We are aching for a new world. Mary Magdalene was the first disciple to see the tomb’s stone rolled away. (John 20:11-18). But on the first day of the week, Mary’s furtive glance into morning’s dark was not initially hopeful. No trumpets were sounding. No lilies were blossoming. No birds were chirping. Mary's reaction was at first panic: she ran to Peter and the other disciple, breathless: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:13). Day had not yet broken and resurrection was not yet a possibility. Just panic, grief and loss. Just a heart, broken because she lost her beloved teacher, and she was not even able to pay proper respects at his grave.
Mary was aching for a new world, a world in which the Empire’s violence does not crush and disappear the innocent. Mary’s ache is our ache. Mary’s groaning is Earth’s groaning for inhabitants that honor, rather than horrify, fellow living creatures. The biblical Easter morning begins not with joyous praise, but with fear and aching hearts, revealing the sobering truth that Easter’s beginning and our world are still shrouded in the looming shadow of the cross.
Mary’s tears transformed into exultation after she had visions of angels and stumbled into the Risen Jesus, the gardener(!). “Mary,” Jesus said. “Teacher!” she exclaimed (John 20:16). Then she proceeded to tell everybody that her heart’s ache and Christ’s passion had turned to joy, that the world which hours before had seemed so bleak and so full of hatred was now vibrant and pulsing with possibility. The earth, which one moment seemed to linger on death’s precipice, now harbors light shining, flowers blooming, birds chirping, and new life spreading out from Christ throughout the whole creation.
Photo by Anton Murygin on Unsplash
Resurrection has always been about a new world, but Christians made it primarily about a body. Any new creation surely involves sacred bodies, but it also involves dirt. And sky. And governments. And economies. And snow bunting bird sightings. And our grandma’s holiday casserole, Dad’s repetitive stories, and oceans and atmosphere. Leave it to Americans to turn Easter into a commercial bonanza. Leave it to children of the Enlightenment to turn Easter into a debate about whether it’s possible for God to reanimate a corpse.
The earliest Christian writers placed faith not only in the resurrection of one man—they trusted in the resurrection of the cosmos. The book of Colossians sees Christ’s resurrection as a new dawn: “He is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead…For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (Colossians 1:18-20). Protestants largely lost this cosmic creation scope to resurrection, but the Eastern Orthodox Church proclaimed it all along: “so let all creation celebrate the Resurrection of Christ on which it is founded.”
In Romans, Paul connects the redemption of bodies to the liberation of earth: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, groan inwardly while we wait for the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:220> Christ, the earth and all of history’s crucified victims will be set free. All will ripen in the Holy Spirit’s first fruits of resurrected freedom.
John punctuates his gospel with seven so-called signs, and some even think that the crucifixion and resurrection form a climactic “eighth sign.” Signs in John are actions Jesus takes that reveal divine glory in his ministry: water changes into wine, a word from Jesus heals a royal official’s son; 5000 people are fed, water is walked on, a blind man sees, Lazarus is raised, and the crucified and resurrected Jesus becomes God’s seed of justice planted at the center of the world’s aching heart.
Seven signs in John mirror the seven days of creation in Genesis. Then, for the eighth sign and on the eighth day of creation, otherwise known as the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb (John 20:1). Are you tracking with me? It all heralds a new creation.
On the evening of that first day, John tells us Jesus appeared to his scared and wary disciples (John 1:19). The twelve were once-bright-eyed social change agents in the movement, but they had just survived through the worst week of their lives. Their ministry was crushed, and their leader was crucified. They were not capable of stepping outside, much less conceiving new beginnings. They huddled behind a locked door, probably more because of their fear and grief than anything else. Then, the Risen Jesus stood in their midst and spoke directly to their despair about the state of the movement and the state of the world: “Peace be with you” (John 20:21). He even said it again, because apparently they didn’t hear him the first time: “Peace be with you.” He showed them the wounds in his hands and side, the wounds that Peter and the rest of them could not stomach to stay and see, and then John tells us Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22).
Just as the first day in John’s Gospel is not just any day, Jesus’ breath is not just any inhalation and exhalation. It is the breath of life itself. The newly resurrected Christ breathed on his disciples, and Yawheh formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). It’s the only time this verb occurs in the New Testament. It echoes vividly from Genesis chapter two. The firstborn from the dead is breathing new creation. Another world is not only possible, Arundhati Roy writes, “She is on her way. On a quiet day, like this one, I can hear her breathing.”
There are so many reasons to believe that our world is falling apart—and in fact, it is. Mary’s beloved teacher’s life was torn from her. The disciples’ hope for the future was crushed. Our worlds sometimes fall apart. Sometimes ice caps melt and sometimes bombs blast. Sometimes fascism rises, bolstered by hate. Sometimes we scapegoat and kill the innocent. Sometimes the doctor’s news is a devastating blow. No wonder Thomas the rationalist demanded to see cold, hard evidence. Resurrection feels too…unbelievable.
Yet the Christian tradition has the counterintuitive tenacity to proclaim that the resurrection is not only the culmination of Jesus of Nazareth’s ministry, but it is also the beginning of a new world. It’s even another chance for those quibbling, quaking disciples to reclaim a Spirit-enlivened vocation.
Right after Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on his disciples, he mentioned this odd phrase: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22). In other words, those who follow Jesus now have the power to do as God does. This creative, life-breathing, light-shining resurrection vocation is not only for the Creator or the Christ, it is for each of us.
And may we accept this vocation each day, each moment.
Sooo good!