Ever Expanding Resurrection

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Hebrews 5:5-10

John 12:20-33

As we draw closer and closer to the resurrection celebration of Easter Sunday, it would do us well to stop and ask the question, “What is the resurrection anyway?” Is there a difference between resurrection and resuscitation? Does the miracle of Easter stop at the fact that Jesus’ heart stopped beating for a period of time and then it started up again? If that is the case, Jesus wasn’t the first or last person to experience this miracle of coming to life after dying. The previous chapter tells of how Jesus’ friend, Lazarus, was dead, but was raised by Jesus to new life. Luke’s Gospel tells of Jesus raising a woman’s son from the dead in the town of Nain. Luke also tells us the story of Jairus’ dead daughter whom Jesus raises with a word. After Jesus, we get miraculous resuscitation stories like when a Paul raises a guy named, Eutychus, when he fell out of a window. Peter raises the disciple, Tabitha, from the dead in the book of Acts too. Jesus also wasn’t the first person in the Bible to have had his still heart begin beating again. The prophet Elijah is housed by a widow and her son in Zarephath. The boy dies, but Elijah prays until the son is resuscitated. Elijah’s successor, Elisha, also raises a boy from the dead in almost the same way.

Jesus being dead and then becoming alive once more is not a singular event. He wasn’t the first and he wasn’t the last. Plenty of other folks even within the confines of our Bible had had the same experience. So I return to our primary question. How is the resurrection different from resuscitation?

If I had to boil it down to a single statement, I’d say that resurrection is the victory over death that multiplies and multiplies. Resurrection is the unfathomable mystery of God’s love that destroys and defeats all sin and death. Resurrection is the sure victory of God’s love over all that seeks to separate us from God’s love. Resurrection includes resuscitation from the dead, but it is also the endless possibilities for how God’s love manifests when we believe death has been destroyed in Christ Jesus. Resurrection is more than resuscitation because of who has accepted death and arose victorious over its power. God incarnate, in Jesus Christ, has deigned to accept the sting of death and by doing so, has destroyed its power. Christ has killed death and in doing so has multiplied the gift of eternal life for all Creation. Because Christ has died and been raised, so too will all the world be raised. Resuscitation is a single event- one death transformed into one life. Christ’s resurrection is an unending, ever-expanding event- one death transformed into eternal life for all Creation.

Jesus says that in his death, resurrection, and ascension, he draws all people of the world to himself, yet he also expels the ruler of this world. Christ has come to bring peace, harmony, kindness, and mercy to the world. But that also means that Christ has come to confront and destroy the rulers of this world that deny God’s people their inherent dignity as image-bearers and children of God. 

This past Tuesday, a 21 year-old man walked into two different Asian American owned spas and killed eight people, including six Asian American women. This disgusting murder reveals what Jesus was talking about when he spoke of “the ruler of this world” that is expelled by the power of resurrection. The ruler of this world is the glorification of violence that expresses enthusiastic devotion to “God and guns” in the same blasphemous breath. The ruler of this world is the embrace of the unapologetic misogyny and fetishization of women. The ruler of this world is the racist hate that views Asian descent lives as disposable outlets for a white man to snuff out because of his “bad day.” The ruler of this world is the unapologetic indifference or willful ignorance in unrepentantly referring to COVID-19 as the “China Virus” despite the clear link that such rhetoric has emboldened violence against Asian Americans. 

In Jesus’ resurrection, he makes the invisible God visible. In Jesus’ resurrection, he draws all people to himself even as he ousts the apparent rulers of this world. Resuscitation is the reversal of a single death, but resurrection is the manifestation of eternal life for all Creation.

Jesus says that his life and the lives of those who abide in him are like a grain of wheat that “dies” in the ground, but rises up to produce an exponential growth of blessing and life.

Most of you probably know by now that one of my favorite wonders is the mysteries of space. The more the scientific community seems to learn about the vastness of our universe, the more mysteries are presented. For example, we know that the universe is expanding and it is expanding at an accelerating rate. The Big Bang theory suggests that the universe exploded from a singular, near-infinitely small point and then rapidly expanded in all directions. In 10 to the -32 seconds (that’s zero followed by 31 decimal points then the number 1), the universe expanded from the size of about half the width of a single molecule of DNA to 10.6 light years (or about 62 trillion miles). For a long time, scientists believed that such a huge expending of energy would mean that the universe expansion would eventually slow down and run out of juice. Then, the universe would begin to condense back to a single point due to the pull of gravity. But in 1998, scientists discovered that universe expansion is not slowing down, but is in fact, speeding up. It is getting faster and faster and no one really knows why. The universe is growing at a seemingly infinite rate. There is no stopping the growth- a lack of energy as we conceptualize and the power of gravity cannot stop it. As far as we know, the universe will continue to expand forever.

The resurrection is like our ever-expanding universe. No force in the universe can limit its life-giving gospel expanse. The resurrection is like a grain of wheat that multiplies into a whole stalk of wheat which multiplies into a field of wheat. In the cross of Christ, we are saved from death. In his resurrection, the fruit of that resuscitation miracle is multiplied and ever expanding. Resurrection is the miracle of God incarnate facing the very worst this world could throw at him in sin and death, and still rising triumphant. Resurrection is the unsearchable mystery of God’s goodness and love that makes anything possible. By the gift of faith, we believe that the resurrection possibilities of Christ are ever-expanding and endless: hatred will cease; swords, spears, guns, and bombs will be destroyed and transformed; the world will forget how to “solve” problems through war; all people of all races, faiths, genders, and ages will be brought together in true harmony and understanding; systemic and personal racism will be acknowledged and truly repented of; and death and its many instruments of destruction and dehumanization will be destroyed forever. Resuscitation is a single point of victory over death. Impressive, but that isn’t all God can or will do. Resurrection is the endless, ever-expanding eternal life mystery of God that frees the entire universe from the power of sin and death. Faith in the resurrection is faith in God’s transforming love that cannot and will not be stopped or even slowed. Eternal life is here for all the universe and will expand forever.