Resurrection's Reorientation

The idea of resurrection was already on the table for the Jews in the first century.  Not across the board and not a resurrection of one person, the Messiah, by himself.  

The most widely held belief was that a combination of leadership -- the Messiah -- and teamwork -- the righteous -- would displace Roman rule, gain Jerusalem's independence and set the stage for a resurrection of the just on the "Last Day."

That's part of why the Emmaus road disciples are so puzzled by the news.  They were expecting to be involved with something new, something real, even historic, a reversal of fortunes for an entire nation.  Instead what they knew was that the Messiah was dead. 

But they weren't just sad and grieving.  When Jesus mysteriously joins them they are trying to make sense of a rumor that "certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive." (Luke 24:22-23 RSV)

This is not what they expected.  None of it.  

Jesus helps them with how their expectations limited their understanding.  He does so in more than one way.  First he goes back to their "source material" and reinterprets it for them.  Then he makes his own having been raised obvious to them.   

"Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (24:32-33)

First with the women at the tomb and now with these disciples a new understanding of resurrection begins.  Not the resurrection of military victory or ultimate purity and righteousness being accomplished.  But the one of God's continuing presence showing itself as true to life and as true to God.  

We forget that resurrection, no matter whose version of it we're referencing takes dying.  That's what makes it "true to life."  We also struggle to include in our appreciation that God is THE agent of resurrection.  Exercising something very much like -- if not the very same --the capacity we credit with having created the world, life and us in the first place.

What the women and men of Luke 24 learned was not at first but became the "Good News." It took the "real presence" of the one raised, walking, teaching and celebrating with them for that to happen.  

Our appreciation is not unlike theirs. Yes we have the remoteness of time and space.  It's the twenty-first century in the western hemisphere.  But we can also stand to have our expectations reoriented.  We also can stand to let God find a fresh start for us.  

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.