It is early on Sunday morning, now the third day since Jesus’s unimaginably merciless loss of life on a Roman cross. Dawn has but to interrupt.
Jesus’s disciples had scattered on Thursday night time for worry of arrest. Then got here the information on Friday of Jesus’s trial, torture, and loss of life. By Saturday, the first followers of Jesus have been hiding in the higher room in Jerusalem the place that they had celebrated the Passover with their rabbi simply Thursday night. They are scared of the may of the Roman Empire, which brutally crushed their hopes in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, who had come to dwell amongst us. During these interminably lengthy hours, misplaced in grief, the shock of the actuality caught up with them. This was no nightmare from which they may awaken. Jesus was really useless.
There are well-established info that floor our Easter celebration in historical past. We know that there was a person named Jesus who developed a surprisingly persistent following in addition to we all know that Caesar Augustus dominated the Roman Empire when Jesus was born and that Tiberius Caesar was in cost by the time Jesus died. We have texts—by Roman and Jewish historians in addition to what we discover in the New Testament. We even have archeological proof testifying to all three of those historic individuals. And we all know Pontius Pilate in the similar approach: by way of historic paperwork that present he was positioned in his place as governor by Tiberius.
Pontius Pilate’s detachment in Jerusalem had already gotten far an excessive amount of expertise in crucifixion earlier than Jesus of Nazareth entered the metropolis with the crowds shouting “Hosanna.” Empowered by an offended mob calling for Jesus’s loss of life, Pontius Pilate ordered his troopers to publicly torture and kill him. Rome was expert at dealing loss of life to any risk to the approach issues work. Empires know methods to kill, steal, and destroy. The actuality we proclaim on Easter is that Jesus actually died. As our former presiding bishop Michael Curry succinctly acknowledged it, “The Dude was dead. That’s a fact.”
That the Jesus Movement continued for hundreds of years after his loss of life is what’s so extremely uncommon. So right here is the daring declare: Just as actual as his loss of life and the grave is the reality of Jesus’s bodily resurrection. I make this daring declare for his truly dying and his really bodily rising in mild of the historic proof that makes this plain.
More might be explored about what we do know and what we don’t, however a central reality is that there was this man, Jesus of Nazareth, who was seen by many as the hoped-for Messiah of the Israelites. In this, Jesus was not distinctive. At varied occasions, in varied locations, “Messiahs” have arisen. The greatest instance is Simon bar Kokba, who led a revolt towards Rome 100 years after Jesus’s crucifixion. But there have been many others.
Had Jesus been like several one in all the dozens of “Messiahs” hailed and adopted faithfully of their lifetimes, however forgotten after their deaths, his identify can be a mere footnote in historical past, recognized largely to specialists in the historical past of Israel and Palestine.
But one thing occurred on that Sunday following Jesus’s crucifixion and loss of life. That morning marks the hinge in human historical past.
John’s gospel tells us that on Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb of her rabbi, Jesus. Lost in grief, she travels to the place the place her Lord had been laid to relaxation. Finding the stone faraway from the entrance, Mary runs to Simon Peter and the beloved disciple. The two go along with Mary Magdalene to analyze the empty tomb. Seeing Jesus’s burial cloths mendacity on the floor, and the face fabric neatly folded, the beloved disciple sees and believes. The two disciples return to their properties. Mary stays.
She—who shall be so misunderstood by way of church historical past—has nowhere else to go. Jesus was the floor of her very being. First, he was put to loss of life, and now, even his physique has been taken from her. She is weeping inconsolably when angels ask her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” In her deep loss she finds the phrases, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
Then Mary turns and sees a person standing there. There is Jesus, standing in entrance of her, resurrected from the useless, by no means to die once more. Yet Mary feels no pleasure. She stays misplaced in her grief. She doesn’t acknowledge her Lord.
She nonetheless can not grasp the world-changing revelation of Jesus’s resurrection, though he’s standing in entrance of her. Then Jesus says her identify. That does it. Hearing her identify referred to as by Jesus, the mild of the glory of God floods in. Mary Magdalene will turn out to be the apostle to the apostles, bringing the Good News that life has conquered loss of life. She went out into the darkness of the night time solely to return illumined by the risen Jesus. She can confidently proclaim: “I have seen the Lord.”
The disciples proclaimed Jesus’s resurrection, not as a result of everybody anticipated this of the Messiah, however as a result of it was so life-changingly sudden that they couldn’t keep away from speaking about it. It would have been simpler if that they had simply claimed that Jesus’s message was nonetheless legitimate, that his educating ought to dwell on. That was adequate for the followers of the Buddha or Muhammed. But that isn’t what these first followers of Jesus claimed. They, fairly inconveniently, stated that Jesus was resurrected, by no means to die once more, and that they continued to expertise his presence by the energy of the Holy Spirit. As they spoke, they created new converts, whose experiences of Jesus matched their very own.
Jesus had at all times been about the work of changing hearts and minds somewhat than overthrowing an empire. Jesus by no means tried to determine a kingdom with out—with a military and a palace, like different would-be Messiahs. Jesus was establishing a kingdom inside. The occupying forces he sought to overhaul existed inside the human coronary heart. The Jesus Movement nonetheless exists as a result of Jesus’s followers nonetheless really feel his presence proper right here, proper now. That was the stunning reality his first followers found after Jesus’s resurrection and later ascension: He was nonetheless with them.
He remains to be right here. Now.
We routinely see how God is nonetheless touching hearts and minds in that very same approach right now. People’s lives proceed to be modified for the higher by the energy of the Holy Spirit in wonderful methods one can solely name a miracle.
If you’ve but to come back to that positive and sure data, in your individual life, come again to worship time and again. This is a spot of resurrection, the place love nonetheless conquers loss of life.
Here, you possibly can meet Jesus anew in worship, surrounded by individuals whose lives are simply as messy as yours. We have a positive and sure hope constructed on seeing God present up. Put your entire belief in Jesus and you’ll come to share in Mary Magdalene’s assured assertion: “I have seen the Lord.”
The Rt. Rev. Frank Logue is the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia. He was beforehand a member of the Executive Council of The Episcopal Church whereas serving as canon to the unusual in Georgia. He was additionally the church planter for King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland, Georgia.
