Did it really happen?

What would it really mean for our world if Jesus had truly risen? Most biographies spend at most 10 pages on the death of the individual. The Gospels expend great detail to the death and the subsequent resurrection of Jesus. Note that there are no miracles occurring, no supernatural rescue attempts which were recorded. Did it really happen?

What has happened?

I would like to review the past Holy week: so we might be able to explain what this Easter thing, what this resurrection means – albeit what it means to you, I am not able to add.

His triumphant entry on Palm Sunday is one of irony: no white stallion and chariots here. A baby donkey, borrowed clothes draped as a makeshift saddle, the road lined with a procession of the lame, blind, children, peasants from Galilee and areas north of Jerusalem. This isn’t victory but a subversive entry into an enemy capital. I wonder what it might mean to Ukrainian Christians this year when they celebrate Easter? What significance Palm Sunday might mean to them?

Maundy Thursday

Jesus has a meal with the disciples and, mid-meal, stops everyone, gets up and starts to wash the feet of those around him. I wonder if he only washed the disciples feet but also of the women who were standing around, who had supported him for so long as well. Given that a Jewish slave wouldn’t stoop this low, but Jesus implores his followers to do likewise. We however, prefer to consider this foot washing an academic task, only once a year on Maundy Thursday. I wonder why?

This isn’t a plea, this is what Jesus asked of us as followers. To love one another as I have loved you – Jesus washed the feet of Judas. In this picture, above, whose feet is Jesus washing? Whose feet might we baulk at washing? In today’s society can we, will we metaphorically help wash the grime of life from another? It’s all part of the Easter Story. Did it really happen, for does it happen today?

Betrayal?

Jesus is betrayed – so it reads in the English, possibly not so in the original language – by one whose feet he has just washed. 

Jesus is present at his own trial and has been seemingly dictating its pace, progress and conclusion. He doesn’t request such a death. That is down to the society then present but he fully expects what is going to happen even if he dares to ask for an alternative ending. It’s inevitable.  I wonder what might happen to Jesus today?

Surely a God, as seen in the Hebrew Scriptures, one willing to let heads roll, topple enemies and remove nations, deliver people from their aggressors – the Jews from Egypt – could do so again?

Peter, the one who protested at the foot washing – wash all of me he shouts – then makes his public witness of Jesus and fails 3 times. 

The Jews stood by 2 criteria: honour and shame. There was no honour in Jesus’ death, just shame: naked, spat on, mocked and left to die.

Easter Morn

Then Easter Day, that morning when disciples thought that they’d tend to the body – they had no idea what was going to happen. 

What would it really mean for our world if Jesus had truly risen?

That Sunday, Easter gave a new sound to the news reels, the media broadcast, the scrolling of digital devices, a new note of hope and faith from the graveyard in Jerusalem. Can you hear it? Can we tell others of this new hope or did it really happen?

The first Christians staked everything on the Resurrection. Paul said : “If Christ has not been raised our faith is useless”. 

But look at the evidence in our Scriptures: If you wanted to fabricate it you’d not let (given the society back then):

The new Church in Antioch, where the followers were first called Christians,  would have faded away quickly if this were a conspiracy but it launched an exponential growth of followers across this world. Jesus could well have avoided all of this by just climbing down from the cross, as in his temptations story when he was asked to thrown himself down from the Temple and angels would then catch him.

His death was evil, but God didn’t abolish the fact of evil, he transformed it. 

Jesus Returns

Jesus returned to his followers with the scars of his death. We might dream of perfect bodies: the Quran teaches that we’d enter paradise at the age of 35 years.

Because of Easter those tears we’ve shed, the blows (physical and mental) we’ve received, the emotional pain, the heartache will become memories which though present will no longer hurt.

So how do our lives respond if Jesus really had truly risen, or did it really happen?

Do we keep it hidden, is it our secret or one we hold onto, or one that  transforms ourself and others?

And now what?

Think of situations in our lives where lives could be transformed, liberated, freed if they only knew of the love of God? Not pulled back by the pressures of society. I have been hearing of tales of people radically transformed after years of abuse where they seek to daily get in contact with God, where they are desperate to be freed from issues which hold then back, and their lives are so different now: physically, mentally and spiritually. They have hope. 

Does the love of God energise us, our conversations with those may struggle? Can we turn that spark into a flame, one that transforms the disciples into the creation of a new movement which covered the world? Through Jesus death and resurrection we have a new start, an Easter start, not once. Year but every day. 

In this resurrection, at Easter, we may wish to focus on the wonders of that day, but I’d encourage us to marvel, reflect and desperately seek what God can do in our lives and in the lives of other if we only allow? This is a key day of celebration but so it can be every day, for the resurrection is the key to everyday: of new life.