Reading: “He has risen.” Mark 16.6 (NIV)
In 1986, the famous painter
Andy Warhol was asked, by a bank in
If you read carefully through
the New Testament, read the gospels and the letters of Paul and the other
apostles, you will discover this – that there is a great pattern that unfolds.
In the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you find, of course, the record
of the life of Jesus, the story of the cross- and the wonderful account of the
event we sing of today – the resurrection. But in the epistles, what you find
is the unfolding significance of Jesus life, the significance of the cross, the
impact of the resurrection. In the gospels, just as we read this morning from
Mark – we have what happened itself – the events that took place when Jesus was
raised, in all its rawness and abundant life. It is strange, that as we open
the last chapters of the gospels, that we find that, actually the truth, the
wonder of what had happened was at first overlaid by many other things.
So it is, in Mark’s gospel, we see here in
these pages the immediate impact of what has happened.
Jesus of Nazareth, dying on a
cross in unspeakable circumstances. A man, the crowds in
We read there of the shock, the bereavement, the numbness of the disciples, those who had staked their lives on Jesus.
But read further on – and you will discover the sheer amazement, and
speechless wonder as the tomb where Jesus was laid is found to be empty.
At this
point in the gospel we see the first responses of those who had known Jesus,
all the gospels record this for us: in
Mark 16, for example, when the women Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James,
and Salome went to the garden, They found the stone rolled back, and
a young man sitting there who told them that Jesus is no longer there – that
they will meet Him in Galilee. Mark records their reaction – we read that they
shook with fear, they were bewildered, and
overwhelmed. What has happened, and what the young man has said to them – is at
that moment incomprehensible. Beyond their grasp.
And the same
is true when the women carry the news back to the disciples - incomprehension.
In Mark 9.10 – we read that
when Jesus spoke about all this, all this that would happen, but even there on
the calm slope of a mountainside, the disciples did not understand what He was
talking about and ‘they kept discussing the matter – as to what ‘rising from
the dead’ might mean.
As we read
the gospels at this point – what we find is reality. The reaction, the response
of men and women who meet
the risen Jesus ! As they
do so, we read in those hours and days......
of their fear,
and joy, doubt and worship – great sweeping emotions and reactions all running
into each other – as they meet the living Jesus.
The gospel
tells us
that when the
disciples met Jesus in
for some of them,
over a few moments in time, there was a moment of hesitation.
Mary, at the
garden tomb in John 20 doesn’t realise that the man she is speaking to is Jesus.
We read in
John 21 at the
Sorrow, hesitation, wonder, doubt, worship,
uncertainty, joy, what are we to make of these reactions and responses to
Jesus, risen from the dead ?
Well, perhaps a scientific word
will help us – the word ‘singularity’.
In many areas of science, scientists
study the things that occur again and
again, collect information, draw conclusions. Marine scientists study tides,
tidal flows, tidal dynamics, solar astronomers study patterns
of an eclipse or the sun spot cycles. These things have patterns, and happen
again and again.
But scientists struggle to
understand the beginning of the universe, because it happened only once. A single time. It is a
singularity. That out of the
nothingness that was
there before suddenly a particle appears – and explodes outwards as an entire
universe, measureless, magnificent, mysterious – the universe that surrounds us.
In those first few
moments
at the beginning, scientists are confronted with a happening that is on the very edge of our understanding, almost
beyond comprehension one that has happened only once. A
singularity, a single event, a single happening. And there is nothing
else to compare it with.
Perhaps this is a good way of describing
what has happened in the resurrection of Jesus, a singularity. A single event, a single happening, on the
very edge of our understanding, almost beyond comprehension, in which God’s
power, that same power that created the universe – is seen in the raising of
Jesus.
So, what we declare this Easter morning is
that the resurrection of Jesus is on a
scale, far greater perhaps than we might have ever thought or imagined.
Here, in the raising of Jesus
from the dead, the living God, has acted in life
giving power ………….
No wonder,
then, as we read in Mark’s gospel, Mary Magdalene, the other Mary and Salome
are afraid. No wonder we see such a range of emotions, and responses, such
bewilderment, such confusion, such joy in the gospels.
For this is
new ground, what has happened is too great a thing for these men and women to
grasp - at first.
For two
maybe three years now, they have seen the Lord speaking, eating, healing,
sailing in the fishing boats,
The women
have seen Him crucified, dead, laid in a tomb,
and now
this.........
an empty grave.
This is new
ground for them, and
as the stone was rolled away to reveal the new ground of an empty tomb, so this
is new ground for the world too,
new ground for
you and me, almost too great for us to grasp, almost too great for us to
comprehend.
This, that in Jesus
Christ God has changed life, our life.
new ground for
you and me, almost too great for us to grasp, almost too great for us to
comprehend.
All the
same, don’t we see something of how the disciples do begin to understand over
the following days and months and years of life, something of what has happened ?
The experience of
defeat and loss that they have known, over the past hours, as followers of
Jesus - that experience has been changed into one of victory. In the raising of
Jesus Christ from the dead, God has raised the hopes of these men and women,
their faith, and their very lives from the grave. The years ahead are now
filled, not with sadness and regret, crushing sorrow at the loss of Jesus, but
with joy, strength, courage in the presence of a
living Lord.
And this is God’s purpose for us too………
That our years be
filled, with strength, courage, joy, in the presence of the living Lord Jesus.
For now, Paul declares the risen Jesus Christ is the first to be raised
from the dead,
his new life is the first of a great harvest to come.............
Christ, as the letter to the Colossians says, as 1 Corinthians says,
- is the beginning for He is the first to be raised from the dead
there is a harvest to come of all those who will be raised like Him
Jesus has risen, and God's declaration is that we will too,
He has been raised that we might be raised too,
that we too will have a life like His,
that we shall be like Him, as Paul says,
you and I will be raised to life
to live, raised to life in God's presence
Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord Jesus has been raised from the dead, by
God's power,
And in Jesus, and in that fact, is all our hope this Easter Day,
Jesus has risen, and God's declaration is that we will too,
He has been raised that we might be raised too,
AMEN.