April 17, 2022: Resurrection Sunday – The Peter Principle

But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it. However, Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened. (Luke 24:11 – 12, New Living Translation)

            Some things never change.

As we have seen before, Peter immediately reacts to the women’s story of an empty tomb and incredible words, and leaps up and runs to see for himself. It is hard to imagine what was going through Peter’s mind at that moment – disbelief, fear of  more disappointment, more despair that Jesus’ body was missing but maybe there was also a glimmer of hope, the possibility of getting  a second chance with Jesus, some new truth bursting on the horizon of this New Day.

According to John’s Gospel, Peter races John to the tomb, now empty. John gets there first but hesitates to go and just peers in, perhaps fearing what he would find. But not Peter, he boldly enters the tomb immediately. As I say, some things never change. The are both puzzled, perplexed, confused, mystified and amazed by the evidence.

And then they go home.

That somehow seems odd on such an auspicious day. Were they not curious about what was going on? Were they not wondering how the tomb became empty? Were they not the least bit curious about what has happened to Jesus? Were they suspicious that it was a trick and the safe place and the safe thing to do was to hide away in their homes?

But if I was going to an Easter Service this morning (we are still worshipping on-line at Yorkminster Park in TO), we would sing the hymns about Resurrection, hear the familiar Resurrection stories, say the words aloud that “He is risen” and then we would go back home, have a nice lunch and look forward to an Easter supper. But is that all Easter is?

I don’t just want to go back home after Easter.

On the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, the two men explain that the women and the disciples found an empty tomb but “they did not see him.” (Luke 24:24)

When the two men returned to Jerusalem to share the news that they had seen the Lord, the word was already out: “The Lord has risen indeed and he has appeared to Simon.” (24:34)

Not the Peter the Rock, not the pillar of the future church, not the holder of the keys of heaven; just good ol’ Simon, the ordinary fisherman, Simon of backwoods Galilee, and despite all his past shortcomings, he experiences the Resurrection, up close and personal. We are not told the intimate details of this first encounter between Peter and the Risen Lord but perhaps we can imagine its intensity, its emotion, its embracing Love.

Peter looked beyond just an empty tomb and encountered his Living Master. Jesus’ Resurrection broke the rules, stretched the boundaries, overcame the worst of obstacles, defeated the masterminds of evil, death and sin. On the global scale it is unequalled. But it is on the one-to-one personal scale that Jesus’ New Life takes shape. He has appeared to Simon.  He appeared to Mary Magdalene. Much later, the unlikely new convert Paul wrote, “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (1 Corinthians 15:8, New Revised Standard Version)

                Jesus appears to us today – in the hymns, the texts, the words, the celebrations but in very real ways I pray that he will appear to you and me through his living Spirit, through his ongoing vitality that shares his Life with us, through his ability to lift us up with him above anything and everything that would cancel life and throw us into darkness.

“And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.” (Romans 6:4, NLT)

 

Dale