The Other Side of the Resurrection Event

Photo Source

Ah, the morning of the first day of the week. The Passover Seder is a memory. So is the unpleasant mob action which nearly spoiled the holiday. It is so frustrating when self-appointed prophets with charisma have to be “dealt with” so close to such a special family time. But the memory is fading as the festivities of the holy week continue to unfold with traditional correctness. Sunlight streams through the windows. Breakfast is ready.

I do not know any cuss words in Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, or Greek; but, honestly, I would like to have been on hand to hear the first ones to come from the High Priest’s mouth, when someone interrupted his scrambled eggs with the report that history had just turned against him. Even more, I would have loved to have seen the exchanged glances among some of the weekend’s professional rioters, when a breathless cohort burst through the door and spoiled their early morning wine with the words, “He’s gone!…or…back!!”

All in all the response of many may have been the second most pregnant “Oh oh” of history. The first happened somewhere in the arc of a tossed remnant of eaten fruit as it left sticky fingers and landed on hallowed ground. It is an “Oh oh” which repeats itself day after day, hour after hour, as souls slip into that hated Prophet's unwanted presence; and it will be replaced by the third and greatest “Oh oh,” in the first seconds of the Prophet's un-secret and un-meek return to claim full right to HIS-story as Son of God, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

However, amid the “Oh oh’s,” are many voices, scorned in their day but a triumphant host on that coming day, whose eyes brighten and hopes soar with an emphatic, “Ohhhhhhh YES!” at the message:

HE IS RISEN!

HE IS RISEN, INDEED! 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ALL FIRST-ROAD ARTICLES

See also: The Right Side of History / The Wrong Side of Prophecy

From Old Familiar to New Familiar

I try to imagine meeting a friend who has died: for example, in a favorite coffee shop. The emotional, rational and physical dynamics would be overwhelming. This helps me appreciate the struggle of the disciples at Easter and beyond. I can account for Mary’s failure to recognize him. As for the couple on the Emmausroad, it sounds like God hindered their ability to identify the stranger who walked beside them. 

However, I still wonder about the breakfast setting on the shores of the Galilee. After having interacted with Jesus for several days, the disciples approached his campfire and, as John describes it, no one dared ask who he was since they knew it was he. It seems as though, by this time, they should have become accustomed to the change from the bloodied mass of beaten and flayed flesh they saw hanging on the cross. He was whole again. By now, as well, they should have become familiar with the physical effects of being free from the horrendous task that lay ahead of him as he approached Jerusalem and Calvary.

The more I think about it, I believe there was something else about Jesus now – something especially important to us. His was not simply a body brought back to life. His was the flag ship of a new order in which a shadow of the familiar from this life is embodied in a new, unfamiliar, glorified, immortal body free of corruption and the defilement of the curse. The Apostle John would later tell us this difference drives our hope and willingness to change.

Dear friends, now we are children of God.

What we will be has not yet been made known.

But we know that,

when he appears,

we will be like him,

for we will see him as he is. 

(1 John 3:2-3)

• Previous: Forgiveness is Real

Forgiveness Is Real !

John 20:1-9

Resurrection Sunday is incomprehensible to pseudo-Christian philosophy. It must be understood as celebrating a real, physical, coming back from the dead to die no more, otherwise it is not a "Christian" statement of faith. Of course, this is absurd to modern  Sadducees who still seek to put an unbreakable seal on Jesus' tomb so they can move forward with their own agendas.

It is significant that Mary Magdalene is among the first to discover the empty tomb. It is significant that Peter would rush into the sepulcher to make sure his eyes saw what they saw. It is significant that John did not. For all three the issue which made this moment vital was the question, “Am I still in my sin?” It is a question about which modern Christian philosophers seem to be evolving the notion that the only sin is the sin of believing there is sin.

For all three the question was compelling because of their face-to-face encounter with Grace and Truth in their walk with Jesus. He did not minimalize their sin nor dismissed God’s wrath. In fact he was quite graphic about both. But he showed them that the God who judges sin is good to those who will seek him on his terms. For those moved by such a longing the word, “Forgiven,” will neither lose its charm nor become an excuse for embracing that which made forgiveness necessary. 

