Easter Sunday - Jesus is present

Reflection

When the unexpected happens you don’t quite know how to believe it. Often we are so surprised, taken aback, and find it hard to process. Sometimes the surprise is a good one, sometimes it is not.  The disciples went through the most traumatic event of their lives on Friday.   Witnessing the death of Jesus was beyond their ability to process.  It was a huge disappointment for a start.

Jesus who had fed the 5000 with a pack lunch, Jesus who had walked on water and calmed the storm with his words, Jesus who had healed the sick and sent demons into pigs, Jesus who had challenged religious leaders and caused many sleepless nights had died on a cross like a common criminal.  There was no worse way for a Jew to die than on a cross - crucified. 

The followers of Jesus cannot comprehend the love that took Jesus to the cross.  Nor could they comprehend the necessity of it, even when he said ‘It is finished’. 

Yet before they had even had time to move from the shock and the numbness of loss, the women come running to tell them Jesus was alive.  It is no wonder they couldn’t believe them.  The run to the tomb would have been a mixture of disbelief and hope.  The running commentary in their heads (no pun intended) - are they right? Where he is?  Can it be?  

They see the empty tomb, the strips of cloth lying there and they believe, don’t believe, believe in the roller coaster of emotion.  They return to the others, but Mary hangs back.  Her world is upside down, her Lord is missing and she cannot comprehend it.  There is nowhere for her to go.  So she waits, pacing and waiting.  

Our world is upside down.  We are all going through the same crisis but we handle it in different ways.  The men gathered in locked rooms, praying, discussing, hiding in fear.  The women were watchers - always there watching.  Yet Jesus appears to Mary in the garden where she waits, and he appears to the disciples in the locked room. There isn’t a right or a wrong way to be in this crisis - whether we are cooped up in anxious conversation or watching anxiously, pacing nervously -  we all react in our own way.  However, Jesus knows where we are and he comes to us where we are.  He appears in the room with the menfolk and offers them peace. He comes to Mary waiting and watching in the garden. 

So if you are a worrier, anxious for you or for loved ones - Jesus is with you bringing peace.  He is able to encourage and strengthen you, so that you can encourage and strengthen others. 

If you are watching, pacing, wondering where Jesus is, perhaps, pause for a moment and listen to him calling your name. He knows you and loves you, and maybe we are too busy pacing to recognise he is with us.  

We live in uncertain times, and we know that the world has changed, just as it changed that first Easter Sunday morning.  Things would never be the same again.  We believe that the Easter morning, when the stone rolled and Jesus rose from the dead, brought about a new beginning, an open relationship with God.  Things were never the same again for the disciples for something traumatic will always change how we perceive the world around us.  However, Jesus remained a constant presence in their lives, as he does in ours.  And he promises that even in death, he will be with us.  God promises to never leave us nor abandon us, and we can believe that for this life and the next.  

Easter Sunday allows us to believe and trust in this text from John 14: 

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.’

Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’

Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.’

You are God’s child and he loves you.  This Easter know that Jesus travels with you, and he brings words of peace and knows you by name.  Let him be with you.