Having thought about the significance of Good Friday’s cross and Holy Saturday’s contemplations, we now come to celebrate that glorious Resurrection Sunday!
Bonds burst, stones roll, lights shine, voices raise, hopes kindle to flame.
Hope. What a fascinating idea. During one of our recent dinner-time conversations, my son was trying to express his thoughts about a situation that we were going through as a family. We had been explaining to him that we were hopeful for a certain outcome but couldn’t be sure of how it would all work out. Now my son loves things to be black and white. He could understand hoping for something, but he struggled to come to terms with the idea that the reality might look different to what he had imagined. Yet, in some ways he was operating at a level of hope that was higher than mine. You see, as a parent, I was carefully working to manage his expectations. But his hope was more like a certainty.
That’s what hope is like with God in the equation. Godly hope is higher than desires or dreams. It is the confident expectation of the good future that God has described. My son had certain hope and it challenged me. It made me go back to God about this situation to see what He had said and to reaffirm my own confident expectation in that future. Otherwise, if I tried much harder to manage expectations then I was at risk of turning my hope into the very opposite of hope: doubt.
In much the same way, it is quite possible for believers to end up letting hope turn to doubt by losing sight of God’s word. Take the example of the two disciples we meet in Luke’s account of Resurrection Sunday. These followers of Jesus are walking away: walking away from the city where they had hoped for revival; walking away from the community where they had found common faith; walking away from the cross where the Saviour had hung. Then, trudging along the dirt road, they meet the resurrected Christ incognito (just imagine!). In one simple phrase spoken by these two disciples we find a profound reality: ‘we had hoped.’ … “We had hoped that [Jesus] was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21).
They were walking away with hope that had turned to doubt or maybe even disappeared entirely. “We had hoped…” In these three words we hear the sadness of their hearts and the confusion of their thoughts. How many people today stand on the threshold of Resurrection Sunday with similarly sad hearts and confused thoughts. But they were not walking on the road alone, another walked with them. This one had a skip in his nail scarred feet as he walked alongside. Jesus was about to transform their dejection by the revelation of hope fulfilled in His resurrection life!
I love the drama of Jesus in disguise. I often think how Jesus must have enjoyed coming up with different ways to reveal Himself to the disciples: walking through walls, cooking breakfast, being mistaken for a gardener or startling an angry Pharisee on the Damascus Road!
On the Emmaus Road with these two travellers, Jesus was waiting for just the right moment to reveal Himself to them. He heard their pain, He heard their confusion and He heard their longing. In hearing, I think He saw a flicker of faith beneath it all, a smouldering wick which He would not quench (Is 42:3). Instead, He was poised to breath fresh life to that ember. In what way would He show himself to them? Luke tells us,
“He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared. Back and forth they talked. “Didn’t we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?” They didn’t waste a minute. They were up and on their way back to Jerusalem. They found the Eleven and their friends gathered together, talking away: “It’s really happened! The Master has been raised up—Simon saw him!” Then the two went over everything that happened on the road and how they recognized him when he broke the bread.”
Luke 24:30-35 MSG
What a revelation! Just a few days prior, He had taken bread and told them how His body would be broken for them. And here, having endured that breaking, having been poured out like wine, He demonstrates that He is risen from the dead with the very same act. What had been a promise was now fulfilled before their eyes. What had been future was now present. What had been hoped for was now realised.
Bonds burst, stones roll, lights shine, voices raise, hopes kindle to flame.
For many people, misplaced hope has led to heart-ache. But hope in Christ is never misplaced because we see the One who was crucified now raised from the dead! The One we had hoped for really is the redeemer! The One we had hoped for really has the power to save! The One we had hoped for really is alive!
Can you imagine how those disciples must have felt as they ran back along that dusty Emmaus Road? Do you feel the same when you look on the Risen Redeemer? The resurrection has fundamentally and irrevocably changed the fabric of all hope! If He is risen, then nothing is the same. If He is risen, then nothing is beyond His power. If He is risen, then all who hope in Him will never be put to shame!
Bonds burst, stones roll, lights shine, voices raise, hopes kindle to flame.
Resurrection Sunday invites us to hope again with a real hope. Not to walk away with hope turning to doubt. Not to revisit dreams and desires with carefully managed expectations. But to realise the truth of Resurrection Sunday: that there is another on the Emmaus Road. Perhaps He has come to you incognito (even in the form of a simple blog). Maybe He has come with a loaf and a cup to sit at your table. But to each one of us He has come to fan hope into flame. To kindle the kind of hope that can only come from His resurrection!
