The Resurrected Life

Normally we sprinkle the message of Christ's resurrection throughout the year and feast upon it on Easter Sunday, gorging ourselves theologically with the reality of Christ's victory over death like we do with food on Thanksgiving.

I don't know if you are aware of this, but Easter Sunday is the "big time" for us church folks. We usually work really hard as church to make sure that we put together a dynamic and epic service because we know that folks will be visiting us because of the holiday. We set up our best lights, doll out the new worship backgrounds, work hard to have an awesome band on stage, and try to convince Dave to share a sermon shorter than 50 minutes. These are not simple feats. It's a big deal.

And yet this morning, we have an invitation from the Father to perhaps see the resurrection of His Son in a simpler way. According to the gospel of John, on Easter Morning, Jesus reveals Himself to one person. One. This is literally the most important moment in history, an eternity-altering moment of indescribable importance for all of humankind. God tells one woman.

What is this resurrected life of Jesus? What do we make of it? Is the reality of Christ's victory over sin and death simply fire & brimstone insurance, or is it an invitation? When Christ stepped out of the grave there weren't trumpeters announcing His triumph. No angelic light show filled the morning sky demanding the attention of the nations that Christ had just redeemed. There were no 24-hour news network reports on the scene, no throngs of adoring fans, no 3D glasses to use to observe the man who had just been crucified on Friday afternoon.

And yet we rejoice in this moment thousands of years later and claim it as our hour of redemption. How?

The simple way of love. That's how our message of hope spreads like wild fire. That's why the God of the universe in His most powerful moment of victory reveals himself not through an aggrandized spectacle but through an intimate reunion with one grieving Middle-Eastern woman.

This is the love and truth that we celebrate this morning. This is the tradition of simple acts of indescribable importance that we hand down throughout the generations. What is the resurrected life? It is the conversations we have with those who are overlooked, it is our grieving with those who have seen their whole world fall apart, and it is our disengagement with the status quo to meet the needs of someone who is at the end of their rope.

These are the seemingly small and unnoticed things that announce the victory of Christ.