Easter Sunday: The Pattern

On the Coleman Glacier, Mount Baker, Washington, USA

[Life] is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5

A hundred years ago, British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell used the Second Law of Thermodynamics in a vigorous assault on theism.  Russell’s position was that since the Second Law requires that the universe is ultimately doomed, life is ultimately meaningless.  All achievement and therefore human life itself are futile. 

You can go with Russell, or take door number two: read Luke 24: 1-12

In a few short days, everything has unraveled, disastrously, for the disciples.  From his triumphant entry to Jerusalem, Jesus is arrested. He is condemned, tortured, then humiliatingly crucified.  One disciple has hanged himself.  The others are cowering and in hiding. 

Now, the first day of the week, at early dawn, some women go to the tomb, taking their spices.  These are not women expecting a resurrection.  Gloom has settled on their hopelessness and confusion.    

Have you ever felt like your life has spun so completely out of control that everything that means anything to you has slipped through your fingers?  Before you even know what is happening, you can’t trust anything, anyone, or even yourself anymore. 

Have you ever questioned whether anything matters, whether there is any purpose at all? 

They find the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they go in, they don’t find the body. They’re confused. 

Suddenly two men appear next to them in dazzling array.  The women, frightened, bow their faces to the ground, and the men remind them that

1.   Jesus himself had told them, repeatedly, that this would happen (“Remember how he told you”).   

2.   Jesus’ death (as well as his resurrection) is rooted in the Old Testament. 

3.   There is a larger plan (“the Son of Man MUST BE delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise).”

Just because you can’t see the pattern yet doesn’t mean it isn’t there. 

God knows what it is to lose a child.  God can take something so horrific and unjust as the violent betrayal and crucifixion of his Son, and breathe meaning into it (and meaning that reaches redemptively to all people everywhere).   

God, the Lord of history, can take your circumstances and redeem them, too. 

We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

That’s good news for Peter.  He’s the one who denied knowing Christ, not just once, but three times, remember? 

Peter runs to the tomb.  Stooping, he sees the linen cloths by themselves, and he goes home marveling at what has happened.

In denying Christ, Peter screwed up, monumentally.  But the story isn’t over yet for Peter (just read Acts and his epistles).

And it isn’t over for you either.  He is risen.  Fresh start.  It’s a new day.  See the world with new eyes.