The Discontinuity of Resurrection

An Easter Sunday Sermon

Isaiah 65:17-19 & Luke 24:1-49

“He is risen!”

And this is indeed good news for all people today. But why is “resurrection” good news for all people? I mean it’s not necessarily Good News if Mussolini, or Stalin, or Hitler is resurrected. But as the late theologian Robert Jenson put it,

“Resurrection is not good news unless you know the name of the one who has been resurrected.”

What’s striking about our Gospel passage is that the resurrection of Jesus wasn’t at first received as “Good News”. It was no doubt a thing of great wonderment and amazement. But, as all the Gospels attest, it was also deeply troubling, confusing, and perplexing. People were afraid no less and struck down in terror at what was happening with Jesus. So troubling and terrifying was the prospect of Jesus’ resurrection, that rather than assume that Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, Joanna, and Cleopas and his Emmaus-bound friend were all speaking the truth, the disciples wouldn’t believe them. And they wouldn’t believe them, despite everything they had been told! Despite everything Jesus had said! They clearly didn’t want to believe. Crucifixion was so shameful; death was so final; who could or would want to come back from that? Could it really be “good news” that what happened on the Friday before the Sunday had somehow been undone?

Well, in fact, that’s not good news. The Good News about Easter is not that Good Friday has been undone.

Easter isn’t just a “happy ending” to what would have otherwise been a sad story.

Easter doesn’t address the problem of death.

Easter is not the promise that we won’t die.

Easter is not optimism.

Rather, the crucifixion and death of Jesus is itself Good News. As Tolkien put it, the death of Jesus is a “eucatastrophe”, that is, something catastrophically good has taken place on the Cross. Easter Sunday doesn’t undo this death, it vindicates it! Easter is the promise that we get to share in the death of Jesus daily. The Cross is the way that Jesus of Nazareth is lifted up and draws all things to Himself thus reversing the entropic spiral of God’s fallen creation. Easter is the vindication of that “failure” as glorification! The glorification of Jesus is not found in resurrection, it’s found on the Cross. We share in Jesus’ resurrection, not to avoid death, but so that we can die His death. It’s because Jesus is the resurrected one, that we can say with the Apostle in Philippians,

“I want to die with Him!”

To be conformed to the life of God is to share in the death of Christ.

My brother, who is not a Christian, usually sends me a text on Easter Sunday saying, “Happy Zombie-Jesus Day.” But I think his tongue-in-cheek irreverence is a misconception many faithful Christians actually believe. We say, “Jesus came back to life,” as though He was simply reanimated and went on with business as usual, as though the resurrection were simply just a resurrection of continuity.

I can remember way back when I was a wee whippersnapper in year three of primary school, we had several class pets; budgies, fish, and the most loved of all was the hamster. One day however, the hamster wasn’t there. We were told, lied to, that our beloved class hamster had simply “gone on holiday.” And much to our delight, the very next day, he was back, and though he looked slightly different, no further questions were asked. Some three weeks later, as we were tidying up the classroom, my friend Christopher found our beloved hamster living in a bin. But when he went to return him to his cage, he found that there was already a second, very similar looking hamster there. At which point our teacher made her confession, she had accidentally let the original hamster escape, and presuming him dead, had brought another almost identical one to spare her year three class the sorrow of losing their beloved class pet.

Sometimes, we fall prey to the misconception that something like this had happened to Jesus, that because He has been resurrected we will be spared the sorrow of death, that we essentially get out what we put in, that it’s “business as usual.” But that isn’t what has happened. With the resurrection of Jesus, something wildly new has occurred. Resurrection is not simply resuscitation; it’s not a case of getting back what you put in. It's not that the once dead Jesus has been granted perpetual youth. This is, as God says to Isaiah, a “new creation.” This is why St Paul asks the question of the Corinthians, “Fool, do you really think the resurrection body is the same as that which was sewn?” If all that we are promised in the resurrection is an otherwise happy ending, the same hamster turning up in a bin, then that falls way too short of the new creation, which is nothing less than the putting right of every wrong, and the renewal of all things.

The resurrected Christ is something completely, staggeringly new and dramatically different. Granted, appearances might be similar – there is some continuity, after all the risen Christ bears the wounds of the Crucified Christ - but something completely and utterly new has occurred in the resurrection of Jesus. It’s especially telling that Cleopas and his friend, and in John’s Gospel also Mary Magdalene, do not at first recognise the risen Jesus!

When a caterpillar, having accomplished what it needed to do and be as a caterpillar, entombs itself in a cocoon it doesn’t simply grow wings and re-emerge as a butterfly. It’s body completely breaks down and it effectively turns into soup; what it once was as a caterpillar ceases to exist. What emerges is something completely new. Again, there is some continuity, the same atoms and molecules are at play, but it is a radical and complete transformation. It’s not a perfect analogy, but what happens to Jesus is more akin to metamorphosis than simply coming back to life. Though he commands us to feast on his body and blood, Jesus is no zombie, and neither will we be.

And because, as Paul says, we are all “in Christ”; because everything that happens to Him is happening to us; because nothing happens to God, rather God happens to everything else; Easter is not simply a happy ending, it is nothing less then the putting right of every wrong and the renewal of all things. As Chris E.W. Green puts it:

“Resurrection is simply the effect God being God has on creation.”

When the women come to the tomb it’s at dawn, the sun is low, it’s still mostly dark. Resurrection has happened but the lights are not quite on yet, we can’t yet fully see it. This is the reality we live in today, the darkness just before the dawn. It can be hard to believe in resurrection when everything around us still seems so gloomy, when death still permeates every corner of our world. This side of death, we don’t yet see the whole picture. The promise of Easter is not “today may be dark, but things will get better”, as though the Christian life is just one of continual “improvement”. A friend of mine recently came to faith, and rather than getting better, his life completely fell apart. Again, Easter is not optimism. Optimism is a cheap artificial substitute for hope. Easter is however joy – joy unshakeable. The difference between mere happiness and joy, is that joy can be had even in the deepest darkness.

And that ultimately is what the promise of Good Friday and Easter gives us: the hope-filled joy of knowing that Christ has plumbed the deepest depths – Hell itself – and He has ascended to the highest heights. It’s not that God does one thing with his right hand and another with his left; as though crucifixion and resurrection are two opposites. They are not opposites. They are one and the same happening, one and the same embrace of creation. They are one movement in which God in Christ spans all things, and all of human experience, history, and existence is encompassed by Him. There is not one part of you and your life where he cannot be found, both in the valleys and on the mountaintop. And that is why, resurrection is Good News for all.

Amen.