Every year
we Christians celebrate Holy Week and many people the season of Lent leading
into it as well. The commercial side of the world celebrates the eggs, the
candy, the new clothing, and the coming out after winter. For too many people,
Christians and non believers alike, it is just the next holiday on the
calendar.
There was a
first Resurrection Sunday that came as a complete surprise to both friend and
foe of Jesus. A wide diversity of emotions filled the people who were confronted
by it in those first few hours. For every person who chooses to see the first
Resurrection as a historical event, there comes that first Resurrection into
their lives as well.
No events
are recorded about the Saturday, the Sabbath, before the first Resurrection
Sunday. The disciples were in hiding for fear the Jewish authorities would be
searching for them as accomplices of Jesus. (John 20:19) A handful of women
among their group had already gone to the market and purchased spices to cover
the body of Jesus in the tomb as soon as the Sabbath was over, a method to
treat the body before the later preparation for final burial. (Luke 23:55-56)
Judas
Iscariot was dead. (Matthew 27:3-10) Peter was probably remembering his
personal betrayal. (Luke 22:54-62) The others among the surviving eleven
apostles remembered all too well their hasty abandonment of Christ when the
soldiers came to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus had gone alone to his trial.
(Matthew 26:47-56) The One who had called them to follow him and had been with
them for nearly three years had had to go to his trial and execution in
solitary humility.
Peter had
stood at a distance in a courtyard. John had been with Mary the mother of Jesus
at the crucifixion. (John 19:25-27) There were those few women who had been so
close to the Master for all those years helping in whatever way they could.
They stood watching among the crowd as the nails were driven in and the life
was drained out.
On Saturday
they all remembered where they had been, what they had done, during the
previous twenty-four to thirty-six hours. They were frightened. They were
ashamed. They were without hope. The dream was gone and they were back on their
own.
Then came
Sunday morning, the first day of the week and the first day of the new age of
mankind. The tomb was empty. Jesus was alive! Emotions changed from despair to
wonder to hope to celebration. (John 20:1-29) The first Resurrection changed
the history of the world.
The first
Resurrection still changes things in the life of a human being. Without Christ
we are on our own pushed and pulled by the forces of the world over which we
have little or no control. Hope is easily lost. Disappointment comes at every
turn. Despair is waiting at the door ready to drag us down in the midst of our
helplessness.
Then comes
Sunday. Searching and searching we find nothing to give us a reason to face the
future until we meet the Risen Lord. He shows us death is not the end. He shows
us there is more to life than the rat race into which the world forces us. He
shows us the depth of self-sacrificing love that is so much greater than the
shallow waters of self-gratification. He gives us reason to hope.
The first
Resurrection came once for the world. It is experienced again, fresh and
powerful, in the life of every individual who is willing to surrender their own
will, their own plan for life, to the One who came to make all things new.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the
new has come!” (II Corinthian 5:17, NIV)
