Matthew 28:1-10
Easter Day 20th April 2014 Year A
Something miraculous has happened! We may try to tie it down in our ideas, in our facts, in our categories of understanding but the truth of what really happened is so wonderful, so unexpected, and so miraculous, that it avoids all these attempts. Dare I suggest even those attempts of Scripture itself? One only has to place the five accounts of the resurrection, the four gospels and that of 1 Corinthians, alongside one another to find just how many differences they have in their description of such an incredible event as this. They all try to put words around that which as profound experience is far beyond words. While initially the resurrection experience at the earliest level, as evidenced by Paul is one which is beyond literalist physicality, ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God’ (1 Corinthians 15:50), over time it became increasingly literalised and concretised. Thus the resurrection becomes more fleshed, the empty tomb becomes increasingly important as evidence for the event, and overall the event is increasingly associated with more and more spectacular miracles and signs. What is of course clear is the inadequacy of words, concepts or whatever we may structure around it to make sense of, or prove in some manner that the resurrection has happened. The resurrection always lies beyond all these things, for it is far deeper than all these things.