A Pastor’s Agony on Easter Monday
In 24 years of ministry in Vancouver I have never preached an Easter message I am completely satisfied with. The Resurrection of Jesus has more to say to us than I can say. Texts built around the Resurrection of Jesus provide a frame, the subject, and the colour for the message, but I must admit again, I am terribly inadequate to the preaching of the Resurrection of Jesus on the day of our celebration. I fall short of finding words conveying the joyful and fearful surprise of this great reversal.
Lord help.
The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.” Matthew 28:5-7 (NIV)
Did you see that?
“Now I have told you.”
“Now I have told you.”
Who gets to end a message with that? Who gets to say, “Now I have told you” and be done?
Apparently the first messenger who proclaimed the good news of Jesus’ resurrection, that’s who!
The angel says it.
And next, the women proclaiming this good news to the disciples could have said it too.
“Now I have told you.”
But for me, on a Resurrection Sunday I am plagued with the indictment that I’m going to have a crowd who have heard it all before and somehow are not moved. Somehow we have been conditioned to non-response. I don’t get to say, “Now I have told,” with the same confidence that somebody is going to get moving.
Lord help. Stir us again Holy Spirit.
Maybe I should take up painting. Well on second thought, probably not. Last year Mike Frost introduced his readers to what he calls the “greatest Easter painting of all time.” I like it. The painting, The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection, by Eugene Burnand, is most appropriately housed not in a great museum, but in an old railway station in Paris. Typically no one stands still for long in a railway station. If your train is called, you get moving. “Now I have told you.” The word assumes a change is coming, in fact the change has come, whether you are ready for it or not. Scroll up and take a look at it again. John to the left seems to joyfully anticipating the possibility of a reunion with Jesus. Peter though has a look of agony and fear at the possibility. They have been told, and they are moving.
8So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” Matthew 28:8-10
Before the women preachers got to their audience they were interrupted by the subject of the Resurrection.
Did you noticed the pairing of fear and joy?
Did you notice how Jesus interrupts their movement?
The Resurrection of Jesus will illicit both fear and joy. Fuelled by these we may want to dance; we may want to run. We may be so ready to take action. Zeal for the message and task may consume us. But it seems our Lord, would have us pause before the apostolic action is taken, and simply meet Him and worship.
