Hoping in Resurrection

1 Corinthians 15:19-26

19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a human, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human, 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in its own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 

John 20:1-18

1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.

     11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, 12 and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew,“Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

Mary Magdalene alone came to the tomb on Easter morning.  Jesus told us that our love is proportional to our sense of having been forgiven, and she, having been forgiven what was unforgivable loved him more than did anyone else.  When she arrived there at the tomb, she seems to have panicked and, too fearful to investigate herself, she ran directly to the disciples - who were elsewhere - to tell them what she’d found.  Peter and an unnamed disciple - a euphemism for John himself - ran to the tomb.  John arrived first (and includes the little detail that he’s fast that Peter) but Peter was first to enter.   Upon entering and discovering the empty tomb, the other disciple “saw and believed”.  This would seem to be the moment to cue the triumphal music, to celebrate that Jesus is not dead but alive, to be filled with joy.  But not quite.  

The text incudes the statement that, “as yet they did to understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead”.  None of this made sense to them, and even the statement that the other disciple saw and believed reads like more of a retrospective insertion into the story, a way for him (or for those writing in his name) to paint himself in a more positive light.  For if he indeed saw and believed, why do he and Peter leave Mary there alone?  Why do they have nothing better to do but go home?   

Mary remained there weeping and, still apparently too afraid to enter, peers into the tomb to see two angels in white sitting where Jesus had been laid.  They asked why she was weeping, and she responds, apparently presuming that his body had been stolen by grave robbers, that she simply wanted to know where his body was.  That she’s speaking to angels doesn’t register, doesn’t reframe her concern.   And then she turns to face Jesus - except somehow she can’t recognize who he is.  Presumably is appearance has been somehow transformed, yet she also mistakes him for the gardener and makes to him the same plea to tell her where the body is, even as his resurrected body is immediately before her.  Jesus says her name, “Mary”, and then she’s able to recognize him.  

There is something reassuring in their fear and hesitancy, their inability to grasp the truth in front of them, the preoccupation with an obsolete question.  We are the people who, ostensibly, understand that the scriptures declare Jesus rose from the dead, and yet we too struggle to make sense of such a claim, to comprehend and how it could be possible - and even when do “see and believe”, we do so only in such a way that we fail to see its significance, returning to the familiar because we don’t know what else to do.   Those who first encountered the empty tomb struggled to believe what their eyes were telling them, and we who have not seen likewise struggle to believe and live in light of the truth we proclaim.  We too are like Mary, desperately seeking to address concerns that the resurrection renders irrelevant.

All of which is to say that the Gospels do not present the resurrection of Jesus as something that is easy to believe.  In fact, they portray ordinary people acting with the kind of incredulity that you might expect to accompany the suggestion that someone who died is actually alive.  So if we find ourselves doubting if in fact Jesus rose from the dead, if we remain skeptical of resurrection, life beyond the grave, and all that come with it, we find ourselves in good company.  

And yet, without this belief Christianity doesn’t really make any sense.   In the passage we read earlier, Paul writes to the Corinthians, some of whom - despite having converted to the faith and been active members of their communities - apparently did not believe that Jesus had been raised or that resurrection even existed a possibility.  It might seem strange to join this movement while denying its crucial belief, but then people are often incoherent.  

Paul is understandably distressed that such beliefs survive in the church, so states it plainly, emphatically: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”  If Christ has not been raised from the dead then we have no reason to believe that this was God’s Son, no reason to heed his teaching, nor, especially, to follow his example.  There is no other basis upon which we might claim that calling Jesus Lord is a good idea.  If Jesus has not been raised then the way of the cross is indeed foolishness, and we are fools for placing our hopes in a failed messiah.  

“But in fact,” Paul declares, “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.”  In the same way that the first flower portends the spring to come, Jesus’ own resurrection portends the resurrection to come of both the living and the dead.   Just as through one man, Adam, death entered the world, so through one man, Christ, has death been overcome.   The sin of the one is overcome through the righteousness of the other, God’s original intentions for creation, broken in the fall, are restored and even surpassed in the new creation.  Death - this thing which take to define life itself, which seems entirely natural - from dust you have come to dust you shall return - is revealed actually to be entirely unnatural, a temporary rupture in the cosmic order, for those made in God’s image were always meant to partake of God’s divine nature.  We were never meant to die, and indeed through Christ we never will.  

The redemptive vision presented here knows no limit.  While in this age of Adam we all toil under the power of sin and death - we all die - in the age of Christ we will all be made alive.  When Paul says “for as all die in Adam”, that “all” clearly means everyone, so consider what Paul might mean when he says, “so all will be made alive in Christ”.   If all means all in the first clause, might he actually mean all in the second as well?  Could he possibly mean anything else?  The Scriptures give us more than a little reason to hope that all people will be saved.  In fact, given that God desires the salvation of all, and given that not even death itself is an obstacle for God, then why would we hope for anything less?   Why would God not insure that, in the end, all is as God would have it be, without remainder?  

This vision, might seem a great distance from that initial Easter morning, but it is merely the reality of Christ’s resurrection taken to its logical endpoint.  And it might seem impossible that God could save everyone - that God could restore everything, make all things new - but then this is no more impossible than saving anyone at all.  The question is whether or not death can be overcome, and Easter declares a resounding. “YES!”.  All this might seem too extravagant to believe, but then it’s no more extravagant than believing than God raised Jesus from the dead.  

Of course, for modern people like ourselves, actually believing that Jesus rose from the dead - not figuratively, but his corporeal self was resurrected to new life - is kind of extravagant.  Those who first arrived at the empty tomb were people much more inclined to believe what they couldn’t adequately explain, and yet they couldn’t process what they found for the very simple reason that people don’t rise from the dead.  It does not exist in the realm of possibility.  Needless to say, we live in an age in which the resurrection of the dead - including of Jesus - has been ruled out.  And we don’t even have the chance to find an empty tomb.  Might we be those pitiable churchgoers who don’t believe in the resurrection?  

Except that what Paul says is that, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ” - not believed in Christ.  Perhaps this is mere semantics, but the word “hope” hits much differently.  We tend to think of belief as something more like knowledge, something arrived at through experience and investigation, subject to rational limits.  Our hopes, however, know no bounds, and even when they seem unrealistic - perhaps especially when they seem unrealistic - we hold them dear.  To hope is to live.  Even as Mary could not initially believe what she beheld, it had to be, at least in part, hope that led her there.  While belief remains indispensable to our vocabulary, we would do well - especially in this time and place - to emphasize that, to be Christian, is all about our hope - not just a belief that the tomb was empty, but the hope the we will rise as well - even that God will make all things new.  That might be hard to believe, but it sure is worth hoping.