Easter Vigil reminds us that Jesus shows up. Not necessarily how, when or where we had expected, but he shows up.<\/p>\n
The uncertainty of how, when and where is often a case of misunderstanding, or misplaced expectations. How many times did Jesus tell the disciples he\u2019d rise on the third day? But when that day came, none of them were looking for a resurrected Lord. In fact, his absence from the tomb initially caused more consternation than celebration. Even the other disciple who ran with Peter to the tomb, who it says \u201c\u2026also went inside. He saw and believed\u201d (v. 8), didn\u2019t seem to have it figured out as the next verse explains how they still didn\u2019t understand the Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.<\/p>\n
The last time any of those mentioned here saw Jesus, he was dead. They saw him raise Lazarus from dead, but who was going to raise Jesus? The notion of resurrection was fuzzy for them, let alone the logistics real and imagined to have such an event occur. But it wasn\u2019t up to them to help Jesus in some fashion keep his promise but to simply be looking for it\u2014even in as haphazard a manner as they did.<\/p>\n
Thanks be to God, Jesus keeping his promise to rise on the third day wasn\u2019t dependent on the disciples\u2019 ability to understand or comprehend every detail. It didn\u2019t require magic or some formula that needed to be followed. Rather, the disciples and Mary Magdalene were simply looking for him. No matter how misguided the how, when or where of their search might have initially been, they did know who<\/em> it was they were looking for.<\/p>\n This waiting and watching, lingering and looking for Jesus is part of our life of faith. It\u2019s not that Jesus isn\u2019t<\/em>with us, just that we fail to take notice of his presence\u2014an aspect of our human frailty and limitations we sometimes forget. Just because Jesus isn\u2019t present in the fashion we expected, doesn\u2019t mean he has abandoned us or reneged on his promise.<\/p>\n \u00a0This passage calls us to look for Christ\u2019s faithful, promised presence, because not even death can hold him. There are any number of things (death included) that may prevent us from fulfilling the various promises we make, no matter how much we may desire and strive otherwise. But none of those apply to Jesus because nothing can prevent him from keeping his promises to his beloved people. The promises made to you in your baptism\u2014to never leave nor forsake you, of forgiveness, of eternal life\u2014nothing can stop Jesus from keeping those promises. They may not be fulfilled as anticipated or expected. We may not even be able to envision what those promises kept might begin to look like\u2014but as the disciples that first Easter, our efforts and understanding are not requirements enabling Christ to keep his word.<\/p>\n Jesus keeps his promises because he made them and he can do no other. Our waiting for him is never in vain\u2014not even death can keep him from us.<\/p>\n Brad Everett<\/strong><\/p>\n Ascension Lutheran Church<\/strong><\/p>\n Calgary, AB Canada<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Easter Vigil | April 8, 2023 | Jh 20:1-18 | Brad Everett | Easter Vigil reminds us that Jesus shows up. Not necessarily how, when or where we had expected, but he shows up. The uncertainty of how, when and where is often a case of misunderstanding, or misplaced expectations. How many times did Jesus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,157,853,179,108,110,299,349,3,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-18004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-johannes","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-brad-everett","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-20-chapter-20-johannes","category-kasus","category-nt","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18004"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18014,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18004\/revisions\/18014"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18004"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=18004"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=18004"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=18004"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=18004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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