Alleluia. Christ is risen.

 

‘Alleluia. Christ is risen.’
‘He is risen indeed. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.’

The Church professes that ‘For our sake he [Jesus] was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures’ (extract, the Nicene Creed). This I believe.

Sometime before dawn on the third day, Jesus rose from the dead, bringing to an end the old order of sin and death and ushering in the new order of love and life.

But I am moved by the gracious wisdom of the Church that says, ‘Do not attempt to take this truth in, in just a day: this truth must be met, again and again, over fifty days.’ The Season of Easter is ten days longer than Lent, ten days longer than Christmas and Epiphany combined, roughly twice as long as Advent. Fifty days.

In the gracious wisdom of the Church, Jesus does not even appear in person in the Gospel reading set for today, Luke 24.1-12. The women who return to the tomb to do the job of embalming Jesus’ corpse properly must trust in the evidence of the stone rolled away, the absence of a body, the testimony of two men (angels?) in dazzling clothes, and the words Jesus had said to prepare them for this day. And I love this, because is this not where we are, invited to trust on this evidence? Like the male apprentices, we must trust the witness of the women—or else reject their testimony as an idle tale.

Too often, the testimony of women is dismissed, their story silenced, by men and indeed by other women. Yet (and perhaps for this very reason) it is to women—to the very large group of his female apprentices—that God entrusts the good news of the mighty resurrection of his Son. For the foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of the world, and the weakness of God is more powerful than the world’s idea of strength.

If you find the resurrection disturbing, you are not alone. Indeed, it is disturbing, disrupting. But this is our hope: that the one who, in his body, is fully God and fully human has taken upon himself our life and our death that we might be joined to him in his death and his life, and that through him and with him and in him all things shall be made new.

‘Alleluia. Christ is risen.’
‘He is risen indeed. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.’