On the Road to Emmaus

When Jesus burst out of the tomb, what happened? What does it mean for us?

This past month, believers of all kinds, in their own ways, celebrated the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. The question I’d like to ask today, is what exactly happened when Jesus came out of the tomb alive? By saying this, I don’t even mostly mean what happened to Jesus himself, because as the Biblical authors attest, whatever happened, had reverberations that made the world a different place.

In 1 Corinthians 15:20, Paul tells us that, “the Messiah has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” In other places, Jesus is called  “the firstborn from among the dead” (Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5; cf. Rom. 8:29, Rev. 3:14). “First fruits” is an agricultural image, depicting the initial produce of a larger, single harvest. “Firstborn” is a family image, concerning the first child born, the eldest sibling of a larger, single family.

We learn at least two things from the images Paul uses here.
1) Whatever happened to Jesus, it was the first time it had happened. This clues us in that Jesus was not simply resuscitated. His body did not simply come back to life, in the same way that had Lazarus (John 11) and Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5), amongst others. Jesus resurrection was the beginning of something that had never happened before.
2) Whatever happened to Jesus, it is understood as a part of a larger whole, the first fruits of the entire harvest; the firstborn of the entire family. Something began in the event of Jesus’ resurrection that had broader implications than simply Jesus himself.

What is this larger whole that has been set into motion by Jesus resurrection? In Jewish thought, which forms the background and foundation for the entire New Testament, the resurrection was thought to occur 1) at one time, 2) to everyone at once, and 3) at the “capital-e” End. It was a single, all-inclusive event at the beginning of God’s ultimate future for the world, at the transition between this age and the age to come. This is how Isaiah describes it:

Isa. 25:6    On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
(7) And he will destroy on this mountain
the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations;
he will swallow up death forever.
(8) Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the LORD has spoken.

Feasting, food, and wine in abundance. Death, disgrace and tears annihilated. Resurrection takes place in context to a full scale restoration of humanity in their community with God and each other and the future of life on the earth. Resurrection happens as God unleashes the final stages of his plan to undo the effects of the fall and restore the earth. The apostle John puts it this way:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. (2) And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (3) And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (4) He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (5) And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Resurrection, seen in this way, is like the title page for a entire book, whose content is the restoration of all things, the complete transformation of life on the earth, the renewal of life the way God meant for it to be: a life full of joy, love and peace, with no mourning, crying, pain or death. God’s “making all things new” is the harvest of which Jesus is the first fruits. Humanity renewed and restored in right relationship with God, each other, and the entire creation is the family to whom the resurrected Lord is the “firstborn.” When Jesus rose from the dead, the harvest began. When the Son of God was restored from the darkness of death, the new family was forged.   When God breathed immortality into the broken body of the Messiah, the new creation was inaugurated, like a seed planted in the ground, whose hidden life slowly but surely emerges in all its grandeur. The resurrection of Jesus does not simply mean that Jesus is alive.  For the entire creation, mired by death and decay, to the eyes of many suffused with a hopeless gloom, even yet “there lives the dearest freshness deep down things (Gerard Manley Hopkins).” The burgeoning spring-time of creation has come at last. God’s new creation has begun – and we are a part of it. The life of the new creation flows within our veins. The implications of this is at once expansive and exhilarating, and to this I will turn in the near future.

** The Title for this post is graciously lifted from the title of a chapter in Simply Christian by Tom Wright.

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• Resurrection and New Creation (Part 2) – Whirlwind Tour of the Gospel of John (2)
• Resurrection and New Creation (Part 1) – The Jewish Concept of Resurrection (5)
• Heaven is Important…But it’s not the End of the World (0)
• The Spirit of the Resurrection Part 2: Gnosticism and Schizoid Spirituality (3)
• The Spirit of the Resurrection (0)