Jesus

  But as with Simon Peter and Mary Magdalene, the only thing powerful enough to shake us free from our selfabsorption and hopelessness is nothing less than the risen Christ Himself. Unawakened by angelic messengers, blinded to Jesus’ presence before her, it was not until Mary heard Jesus call her by name, like the Good Shepherd calling His sheep, that she snapped out of her gloom and awakened to the miracle of Easter morning.

  In the death and resurrection of Jesus, the last Adam, we have been returned to the garden, restored to a right relationship with God, and the Fall has been reversed. How do we know that the mission of the last Adam is complete? On day one, as the light rose, Mary did not recognize Him. Why?

  Because she thought He was the gardener. This one sign is a resurrection rocket, a Roman candle that flares over the temple-garden, and invites us to return to our prelapsarian relationship with God. All creation is made new.

  One more time Jesus flipped the holiness code on its head and turned the world upside down by raising a scorned woman, looked down on by both men and women, and sometimes by the disciples, to a place of honor and preeminence. A woman was the first to behold Jesus after His resurrection and to speak the word “Rabboni” in a ceremony unseen by men. Just as those commissioned to be the first evangelists after Jesus’ birth were lowly shepherds,10 so Jesus commissioned a lowly woman to be the first evangelist after His resurrection.11

  For the first disciples to hear described a tomb where two angels guarded the ends of where Jesus’ body had been, their minds must have gone to the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant was covered with a golden lid—the mercy seat, where an imageless God was enthroned, flanked by two golden cherubim.12 The new Holy of Holies, where God’s presence is found, is an empty tomb. It is a place of absence, for the body is gone, but it is a place of presence. For the AbsentPresence, Jesus Himself, is the mercy seat (hilastērion), whom God has enthroned: “the image of the invisible God.”13 The holiness of God is found not in a temple but in the world where the AbsentPresence is encountered.

  Interestingly, the Scriptures never say that Jesus raised Himself from the dead. Instead, they tell us plainly that it was the Father who raised Him from the dead.14 The resurrection, then, is something that happened to Jesus. It was the Father’s vindication of His Son’s life, message, and ministry.

  THE GREATEST BATLE IN HUMAN HISTORY

  A rarely mentioned fact is that Resurrection Sunday marks the greatest battle in human history. It was the outcome of the battle of God’s greatest enemy (death) versus divine life. It was where God the Father concentrated all of His infinite power, drawing all the powers of the heavens, bringing them straight toward a tomb. It was the greatest display of power since the visible creation.

  On that day the earth shook. And the heavens shook. And the body of Jesus of Nazareth came to life. And death—the chief foe of the Almighty—died. For death could not hold the Son of God in its endless domain. Jesus Christ rose again from the grave, victorious over death, and He became “the firstborn from the dead.”15 Jesus shook off His chains, and He was no longer bound by space or time. He now lives on the other side of space, time, and history. And He became a “life-giving Spirit,” as Paul called Him in 1 Corinthians 15:45. And He breathed His own life into His disciples.16 The only begotten Son became the firstborn among many brethren—and they became the sons and daughters of God.17 The grave turned into a garden. And we’re back to Genesis 2. Jesus is the Tree of Life returned to earth again.

  From the womb of death Christ brought forth an unprecedented creation—a new humanity. And in that new humanity, there is no Jew or Gentile . . . there is no male or female . . . there is no slave or free . . . there is no black or white . . . there is no Hispanic or Asian . . . and there is no rich or poor. All earthly barriers have been erased.18 Behold, this is a new humanity . . . a new race . . . a new creation . . . a new kingdom from another realm, with the life of God beating within it. And Jesus Christ is the head of this new creation, and He alone is all in all.19

  What is this? It’s the ekklesia of God, the church. Bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh—kin to divinity—and you are part of her. What the disciples received in a closed room following Jesus’ resurrection was soon experienced by thousands of Jews on the day of Pentecost some fifty days later:20 the birth of the church; but it was rooted and grounded in the resurrection of Jesus.21

  The resurrection of Christ was the ultimate vindication that He was this world’s rightful King. It tells us that a new creation is now here, yet it is coming. In His resurrection, Jesus became something other than what He was before. He became one who had passed through death and is now untouchable by it. (And this is the life that we as Christians receive—divine life that has passed through death.) Through the cross, Jesus defeated the old king (satan); through His resurrection, He has been enthroned as the new King. He has been “vindicated by the Spirit”22 to be the Messiah, God’s true ruler over the earth, reclaiming for humanity its original intention: to rule for and with God.23 In His resurrection, Jesus of Nazareth has been “declared” the Son of God.24

  THE RESURRECTION FORESHADOWED

  As is the case with each stage of His life, the resurrection of Jesus is sufficiently foreshadowed in the First Testament. Knowing that Jesus is the New David, Peter said of Him,

  But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. David said about him: “I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.”25

  Peter went on to say, “Seeing what was ahead, he [David] spoke of the resurrection of the Christ.”26

