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Resurrection?
Dawn comes and he is not there.
They have taken him! The first reaction from the disciples who had spent three years living with Jesus, listening to him, seeing him work his miracles. Only days before they had been told what was going to happen yet, even for them, it is too hard to believe.
Notably, it is the women who, particularly in Matthew's Gospel, are full of faith and recognise Jesus immediately, becoming his first witnesses..
Is it too hard to believe? Without faith, the resurrection is beyond belief.
Was Jesus not dead in the first place? Be certain he was dead: the Romans knew how to kill people and knew a dead body when they saw one.
Was the body stolen by other disciples, or even zealots planning to use the disappearance to further their cause? Remember the priests warned the Romans this could happen and guards were posted at the tomb. It was just not worth it to a Roman soldier to fail at his duty. It would cost him- his life, his family, his property.
Matthew's gospel suggests that the guards were bribed by the Priests to spead this story knowing it was a lie. And, being a lie, it could still not be proved.
Could the Jewish priests or Romans have taken the body themselves to stop the disciples from claiming the resurrection? Only if they has later displayed the body somewhere public to prove his death. Which has never been reported. That would have been the ideal solution; if Jesus had been just a man he would have been an overnight sensation, a martyr to the Jewish cause and 2000 years later we would have never heard of him.
Do the disciples see a ghost, a spirit, a shade? The people of this time will have had plenty of these types of experience.
But the Jesus the disciples meet over the next few days is none of these. The resurrection has happened. Jesus is transformed, has become more than he was. But he still walks the dusty roads, makes a fire and eats and drinks with his friends.
He is Jesus the Divine, the Second person of the Trinity, yet as the remaining wounds affirm, he is still Jesus the Nazarene.
That is his gift to us. Jesus didn’t leave his humanity behind like a sloughed skin. Like a rich kid slumming it, always knowing that Daddy would bail him out. He took it all; from childhood to adulthood, every experience he had. And at the last he took the accusations, the pain, the humiliation, the wounds. Jesus accepted the promise of death; accepted the aloneness of death, accepted the abandonment of death.
If you have ever been in distress, suffered loss or grief, there is nothing worse than the well meaning comment ‘I know how you feel’, when no-one does. At times like these it can be easy to accuse God of not caring or not being there for us. But Jesus has been there, without friends, without family, without his Father, under a death sentence and without hope.
We are living our lives, the lives that come from our need for independence and free will. When it's too hard Jesus won’t make it ‘go away’ but he will be there with you. Don’t ever think he doesn’t understand.
Don’t think that about his Father either. He had to stand by while we doubted, abused and killed his Son, and then through his Son’s sacrifice he forgave us, and forgives us and forgives us.
The resurrection is why we believe this.
Happy Easter
mairiegelling at 00:14:00 o'clock GMT Blog about this entry |
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Interesting read, Marie. Yes, He was resurrected. And yes, He knew how it felt to be insulted and abused. Boy did he know. And yes, it is insulting when somebody says that to us, b/c they don't really know b/c they haven't gone thru the same thing. But He knows, b/c He has gone thru things like we have. That is what is so comforting to me!
Thanks for the entry.
Krissy :)
http://journals.aol.com/fisherkristina/SometimesIThink -
Excellent entry!!
Thanks for visiting my journal last week. Looking forward to reading more of yours.
Much Love,
Mary
30/03/08 21:02
http://journals.aol.com/bgilm