For others (even many who claim to believe the Scriptures), "Forgiven," is an embarrassment. It implies a guilt they do not want to admit and locks them into that guilt without resolution.

John, I believe, was beginning to put this together this morning long ago. The Lamb had come... Forgiveness could happen and it would open the door to authentic life. Life worth living for... and worth dying for. 

• Previous: Dark Saturday Service

• Next: From Old Familiar to New Familiar

Dark Saturday Service

I have thought churches which believe the Gospel should have a Dark Saturday service. It would be devoted to the desolation of the disciples. Why? Because we forget the enormity of what happened in their lives. In so doing, we have lost our grip on the enormity of what would have happened to us had there been no real, physical, immortal resurrection of the One in whom they placed their full trust.

The moment we entered the setting for the service we would abandon all idle chatter. Greetings would be solemn if at all. We would take our places in silence and sit (like we usually do anyway) in our own separate space apart from others. There would be no singing, no announcements (please, NO announcements), no welcome and no invitations to come again.

The speaker, if possible, would be one who recently lost a loved one through an accident or a short illness which took them quickly in the midst of robust activity. It would be especially worthwhile if there had been no chance for a last “good-bye.”

That may sound grim. My point is, from years of walking with folks through the valley of death, it is those from whom a loved one has been yanked away abruptly who have the best understanding of what the disciples would have felt immediately after Jesus’ crucifixion. They are the ones who speak most eloquently and most bluntly about the horror of loss and the absence of any feeling of hope. I say, “feeling,” because I have watched with awe as these same people, who have trusted Christ, can anchor themselves on revealed Truth in the midst of being jerked and thrown about by emotions of anger and despair beyond the comprehension of most who try to “comfort” them.   

• Previous: The Light of Wonder In the Valley of Horrors

• Next: Forgiveness is Real

The Light of Wonder in the Valley of Horrors

What must have been John’s mood through the horror of despair following Calvary? Was he, like the others, in the tangle of doubt and desolation growing from the soil of a battered faith based on inattentiveness? Worse, did he bear the additional burden of isolation?

If John was a kind of odd-man-out, sometimes rash young man with a philosophical bent, he may have known a lot about isolation. In the good days, efforts to interact may have been met with shaken heads, patronizing pats on the shoulder and condescending remarks like, “Ah, yes. There goes Johnny again.” Looking to Jesus requires wondering. For a youth, it can be a lonely life when lived among older and “wiser” pragmatists. But it must be unbearable when the one who has captured the young man’s wonder has been ripped away.

To whom could he turn now, in the bad days?

Peter? 

Nope. He would have been distracted by his own dark memories. 

No. John had no one who...

Wait!

What about Mary? She, too, was a wonderer. When Jesus put her in John’s care, did he also intended to put John in her care?

Can you see her kneel beside him and reminisce about the mysteries of Jesus’ birth? Did she ask questions to revive mysteries in his own memory? Questions about how the ministry of the prophet at the Jordan had appealed to his disenchantment with the High Priest’s circles of doubting Sadducees; and how the tangled philosophies of the Greek intelligencia had driven him back to his father’s fishing nets. Did they compare notes about “the Lamb of God thing”?

Maybe the reason John would stop short at the open door of an empty tomb in a few hours, letting Peter barge ahead, would be because he and Jesus’ Mom already realized there had to be an “ah ha” moment coming.

• Previous: The Mysterious Wonderer

• Next: Dark Saturday Service

The Mysterious Wonderer

I see wonder most deeply in John. A mysterious member of the Fellowship of the Lamb, he is usually found about two steps behind someone else (Andrew, Peter, and sometimes James). He is quoted directly only once, and is rebuked. I sense a disconnect in his relationship with the others in spite of being in Jesus’ inner circle – listed third.  

Perhaps Peter became an oasis for the upstart who, with his big brother, may have had a spirit of adolescent rashness. But even Peter may have struggled after the duo, with momma’s help, made a bid for the best seats in the Kingdom. Can you hear long, resentful silences on the hike to Jerusalem? When Jesus sent Peter and John to prepare the early Passover meal he may have had a restoration of friendship in mind.