  We meet the foreshadowing of Jesus’ resurrection on the third day of creation, when the first sign of life emerged out of the receding waters of death.27 We meet it again in Noah’s ark, when it rested on the top of Mount Ararat and eight souls (the number of resurrection) stepped into a new world.28 We meet it again in Isaac, of whom the book of Hebrews says, “Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive back Isaac from death.”29 We meet it again in the budding of Aaron’s dead rod. Aaron’s dead stick was placed in the tabernacle for a long, dark night. And in the morning, it brought forth life.30 We meet it again in the feast of the firstfruits of the harvest.31 God will eventually do for the whole creation what He has done with Jesus’ body as the firstfruits of the resurrection.32 There are many other examples of where the First Testament foretells the resurrection of Jesus “according to the Scriptures.”33

  Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.34

  THE FORTY DAYS

  In the book of Acts, Luke wrote that Jesus remained on the earth for forty days following His resurrection.35 And according to John, those days were full. Referring to His postresurrection appearances, John said that “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples.”36 We’ve already seen the significance of the number forty. Moses remained on Sinai for forty days. Elijah fasted before God for forty days. The rains from the flood during Noah’s day lasted forty days. The Israelite spies searched the land of Canaan for forty days. Goliath presented himself to Israel for forty days. During the days of Jonah, God gave the people of Nineveh forty days to repent. Jesus was proved in the wilderness for forty days just as Israel was proved in the wilderness for forty years. The number forty represents testing or proving.

  So why the forty days after Jesus’ resurrection? Well, the church’s very existence depended on it. The apostles’ work depended on it. The future of Christ’s work on earth depended on
it. Those forty days were the basis for the apostles’ ability to endure the most severe suffering. How? Because in those forty days Jesus proved Himself to be a resurrected human being. Not a ghost. Not a delusion. Not a figment of their imaginations. But a real, living person who had pierced the veil of death and come out on the other side victorious. Luke wrote, “After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.”37

  Note the words, “he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs.” Had it not been for those forty days, faith in Jesus’ resurrection would have had a weak foundation. Had it not been for those forty days, the disciples would have continued to misunderstand the Scriptures. During those forty days, Jesus opened up their understanding as He spoke of Himself from Genesis to Malachi, expounding the kingdom of God.38

  Had it not been for those forty days, Paul couldn’t have written in such detail what he did in 1 Corinthians 15 about the resurrected body. (No doubt, Paul received his information about the glorified body from the apostles who spent time with Jesus during those forty days.) During those forty days, Jesus appeared to the Twelve and then quickly disappeared.39 Being free of space and time, Jesus showed Himself to more than five hundred disciples at the same time.40 In this way, the Lord was proving to His followers that He had no bounds, no limitations, no restrictions. He was free to “presence” Himself wherever and whenever He wished. That includes through physical walls and through your physical body.41

  The forty days also established a new way of knowing Christ, a way that was not after the flesh but after the Spirit.42 Recall that when the disciples first saw Jesus in His resurrected state, “some doubted.”43 But in the course of those forty days, Jesus revealed to His followers a new way of knowing Him—a way that would carry forward after His ascension, where believing without seeing became the norm.44

  JESUS’ ASCENSION

  The return journey of Jesus to the Father, known as the ascension or sometimes as the ascending, culminated in Pentecost. Jesus’ exaltation followed the resurrection, but a final departure scene didn’t come until forty days after the resurrection.45 At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus prepared Himself for His mission for forty days. At the end of His ministry, He prepared His disciples for their mission for forty days.

  The Holy Spirit was given to the disciples when the Son was glorified, when Jesus was present with the Father, as He said, “with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”46 Of all the Jewish ascension stories (Enoch, Elijah, Ezra, Moses), the Jesus ascension is strikingly parallel with the Elijah rapture. When Elijah ascended, the mantle came down.47 When Jesus ascended, the Holy Spirit came down. It is the Holy Spirit, the overflow of the Father-Son relationship, who enables Jesus to be two places at once: with and in us at all times and everywhere, and seated at the right hand of the Father,48 in the language of the most quoted First Testament text in the Second Testament.

  Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.49

  But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.50

  A risen, regnant Jesus “seated at the right hand” is not offhand, hands-off imagery. The image of the “right hand” means that Jesus occupies the seat of honor with the Father. The image of a “seated” Jesus means that the work of atonement and reconciliation is completed.51 It was done once, for all time, and does not need to be repeated, though He continually intercedes for us, a word in Greek (entynchano) that means He looks after our interests and purposes our betterment.52

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  Our Easter faith is that we really do encounter Jesus himself; not a message from him, or a doctrine inspired by him, or an ethics of love, or a new idea of human destiny, or a picture of him, but Jesus himself.

