Two Resurrections

Colossians 3:1-7       St John 20:1-10

Alleluia!  Christ is risen! 

The Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Today, we proclaim that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead!

We can say it with our mouths, and we may know an accompanying joy in our hearts, a longing within us that feels affirmed.  But what does the Resurrection of Jesus mean and what does it mean for us?

Resurrection is about a movement from death to life, from “slavery and death”, in the fullest sense of that word at every level of our being, into “freedom and life”, in the fullest sense of that word at every level of our being.

What is the Resurrection?

Jesus had been taken down from the Cross and buried in a hurry on the Friday night, before the Sabbath began when the sun set, and there had been no time for the usual anointing of the body for burial.  On Sunday morning, “It was still dark”.  In the Jewish understanding, the Sabbath had ended an hour after the sun set the night before.  So Mary Magdalene and two other Marys had come to anoint the body Jesus.  These women could not sleep.  They came in an act of loving devotion to their Lord.  When they saw that Jesus’ body was not there they ran to tell Peter.  “We do not know where they have laid him,” indicating clearly their expectation of finding His body, and that His body must be somewhere else now.

Peter and John run to the tomb and also don’t find His body, yet they notice “the linen cloths lying there” that had been around his body, and the linen “face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up and in a place by itself.”

This was not grave robbers, Jesus was not a wealthy target, and all they could have stolen were the valuable linen cloths, but the body would have been left.  But the opposite has happened.  Clearly something else has happened.  Imagine the Lord of the Universe taking time to fold up the cloth on His face!

Every little detail of those first moments was important to the Apostles because it was all so strange.  Jesus said to them later that same day, when they were hiding in a locked room for fear of the authorities, “Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”  He asked for a piece of fish and ate it before them.  A week later Jesus had Thomas touch his wounds.  For forty days he appeared and disappeared.  Jesus had a body more substantial than ours but was not bound by earthly limitations of matter – he appeared and disappeared easily, could choose to be recognized or choose not to be recognized.

For us, spirit and flesh are often opposed to one another now – but in the Resurrection, as one preacher has described it, “the strife of spirit and flesh is ended and the body becomes the clear and translucent expression of spirit.”  Resurrection “is not survival [after death] but transformation.”  [Fr Robert Crouse, Sermon for Easter 1988]

The witness of the Apostles is that Jesus rose from the dead in a bodily resurrection. And St Matthew writes that after Jesus rose from the dead,

many bodies – not many spirits – but many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.  [Mt 27:52-53]

Jesus’ resurrection is not for him alone but is what we can expect and hope for as his followers.

How is that for liberty – no more fears, no anxieties, no threats, no guilt, no shame, no restraints in space, no restraints in our ability to love?  Only one restraint, the gift to be an individual, a necessary constraint for us to exist at all – not to be dissolved but to be re-clothed and taken up into the life of God with our loved ones and with the souls of those made perfect.

And this promise of Resurrection to eternal life is promised to each of us by Jesus.  Through faith and the sacraments, we are joined with Jesus Christ.  Baptism, Faith, Holy Communion – these are ways Jesus has given us to receive in time the promised bodily Resurrection for ourselves.

And this is part of our joy today.  We can rest and be reassured about the next step after our life on earth – our fear of death, the sting, is taken away, or because of our imperfect faith, it is lessened, and our hopes are kindled for the fullest freedom that is possible for the human soul and body.

But the promises of Resurrection are also about this life.  We can know the Resurrection even now.  We can know more of that freedom all the time.

We know that to undergo any kind of transformation in this life – growing up, or continuing to mature – requires a kind of death before a resurrection.  St Paul says, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” [1 Cor 13:11]  To give up childish ways is to die to them, that we might rise to the new more mature way of being and of seeing things.

A too small vision of God must die or it becomes an idol, easily cast away.  A too small vision of the Church must die or we become dissatisfied with any local manifestation of it, and walk away.  If I have a friend who is not really a friend, I must die to that friendship and find one that is true.  If I am pursuing goals that are worthless or even destructive, I must die to them and set new goals.  Death before any Resurrection.

But this is not solely a Christian insight – everyone knows this at some level.

But what would be a specifically Christian psychological take on death and resurrection now?

In today’s Epistle, St Paul speaks of a first resurrection, as something that’s already happened. [Rev 20:1-6]  This is the resurrection of the soul.  He says, you have been raised with Christ (past tense, but continuing – because through baptism and faith we are already joined with Jesus, and because He is risen so are we [Col 2:12-14]). 

You have been raised with Christ… so set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Death and resurrection are both a part of our ongoing experience.  And then he speaks of a second resurrection:

When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 

This will be our second, and this time bodily, resurrection.

The call everywhere in the New Testament is to Put to death therefore what is earthly in [us]. All the Apostles list vices that are dead ends, the ends of the old Adam, the old outer husk of the seed, that must be cast off in order for the new life in Christ to emerge and flourish [e.g. Rom 1:29-31; Gal 5:16-26; Eph 4:17-6 end; Col 2:10-3end; James 3:13-5:12; 1 Pet 2:11-4:19; 2 Pet 2-3].  Paul describes it as a crucifixion [e.g. Gal 5:24].

And the ongoing call in the New Testament is to actively live the new life in Christ – to put on Christ, to put on love of neighbour, to set our minds on things above, to be renewed in the spirit of our minds.  It is our active engagement in the transformation.  Jesus puts it simply as, Follow me.

But this sounds like work, and it might be discouraging.  But it is less effort if we think of it as simply about making the right choices and so directing our energy aright.

We have prayed in our Collect today that,

As by your special grace you put into our minds good desires, so by your continual help we may bring the same to good effect.

What is implied is that the Holy Spirit is continually giving us good desires within, but the old Adam is also there with his desires.  And if we simply follow the Spirit’s good desires, by grace, over time, we will experience the conforming of our soul to His image and likeness and our lowly body to Christ’s glorious body – that is to know more and more of the Resurrection soul and body even now.

Our citizenship is in heaven [now], and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.  [Philip 3:20-21]

How much we experience the resurrection now is partly in our hands by our inward choices moment by moment.

When we choose to do what is right we become stronger – and more grace flows in.  Doing what is right becomes easier an easier, and then it actually becomes our food, we are energized by doing it – my food is to do the will of him who sent me, said Jesus. [St John 4:34]

Today we celebrate that Jesus has gone before us – through the gates of death and has risen.  He promises to draw us with him, and that drawing us into the resurrection life can begin to happen even now through our moment by moment choices.

Do you want this freedom?  It is yours for the taking.  Follow Jesus Christ.

Let us prepare ourselves now, as we remember Jesus’ death, and then partake of the risen Christ – to eat the Bread of eternal life and to drink the Cup of salvation.   It is as Jesus says, to eat my flesh and to drink my blood that you may have eternal life [even now] and be raised up on the last day. [John 6:54]

Amen +