Reading Luke Together #44 – He is Risen

Luke 24:1-12 is one of our four accounts of Easter morning. None of the four actually depict Jesus coming out of the tomb. He’s already gone. But where? John has him showing up in the garden to Mary, and then behind closed doors to the disciples – and later by the Sea of Galilee, where Matthew also reports his appearing. Luke’s stories to follow locate his appearances near Jerusalem.

What can all this mean? Did Jesus walk around the country? He was risen; his was a raised body, so evidently more spiritual than the bodies those bumping into him had. This is a mystery. But the disciples firmly believed he was risen, to the degree that they actually risked life and limb to persuade the world, not that they cherished his memory, but that he was out, on the loose, showing up any and everywhere.

I love Fitzmyer’s translation of verse 1: “At the crack of dawn they came to the tomb.” No Jesus, but angels. You’ve noticed I often hark back to Elie Wiesel’s remark that “If an angel ever says ‘Be not afraid,’ you’d better watch out: a big assignment is on the way.” Biblical angels most often deliver just that: big assignments. Their other role is being the first to proclaim good news; they are the heralds announcing how the world has changed. They were the ones who surprised Mary, Joseph and the shepherds that the Christ child was coming into the world. Now, like bookends, they close Luke’s narrative by meeting those looking for Jesus’ body and declaring “He is not here, he is risen.”

Luke alone names all the women who discovered the empty tomb. They’d been the funders of Jesus’ activities (Luke 8:1-3!), and now they are the first people to learn the news. And they tell the news. Women: the first evangelists! But, as Luke alone is a little embarrassed to tell us, “They did not believe the women, as their words seemed to them a idle tale.” But God will soon vindicate them and their story.

A big surprise for us, if we read the Bible carefully, and not presuming ahead of time we know what it’s going to say, is that the logic in all four Gospels, and when other New Testament books like Acts, Romans, Corinthians, and Colossians speak of Jesus being raised – the takeaway, the result of this isn’t So we get to go to heaven! Jesus was raised – so I get to live eternally? That’s true in a way. But the Bible logic surprisingly is Jesus was raised – so there’s forgiveness. And secondly, Jesus was raised, therefore Jesus is vindicated; he really is the One. And thirdly, Jesus was raised – so his followers have a ton of work to do! That we who take on this ton of work, and that we who are forgiven and forgive others, get to live eternally is the result of sticking very close to Jesus, so close that even death can’t separate us.

In our next installment, we’ll look at the impact this risen Christ has on the first folks who saw him, who were skeptics he had to win over. And then we’ll plunge into Acts, volume 2 of Luke’s story – and Acts is really the long continuation of the ongoing impact the risen Christ has for the weeks and years after Easter. Stay tuned…

{The photo at the top of this email is a photo I took inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, in which is housed Jesus’ grave. The open door, with sunlight streaming in, struck me as a powerful image of Jesus being up from the grave and out in the world.}