Resurrected!
The joy of a comedy so good it makes us say Leyros.
Mission begins with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the rejected and crucified Jesus is alive is something that cannot possibly be suppressed. It must be told. Who could be silent about such a fact? — Lesslie Newbigin
Early in the morning, on the day after the Sabbath, a group of tired and grieving women discovered the tomb of Jesus was empty in a garden somewhere in Jerusalem. If the earliest followers of Jesus and the authors of the gospels intended to concoct a false but plausible resurrection story, this detail would have been left out. Women as the first witnesses was a strike against the resurrection for people in the ancient world. “Christianity can’t be true,” declared the Greek philosopher Celsus in the second century, “because the written accounts of the resurrection are based on the testimony of women—and we all know women are hysterical.”
Women in the cultural time and place of the New Testament had a very low social standing. They couldn’t testify in court. Even so, the church publicized that women were the first eyewitnesses of the resurrection despite how it could undermine the credibility of their case. This inconvenient detail could have easily been redacted to help make the resurrection more conceivable (an already difficult feat). Why keep it unless it was what actually took place? The gospel writers don’t twist the facts (although they write with a theological lens), they keep the “embarrassing” details: Mary Magdeline, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and possibly some other women discovered the empty tomb. Their unredacted presence at the empty tomb adds to the reliability of the gospels as historical eye-witness testimony.
As the women arrived, burial spices in hand, only to find the stone rolled away, I can’t help but wonder if the aroma of the oil of joy lingered more than the stench of death inside the tomb? An empty tomb is perplexing enough. Who took the body? But, then, an angelic messenger proclaims, “Jesus is not here. He is risen!” Their world turned upside down. This news surely made their minds spin and their hearts leap with cautious hope. Could it be? The women spring from the tomb “with fear and great joy” as the first heralds and preachers of the resurrection. The good news of great joy was first entrusted to women, despite the consequences of how it would be received by their culture. Inequalities begin to unravel in a resurrection world. May we never forget it.
The joy of resurrection.
Leyros!
The women now transformed into gospel preachers returned to where the apostles of Jesus were hiding out in a locked room. Ironically, apostle means sent one. The women fulfill the apostolic vocation as sent ones before the apostles do. Now, imagine this scene. In a hyper-patriarchal society in which women can’t even testify in court, a handful of panicked women rush into the room. They’ve been at the tomb to anoint a dead body with spices. They’re flustered. They’re excited. They seem a little unhinged—a strange fire flickers in their eyes and an unusual even unnerving joy exudes from them. I doubt the women could catch their breath. They try to get the words out. Gasping for air, winded, they say:
“He’s alive. He’s alive. He’s alive!”
“Who’s alive?” asks the apostles.
“Jesus! He is risen!”
The apostles don’t buy it. Why would they? In the economy of the world, dead stuff stays dead. “They did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense” recounts the gospel of Luke. This is a bashful translation. The word is Leyros. Nonsense? An idle tale? It meant garbage or drivel or crap. “Humbug,” if you’re scrooge. “Bollocks,” if you’re British. Or as professor Anna Carter Florence bluntly puts it, the apostles essentially say, “Bullshit.” (She said it not me).
That’s more like it isn’t it?
It’s raw and honest. A bodily resurrection? Leyros! Reduce it to a “spiritual” resurrection at the very least, a nice palpable idea, or perhaps a grief induced hallucination. Dead people—truly dead people—stay dead. How else are you supposed to respond other than saying Leyros? This is our default reflex. It’s how I responded when I first heard about the resurrection as a teenager. It’s not the kind of thing that happens in our world—until it did.
Here’s the thing: when we talk about resurrection, if it doesn’t sound implausible, if it doesn’t make us sound like we’ve lost our minds, if it doesn’t make people want to reject it for its absurdity, then we aren’t truly proclaiming it. Because if the resurrection is true, our world crumbles. All our categories of how the world is supposed to function fall apart. A supposed “spiritual” resurrection can’t have this effect. It’s an ideal that may change people but not the fabric of creation. Only the historical, physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus proves just how much “matter matters to God.”14 The resurrection is a deep, soulful, and joyful Yes to the world God has made—especially toward us.
The problem is the apostles reasonably believe they’re living in a tragedy. Crucifixion has the final word. The power of Rome reigns. It’s the age-old story of the world. Behind the scenes, however, joy quietly does her work to set the apostles up for the punchline. Because they’re living in a divine comedy. Resurrection has stepped up to the microphone.
The joy of a comedy so good it makes us say Leyros.