In an atmosphere of resentment, do you suppose John felt self-conscious when Jesus motioned for him to recline beside him at the table that evening? When John wrote about this he described himself for the first time as "the disciple whom Jesus loved."

But there is more to the mystery. To consider it we must turn for a moment to Peter, sword in hand, in an orchard filled with soldiers whose spears glistened in the torch light.

Peter's commitment to lay down his life was not idle bravado. However his faith had settled on only one possible course of action. When Jesus chose a different course, Peter ran out of options. Disoriented, he backed among the nearest trees and there bumped into...John.

Was it his young protégé who encouraged him to follow the mob to the High Priest’s house? We discover the kid had access! The High Priest knew him! He even had pull with a guard. And hours later, Peter will have left the stage and John will stand, alone, with Jesus’mother, at the very foot of the cross.

• Previous: The Days of the Quest

• Next: The Light of Wonder In the Valley of Horrors

Unexpected Seekers

Jerusalem was crowded between the time of Jesus' tumultuous arrival and the beginning of Passover. Gentiles were welcome to observe the festivities; and their presence could be felt. Some were amused. Others were proselytes, hoping to be in the good graces of Israel’s God. Greeks in the crowd may have looked for opportunities to their own proselytizing. But among those Greeks was a group whose interest in Israel and Israel's God ran deeper. They had heard about the Messiah’s arrival and they toyed with the idea of meeting him. However, getting close to him would have been tricky. They needed what they did not have, someone with pull. Or...wait... maybe there was someone.

Although Philip had been with Jesus three years, it is likely Jesus had not nudged him away from his Greekified persona. That persona may have been a reason why Jesus singled him out at the beginning. There are people whom God moves to seek him; and there are those whom God prepares to help those seekers find him. 

Perhaps Philip saw them, too, and made his way toward them as they made their way toward him. When they met they said those words which have been sermon titles and pulpit plaques for centuries.

Sir, we would see Jesus.

This may have surprised Philip and would explain why he corralled the other disciple with a Greek name – Andrew - so the two of them could take the request to Jesus?

Did Jesus’ eyes widen? The request had a profound impact – kicking off an unexpected remark about something he called his “hour.”

Did Jesus meet the Greeks? We are not told. I suspect he did. I also wonder if that night, back on the Mount of Olives, Philip and Andrew, and maybe the philosophical John, compared notes and began to wonder again.

The twenty-fourth of a series of Monday-Wednesday-Friday devotional thoughts on the look of looking. 

These thoughts are drawn from John 12:20-23

• Previous: Politics and the Irrelevant Jesus

• Next: The Days of the Quest

Politics and the Irrelevant Jesus

At a wedding celebration in Cana the early disciples entered the miracle zone. At a gathering of friends on a Friday in Bethany they stumbled into the valley of horrors; but they did not really notice, even though Jesus had begun talking about the approaching unpleasantness for some time. 

Kingdom stuff – that was their agenda. The disciples were becoming political strategists. Some made their journey to Jerusalem awkward by putting in a bid for the best seats. By now their dreams were not unlike the fantasies of the crowds. If a king could feed multitudes from a boy’s lunch and satisfy thirst with wine made from water; surely utopia was just around the corner. 

Not all of them were romanticists. One who had been with them through many wonder-filled moments was much more practical. That may be why they made him their treasurer. It may also be why his complaint about waste, when Mary anointed Jesus with expensive perfume, became a group grumble. 

Judas took the high road, lobbying for the cause of the poor. No one guessed that the keeper of the bag was a cooker of the books. He seems to have had enough clout to neutralize Jesus’ desire to drive home the importance of his approaching death. The Master's aura of wonder seemed to fade. It would appear that, while the men talked about important matters, Mary had actually heard what Jesus had been telling them. 

This power to deceive through false charity would cling to Judas right up to his departure from their early Passover meal the night everything fell apart. It would also become a hallmark of many seekers of power who would kidnap the Church’s God-given ministry role to advance their own agenda of a politics of poverty. Nothing like politics to reduce Jesus from King to mascot.  

• Previous: Did You Ever Hear Someone Talking About You?

• Next: Unexpected Seekers