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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