Battle Lines: An Unruly Resurrection
Because we live on the joyous side of Jesus’ resurrection, we can celebrate with Easter lilies, triumphant songs, bright artwork, and jubilant sermons proclaiming the good news that our Savior lives. Why shouldn’t we? It’s all wonderfully true.
But that first Resurrection morning did not begin joyously.
Leading up to it, there were the agonizing hours of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, and then the despair of His lifeless body being sealed in a tomb, followed by hours of nothing. Even those who engineered Jesus’ death would likely have felt they had only done their grim duty. The Roman soldiers were bored out of their minds guarding a tomb, of all things. The disciples were numb with grief, utterly confused about what was next, and shamed by their failure to stand with Jesus. Now they learned that Judas, their friend, had not only betrayed Jesus but was found hanging from a tree, dead by his own act of suicide. The crowds that had filled Jerusalem, while they had stories to tell, were as confused by what these events all meant as they were sure it meant something—but what?
The first to experience the upheaval of Easter were the hapless soldiers. The quiet graveyard erupted into life—the one thing that wasn’t supposed to happen in this place. They thought the threat to the grave was from someone breaking in. They never imagined it would be someone coming out! This was no place to be. Fighting battles was one thing. Standing against the supernatural was quite another.
Then there were the women. Thinking they were going to anoint Jesus’ body, without a clue as to how they would get into the tomb to do it, they instead conversed with angels. Mary spoke to the Lord Himself. They were told Jesus had risen from the dead. No way they were prepared for that. And while it was great news, it was not exactly met with enthusiasm by the downtrodden disciples.
The Jewish leaders had by now heard from the soldiers. This turned their Sunday morning upside down. In our day we would say they went into “damage control,” but as history proves, they did a poor job of it. Denying the empty tomb and trying to silence the soldiers with a payoff only proved the fact that the Resurrection had occurred. Their solution to the Jesus problem blew up in their faces, and from here it would only get worse for them.
Meanwhile, Peter and John decided they would go check out the tomb. The other nine, still showing that dark measure of fear that kept them frozen when Jesus needed them most at His side, stayed right where they were. There was no happy talk. No plans for a “Welcome Back from the Dead” party. They were in a state of utter and total confusion, perhaps worse than they had felt by the events leading up to Jesus’ death.
What Peter and John found confirmed the story the women shared about an empty tomb. We can hardly imagine that they were leaping up and down. Instead, it was more a profound sense of wonder, a quiet consideration of what this meant. No doubt as they talked there was a flood of memories of what Jesus had said to them about His rising from the dead. And as they talked, as the truth began to dawn on them, their pace quickened as a spark of hope was fanned into a flame. Hours after the Resurrection, the sun high in the sky by now, confusion was melting into clarity and ecstasy.
Jesus would appear to the disciples throughout that day and the days to come. Joy would be commonplace. But in those first moments of Resurrection morning, when Jesus had already committed His great act of rising from the dead, opening the door for our salvation and sealing Satan’s doom, all still looked dark to the world.
Many times in our lives when God has already acted on our behalf, it can still look dark to us. But He has already moved, and what He has done will be revealed. While the Resurrection is a historical event, in many ways it is re-created over and over as God rolls away the stones in our lives when all seems lost and hopeless. Our Savior lives. He is ever-present and interceding for us. There is no end to the joy of Easter.