  The men ask, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”

It’s as if the two men are teasing the women for being there.  That’s not fair!  Exactly how were the women supposed to have anticipated Jesus not being there?  They saw him die and be buried, after all.

            You could say that they should have known because of what Jesus had taught them beforehand.  In fact the next sentence from the men suggests that answer.  The men say, “Remember how he told you, 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.”

            There’s a problem with that though.  That’s not an entirely accurate statement.  You have to be picky here, but unlike the other gospels, in Luke Jesus never actually predicts to his disciples that he will be crucified.  He did indeed tell them that he would handed over to sinners, and be killed, and on the third day rise.  But he never actually tells them he will die by crucifixion.  That’s significant for how Luke wants us to understand the reactions of the women and later the disciples.

            In those days Jews believed that being crucified was a sign that that person was cursed by God.  Jesus’ crucifixion takes his followers completely by surprise because not only is their leader dead, in their understanding he must have also been cursed by God.  Clearly they had put their trust in the wrong man.

            So then the resurrection comes as an even bigger surprise to them.  Luke tells us though that the women did then remember Jesus’ words.  They returned from the tomb and told all of this to the eleven remaining disciples. 

Only now does Luke give us the names of some of the women who were there.  He never does tell us how many there were though.  It’s an odd move for a storyteller, but the disjointedness of the story and the uncertainty Luke has been creating in our minds all through this is part of the confusion he wants us to feel about the whole situation.

The disciples do not believe the women.  We can understand why.  Our English translations tell us the disciples thought the women’s words were an idle tale.  But the English word “idle” is perhaps not a good choice for translation.  The Greek word there is a technical medical term that means “delirium”.  The disciples dismiss the women’s message because they think the women are delirious.  We can understand why the disciples thought that.  Think of what the women have told them: a stone that somehow rolled back of its own accord, two men in dazzling apparel who suddenly appear in a tomb, a body that was clearly laid there that has somehow disappeared without a trace, and yet the linen wrappings are left there in an orderly way.  And of course, where is Jesus!?!

All of this gives us a resurrection story for Easter Sunday that is weird.  Keep in mind that Luke is an excellent storyteller.  If the story feels disjointed and weird it is because Luke crafted it to feel that way.  We know the resurrection story from the other gospels.  We might easily smooth over all the weirdness and never even realize it.  But I think it is important to realize what Luke has done.  It’s for a purpose that we don’t want to miss.

We want to have clear, high quality security camera proof of Jesus’ resurrection.  We want it to be crisp, solid, and well defined.  We tell ourselves that having that would strengthen our faith when we have doubts and uncertainties.  But the truth is that a life of faith seldom fits into crisp, solid, and well-defined actions.  Is that God playing games with us?  Why can’t God give us what our faith needs?

Because that is not the nature of faith; especially faith in the resurrection.  Faith in the resurrection can never fit into crisp, solid, well-defined things.  Resurrection itself does not.

 I raised earlier the ridiculous idea that Monty Python could have done a comedy sketch about Jesus being criminally charged for not staying properly dead.  That’s just it.  When death is not the end where are the rules?  What are the boundaries?  What is failure?  What is success? 

How do you punish someone who’s been executed but won’t stay dead?  You certainly can’t sentence them to death again.  They’d just come back?  And if you can’t keep them dead, then you can hardly expect prison or house arrest to do anything at all!

You see, the resurrection upends everything we count on in life.  It just doesn’t fit.  It is absolutely wonderful, yes.  But by its very nature, its reality cannot be clearly defined.  Luke’s inconsistent, confusing, and quirky way of telling the story of the resurrection reflects its very reality: wonderful but undefinable by any means we can understand.

I think C.S. Lewis captures a bit of this in the final paragraph of the final book of the Chronicles of Narnia series.  If you’ve never read the series I hope I don’t spoil it for you by saying that at the very end of the very last book everyone dies.  Then Lewis concludes, “But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”

That is the great yet undefinable promise that we are given in Christ’s resurrection.

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