Alleluia, Christ is risen! And now what? I would expect people to say something like “Now, when I die, I get to go to Heaven.” Or some may make that a conditional statement like “Because I believe, now when I die, I get to go to heaven.” Either way, Christ is risen = future life beyond this life. True, but there is something big that this misses. This future orientation misses that the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles do not direct us toward an afterlife as nearly as much as they direct us toward how to live in Christ’s new creation and as new creations in Christ.
For example, the prologue of John’s Gospel takes us back to the beginning, back to Genesis, signaling that something new is coming into being. He tells us that the Word of God is the light of the world that shines into the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. At the end of his Gospel, his resurrection scene begins in the dark of the eighth day. It is the first day of a new creation. The enemies of God have been defeated. Death has been defeated and so also the fatal consequence of our sins. It is a different reality now. This is what Jesus says to Mary Magdalene. Not “Wow, Mary, you now get to go to heaven.” But, “Go tell the disciples that I am alive. Go tell the world that the forces of evil and death have been defeated.”
Alleluia, Christ is risen! And now what? Now get to work. The world needs to know. The world needs to hear the good news in word and by good deed. This is God’s plan. That although God could do it all by God-self, God has chosen to work with and through us by the spread of the Gospel to make the world right. Imagining the task ahead, God must have great faith in the power of the Spirit working through us.
It is that same God-plan to save the world that we see at the end of the three synoptic Gospels. Mark’s Gospel tells us that very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go anoint Jesus’ body. They find the tomb open and a young man inside who tells them “He has risen. He is not here.” And now what?
And now go tell the disciples and go find Jesus because he has gone back to Galilee. It is a new day, a new start, back in Galilee where it all began but now the world is a different place because God is setting things right and we are to be part of that rescue plan. Matthew tells us much the same, but it is an angel who says “He is not here, he is risen.” And now what?
And now go tell the disciples and go to Galilee where you will see him. It is a new day, a new start, back where it all began.
There is work to do and Matthew adds detail on what that work is: making disciples, baptizing them, and teaching them his commandments. Luke adds his own witness. Two angels instead of one and the disciples are told by the risen Christ to stay in Jerusalem until they receive the Holy Spirit. And then what? Then, there is work to do.
The witness of the Gospels is not so much that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and so we now go to heaven as it is, Jesus is the crucified and risen messiah, Jesus is the Christ, Jesus is now Lord of all, and God has commissioned us to be messengers to all the world of that good news in word and by good deed. God is making the world right and has empowered us by the Holy Spirit to be participants in that work.
And then what? Then, heaven.
The Lord is risen, indeed.
Fr. Bill+