It was just about this time, many years ago, when a college student passed by me in the “good-sermon, preacher” line, and said “if the Resurrection were true, it seems weird that none of the stories about it line up.”
Frankly, she sounded a little skeptical.
Of course, there are differences (some trivial, some more substantial) between the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ slipping the bonds of death. But I told her that I’ve come to find this encouraging, because it would seem to imply that no “squad car backseat-conversations” took place. The surest sign of a lie, after all, is that the purported witnesses have to get their stories straight! By contrast, the resurrection of Jesus was so unprecedented, so shocking, that the vantage points and memories preserved by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are simply left to stand. The reader finds herself wordless, standing at the doorway of an empty tomb. As in, now it’s up to you.
Sitting in the hospital recently, waiting with others on a surgeon’s good news, I noticed again one of the details that is unique to John’s Gospel. John has Peter and an unnamed disciple (presumably John himself) rush to the Tomb after Mary Magdalene proclaims to them that Christ is raised. There, they find that Jesus’ grave-clothes have been left behind. The detail that feels reminiscent of Jesus telling bystanders to step up and free the resurrected Lazarus from his grave-wrappings, after Lazarus reemerges into the land of the living. He just doesn’t need them anymore, after all (John 11:44).
It leads me to wonder: in what ways are we still struggling to live in grave-clothes? Do we feel futile, or wonder that our lives are not adding up to what we thought they would or should? Are we worried about the future? Do we feel anxious about illness or death? There have been times I felt this way. Perhaps like me, from time to time you too are making do with living in an open grave.
But it is for freedom that Christ has set us free! (Galatians 5:1) Certainly we all age and we will all die. But the Easter message is that our Savior is the firstborn of the Resurrection! Because of this, death will have no lasting hold on us. Why should we accord it any power now?
So let us radiate Easter confidence and hope.
~ Pastor Dave