  —HERBERT MCCABE 53

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  But as Jacob found out at Jabbok, happy endings cost us something. His happy ending left him with a limp. Every one of us carries a scar that reminds us of who we are and where we have come from. Jacob’s wound never fully healed, and Jesus took His wounds with Him into eternity. Do His wounds still bleed there? Is that part of how He continually intercedes for us? The scarred hands of Jesus—is that how God carved our names in the palms of Jesus’ hands? “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands,” the prophet Isaiah heard God say.54 Are you wearing the brand of Jesus? The wounded side of our Lord, out of which the church came forth on the day of Pentecost—this was the womb for the bride of Christ. She, the bride, is perfect, holy, and without blemish. But He, the Bridegroom, is flawed; for He will take those scars into eternity.

  Once Jesus was seated, “the last days” (also known as “the age of the Spirit”) began, when the true Israel, which now includes Gentiles, gathered to form the body of Christ on earth, “the church of God.”55 To live as a member of the body of Christ is a participative reality. There is always an element of DIY (“Do It Yourself ”) in the incarnation story. The greatest gift ever given is not a prepackaged story where the Messiah suddenly plops down on the scene. The Gift comes in parts and spurts, stages and pieces, needing us to open up the Gift and put it all together. When the church gathers, the incarnation Gift is received again, and the whole body of Christ becomes “gifted.” When the church scatters, the incarnation Gift is given again, and the parts of the body of Christ become a gift.

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  We are not defenders of the Jesus story, but participants with him in his story.

  —NOVELIST / PROFES SOR MIKE MCNICHOLS 56

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  From the ascension on, three things became indissoluble in God’s mission in the world: the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. Of course, the Scriptures were there from the beginning: “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures . . . He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”57 Jesus Himself did not separate the Scriptures from the Spirit, as He showed when He referred to Psalm 110:1 as “David, speaking by the Spirit.”58 But after the ascension, the Spirit opened up the Scriptures so we can see Jesus.

  The Holy Spirit is the universalization of Jesus. The activity of the Holy Spirit, directed by the ascended Lord of the church and the transcendent reign of Christ in heaven, is to rebirth Himself on earth within and among us until He shall return in final glory and create a new heaven and a new earth. Theology is nothing more than the Holy Spirit making His way through our brains, as the Scriptures make their way through our hearts.

  THE EMMAUS ROAD

  The most famous event in the ascending is another on-the-road story, where all roads lead to Jesus. The Emmaus road story is about the play of memory and imagination. The real story is why these disciples failed to recognize Jesus in the first place—and the need for memory and imagination to link. This road story59 describes the transition of the disciples from road rage (“we thought He was the One”) and disbelief to a more informed understanding of Jesus’ identity, and a newly re-formed community of faith. The journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus and back again may have been only a short distance for the legs. But it was a life journey for the disciples into newer and deeper dimensions of discipleship.

  The trip to Emmaus took place on “that same day”; that is, that same third day in which the empty tomb was discovered and the women reported the messages from the two angels. Instead of believing the report, however, the women’s words were apparently judged as idle talk in accordance with the custom of the day regarding women’s words. The disciples hadn’t bothered to go to the tomb themselves. They left that to the women. They spent their time in Jerusalem hiding, afraid of bei
ng picked up by the police. Not just one disciple betrayed Jesus. Or two. They all did.

  They could find no way to harmonize Jesus’ life and teachings with His horrible death on the cross, or with the strange discovery of an empty tomb. Here was a theological transition that left the disciples in the throes of their own form of PTSD: posttraumatic shock disorder. The women’s report was dismissed. The remaining disciples began to scatter. Peter went back to the tomb. Just how close the entire group was to breaking up was demonstrated by these two other disciples as they left Jerusalem to travel to Emmaus. Jesus’ disciple-community was on the verge of disbanding.

  As these two people—one named Cleopas, who may have been Jesus’ uncle or Joseph’s brother60—set out on the road to Emmaus, they were joined by Jesus, but “they were kept from recognizing him.”61 The first problem the disciples had after the resurrection was a recognition problem. They had a problem recognizing Jesus in their midst. Some things haven’t changed. Our problem is the same as the first disciples’ problem.

  When the stranger asked what they were talking about, they “stood still” on the road, like deer in headlights, frozen by the bone-chilling sadness of it all. Cleopas’s answer was unknowingly ironic: he accused Jesus of being “out of it,” though He was the only one who truly did know about all “the things” that had happened in Jerusalem and the only one who held all the answers to their questions about “the things.”62

  Now comes the most astonishing line in all of history, much less all of literature. “What things?” Jesus said.63

  When the feigning Jesus pressed them to tell Him “What things?” they told the shorthand version of the Jesus story, framed in simple honesty about their confusion and depression. First these disciples described Jesus as a prophet, “mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.”64 This image of Jesus recalls that of other great prophets, most especially of Moses. But this understanding of their prophet-teacher Jesus was marred by the terrible events that had occurred. The disciples recounted how their chief priests and leaders had handed over Jesus to be crucified. The disciples and others in Jerusalem had hoped Jesus was the One who would “redeem Israel.” Jesus’ death on the cross had crushed all their messianic expectations.