Most understated resurrection ever

"Suddenly Jesus met them and said, 'Hello'."

Hello? Hello? OK, my Bible translates it as, "Greetings!" which sounds marginally more impressive, but really - you've been dead for several days and that's the best comeback line you can manage?

That's not an isolated instance, either. He looks so understated that Mary takes him to be the gardener. He walks along with a couple of travellers on the road as if he's any old stranger. He stands among his frightened friends, and the first word out of his mouth is, "Peace".

It made me think how we totally take for granted that Jesus didn't rise from the dead and say, "Right! Now you're all really going to find out who's boss!" He didn't even say, "Well, that showed me who my real friends are, didn't it?" He didn't hunt down Pilate and Caiaphas and the others who condemned him to death.

None of those. As the Lectio 365 reflection for Easter Sunday puts it, "The appearances of the resurrected Jesus tell us so much about the heart of God." Jesus didn't go for revenge, world domination, instant judgement, or any of the things you might expect of someone who had just triumphed over death.

Instead, he quietly met his friends and said, "Hello". We're not always looking for a God like that, are we? We expect him to show up in a big way, to jump on us when we get it wrong - in short, to act like we think an all-powerful being should act.

But what we get is a God who turns up beside us as if he's never been away, and says, "Here I am. Be at peace."

And we say, "Wait. Didn't you just...?"

"Rise from the dead? Of course. Here, have some breakfast."

Most. Understated. Resurrection. Ever.

Happy Easter!

Comments

Drought

Two days into Stage One water restrictions, and I looked out of the window to see the guy over the road washing his car. Admittedly, the restrictions don't actually forbid you to wash your car. They limit you to using a hand-held bucket (does it count if you put it down on the driveway?) or hand-held hose "for quick rinses". But they are pretty much "if you don't mind" rules at this stage anyway, with holes large enough to lose whole buckets of water through (hand-held or otherwise). For example, we are now limited to watering our lawn twice a week, but this only applies to sprinkler systems. You can still use a hose as much as you like, presumably on the assumption that you will get bored of standing there holding it very quickly. And besides, everything you read about good watering technique says it's better to water thoroughly just once a week. Our garden would think Christmas had come early if it got watered every three days! So hopefully...

Jesus came to earth... to reflect God to us

Do you remember playing with a magnifying glass on a sunny day? That curved piece of glass you held in your hand captured the scattered rays, narrowing them down to a fluttering patch of brightness. And all the light’s power was held in that one small circle, shrinking and shrinking… until finally you were rewarded with a sudden curl of smoke, and a neat charred hole. Imagine, then, that God, seeking to reveal himself on earth, condensed his essential being through some kind of celestial magnifying glass. That wavering point became smaller and smaller, losing none of its power… until it became the exact size of a human baby, growing in a womb. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, says the verse in Colossians, the perfect reflection of God’s glory. This is the first and greatest reason that Jesus came: to show us what God is really like. Yet sometimes, reflected and refracted through 2000 years of history, the image that Jesus shows...

Making a mess

My friend Ellie writes a blog which I now shamelessly crib ideas from, when I am stuck for something new to do with Toby. Some time ago she wrote about a substance with the poetic moniker of cloud dough . It sounded simple to make and fun to play with, so I tucked it away in the back of my mind. The recipe is childishly simple: 8 cups of plain flour, 1 cup of vegetable oil, and mix. It comes out kind of sandy, although softer and more powdery. Now, Ellie has two gorgeous girls. Her blog entries were full of photos of them adding pretty objects and creating cute little landscapes. I, on the other hand, have a full-on hands-on get-stuck-in-as-far-as-possible boy. This is what happens when you let him loose on a scatterable substance. We make it and it all starts well. Notice I have prepared for mess with a large tarpaulin and lack of shorts. A few minutes in, and the mess is spreading up the T-shirt. It's still mostly in the t...

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog