Lukes Resurrection Narratives
Now, after the long narrative of Jesus crucifixion and burial, comes the resurrection.
No one knows exactly when Christs resurrection took place, only that it was sometimes between his burial late of Friday and the discovery of the empty tomb early Sunday morning. There were no eyewitnesses to describe the resurrection itself. Instead, there are descriptions of appearances of the Risen Lord after the resurrection.
The account of the Passion is one continuous narrative, very similar in all four Gospels. Not so with the narratives of the resurrection appearances. There are isolated scenes and, while there are some similarities, each Gospel has its own stories to tell.
Lukes Gospel account can be divided into five episodes all taking place on Easter Sunday:
(1) the finding of the empty tomb at dawn.
(2) the appearance of the Risen Christ to two disciples walking to Emmaus.
(3) the appearance to the disciples gathered in Jerusalem.
(4) the commissioning of these disciples to witness and preach in his name.
(5) the end of the visible appearances as Christ.
The Last Chapter of Lukes Gospel At daybreak on the first day of the week the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
Luke 24:1-3
One of the most familiar phrases in the Apostles Creed is We believe in the resurrection of the body.
Resurrection is not the same as resuscitation (the act of reviving from apparent death or unconsciousness.) This human existence isnt simply continued. Its transformed. This human existence, which for some may not have been so good at all which may have been plagued by mistakes or just bad breaks this human existence will be transformed into something magnificent. The seed will blossom into what it was meant to be.
Thats why the crucifixion means so much. The body that was put in the tomb was a wreck broken, beaten, bloody, ruined. But Jesus went through death to a new transformed, impossible-to-describe human life. On Friday he was a wreck, and on Sunday this broken body was glorious.
We believe in the resurrection of the body. Thats my body were talking about.
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