Knowing same – similar – different
Scripture reading: Luke 7:11-16. Text: Luke 24:1-12. Part of our text: “In their fright, the women (who went to Jesus’ tomb to anoint his body) bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men (an angel in Matthew) said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ Then they remembered his words.” Luke 24:5-8. We wish to approach the richness, power and mystery of Easter again from one viewpoint only. What is at the border of comprehension cannot be made logical and understandable in a short and easy way. May we ask God to bless our human endeavor by unveiling more from that supernatural event what we call Resurrection.
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Please see our text.
Surely there cannot be two concepts more opposing than the living and the dead. They are totally different, although those who died were once living beings.
Let us see Easter through three various cases: Same – similar – different because in Easter we find all the three.
We celebrate Easter during spring, when we see the entire nature coming back to life. Spring would lend itself as an illustration for Easter; during those cold months everything looked “lifeless” and now there are the buds, blossoms and singing of the birds.
We should be careful because this illustration is wrong. During winter, life was not dead, it was only hibernating, and the birds migrated to warmer climates. Life returned and the continuity has not been not interrupted. Only the forms or states of life were changed. There might be some similarities between spring and Easter, yet they are quite different!
These miracles are not Easter either, although the similarity is there.
In our scripture reading, we learn how our Lord had raised the only son of a widow in the city of Nain. As the Bible says, “Jesus, seeing the grieving and crying widow, had encouraged the brokenhearted mother: ‘Don’t cry.’ Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, get up!’ The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.” Luke 7:13-15.
Here, the similarity is that someone who was really dead and had come back to life. However, this young man returned to the same life from which he had died recently. Also similar to Easter was the way the supernatural divine power that had worked in bringing the young man back to life, we call it miracle, and we have no logical explanation how Jesus had done it. The same miracles occurred when Jesus had raised from the dead the daughter of Jairus, Mark 5:21-24, 35-43; and Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, John 11:32-44.
The totally different, unique, and spiritual event: The resurrection of the Lord.
Jesus’ resurrection was entirely unique what had never happened before and will never be repeated again. Our Lord died on the cross, his death was real that finished his earthly life. Easter morning, however, not his physical body resurrected from the grave but a different spiritual body that had borne the features of the physical one. Please listen to apostle Paul: “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.” 1 Corinthians 15:44-45.
The good news is that there is a great similarity what apostle Paul had spelled out so clearly: “And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man (Jesus) from heaven.” 1 Corinthians 16:49. See also 1 John 3:2.
The Rev. Alexander Jalso is a retired United Presbyterian minister living in Brownsville.