The Question of the Resurrection

Beam-of-Light-in-a-Cave_beam_of_light_in_a_cave_4x3_8aceadf0-1906-42a9-987f-c5ed7bbb77e5.jpg

The Question of the Resurrection

Texts:

  1. Morning

    1. Psalm 93

    2. Mark 16:1-8

  2. Evening

    1. Psalm 66

    2. 1 Cor. 15:1-11

  3. Hymn

    1. The Lamb Has Overcome

  4. Prayer

    1. Grant, Almighty God, that we who we celebrate with awe the Resurrection of your Son may be found worthy to attain to everlasting joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.

Devotional: Mark 16:1-8
Easter Sunday is over, and as I look out my office window it is raining. The confidence and assurance that we felt at the pronouncement of the Good News ("the battle's done and the victory is won, the Lamb has overcome," from the hymn above) wavers. Was it ever there at all?

We have so many questions about the resurrection. They are good questions. They need to be asked. That sort of thing doesn't happen, does it? Wasn't it just propaganda, drawn up by the early church to legitimate its claim to power? Maybe everybody was just confused? Hallucinating? Weren't ancient people more superstitious? Ask the questions. Look for answers. Start here, and don't stop until you get some.

The Gospel of Mark is interested in a different question though. Mark is interested in the questions, not that we ask of the Resurrection, but that the Resurrection asks of us. In fact, most scholars agree that Mark ends at chapter 16 verse 8. Not with a bodily appearance of Jesus, but with an empty tomb, and the women who loved him there, shocked and afraid. It is as if the author is asking US, "just what do you think happened here?" Answer the question. Ask for help. Start here, and don't stop until you know. 

If the resurrection didn't happen, then you are left with a rainy Monday in quarantine, 2020. If the resurrection did happen, then Jesus is Lord. Easter is still on, for the next three weeks of the Christian calendar, but really all year round. Anything can happen. Joy is possible. Redemption is possible. Hope is possible, in this life and the next. What do you say?

Reflection
1. Did it happen?

2. How does the truth of the Resurrection shape my joy and hope today?

3. What does it look like to live, not by optimism or by pessimism, but by faith?