Finding Resurrected Life this Easter

On Sunday we are invited to join Mary Magdalene and the other Mary at the tomb. They had suffered the trauma of holy week. Jerusalem had become increasingly more hostile, and with it the intensification of fear and anxiety all mixed with hope. They had been there at the arrest, heard about the trial, and witnessed the horror of the crucifixion as the earth shook and the sky darkened. They were traumatised, and they came to the tomb to mourn. No herbs and spices in Matthew. They have come to be in their shock and grief. This is a place to take the ache of trauma.

We are invited to join them in all we have gone through over the last few years. Three years ago, we had walked holy week in our homes. And so much has happened since. This year there have been floods and cyclone Gabrielle here; earthquakes, war and more climate change disasters overseas. It is a lot.  And so we bring our trauma, our shock and grief from these last years and join Mary Magdalene and the other Mary at the tomb.

And we pray that like them we will learn that crucifixion and death is not the end. We are told, “but wait, there is more!”

In “Love Wins” Rob Bell talks about how for the Prophets and Jesus heaven was not another place we go to after we die, but the hope of what this world will be like in next age, when God’s will is completely done on earth as in heaven. Easter Sunday is the day we celebrate Christ’s resurrection, his defeat of death and all that crushes life. It is about hope and life for us all. In all the resurrection stories the risen Jesus meets his grieving disciples in all their mix of emotions, starting with Mary and the other women. Their world literally rocks, and they are filled with joy, expectation and fear. Jesus is risen and so are they. Their world and their lives are changed. They live resurrection.

Bell suggests that living resurrection involves imagining what the world will look like in the coming age (with the help of what the prophets and Jesus taught) and living to bring that to reality now.

We join the Mary’s at the tomb, with all our mix of emotions. We too are invited into the ongoing story to live resurrection lives. How have we met the risen Christ? How might we live resurrection?