Confounding Joy
The resurrection is bewildering to our nature and experience of the world. But there is the option of suspending our cynicism to consider the empty tomb. That’s what the apostle Peter did. He said Leyros alongside everyone else. Yet Peter decided to see for himself. He runs to the tomb. Actually, it was a race against the apostle John who beat him to the tomb (a point John seems to delight in making in his gospel).
The joy of a harmless jab that turns into Holy Writ.
Peter throws his energy into finding out if the tomb really is empty, if the resurrection could be true. Joy quietly stirs a giant What if? in his soul. That’s why Peter retraces the steps left by the women. He looks inside the tomb. Empty. The burial linens are folded up. Peter confirms it (although he does not yet realize death has been tidily defeated).
Not much time passes before Jesus appears to his apostles huddled together in their locked room. The resurrected Jesus somehow steps into the locked room and says, “Peace be with you.” It has the opposite effect. Of course it did. The apostles are frightened, they think Jesus is a ghost.
The joy of messing with your disciples a little bit.
This is the same Jesus but different too. He has the wounds of crucifixion in his resurrected body. He eats meals but can also (presumably) walk through walls. The disciples are face to face with Jesus but “they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement.6” Resurrection in the hands of joy confounds us with bewilderment. This is joy that does not make sense but rises up in us like a new day. This is the joy of Jesus dancing his way out of the tomb in victory—death is unraveling and will soon die. Because life, goodness, and joy—oh, yes, joy!—these things endure. Resurrection joy is stirred by the truth that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.7
The apostles do not come to their senses. That’s not accurate. They come to a new sense of reality. Leyros is wiped away and now they are “overjoyed.” This kind of joy fills the cup and spills over and runs down onto the floor. It is entirely unique to the profession, “We have seen the Lord!”
At some point, the apostles looked backward. They remembered their evening with Jesus in the upper room. Jesus had much to say to them about joy. They couldn’t understand it at the time when Jesus said, “You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.”9 On the other side of the resurrection it started to make sense. Just as the joy of a child being born is paved by anguish, the grief of Christ’s crucifixion births joy. This is a one-of-a-kind joy. The joy of death and resurrection. The grief of the disciples beholding a crucified Messiah, the death of a beloved friend, the terminus station of their hopes and dreams transformed into the joy of encountering Jesus—alive and well! Before his death, Jesus told them, “Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice … and no one will take away your joy.” Why? Because Jesus is alive forever.
The joy of confounding joy turning into unshakeable joy.
The Dance of Resurrection
Yes, the resurrection is initially a confounding joy. How could it be anything else? It’s not the news we expect to hear. But as this good news settles into our souls—as we realize it’s the work of God within history, as we come to see we’re not living in a tragedy but a comedy—we can know deep joy. The joy of resurrection ignites in us when we start to grasp the death and resurrection of Jesus for the first time—or afresh, yet again, once more. We cannot muster joy up or manufacture her, especially in respect to resurrection joy. For the apostles, this unique quality of joy flowed like a river from an ocean of grace after they witnessed the death and resurrection first-hand. Jesus said to his disciples in the upper room, “Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” We do not have to hesitate to pray, Share this joy with me. Do it again, Jesus. But we shouldn’t be surprised if joy sets us up to be on the brink of saying leyros before we’re confounded and then overjoyed with unshakable joy as she dances to the song of resurrection with us.
Many years ago, Julia and I went on a group tour of Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. When you’re in the Holy Land expectations run pretty high. The group we visited with were expecting to encounter Jesus in a unique way. To be fair, it happens. There’s something about expanding your geographic imagination that helps foster a deeper connection to the gospels. On our tour, epiphanies seemed to happen at every turn.
On top of Mount Sinai:
“Oh. It’s so beautiful. Moses received the law here!”
In a boat on the Sea of Galilee:
“Oh. It’s so amazing. Peter walked on water here!”
Brought to tears in the Garden of Gethsemane:
“Oh. It’s so sad. Jesus sweat blood here!”
But for Julia?
Nothing.
The whole trip, she felt like Jesus wasn’t there.
Mount Sinai, he is not here. Sea of Galilee, he is not here. Garden of Gethsemane, he is not here. People were on the cloud nine of religious experiences, “thin places” abounded, but for Julia: Zilch. No epiphanies—just rocks, water, gardens. “He is not here” was her refrain. Julia sincerely wanted to encounter Jesus afresh, because she was in Israel of all places—Jesus breathed this air, walked this soil, felt these waters. She was praying, watching, listening, waiting. Even so, “He is not here.” She couldn’t help but ask, Why not me? I’m sure part of her thought, Is this all just leyros? We can all relate too. It’s one thing to hear about the good news of the resurrection and even believe it. But sometimes we’re left scratching our heads about how we experience resurrection.
On our last day, we visited two sites. Each are contenders for where Jesus may have been buried. One is the Grand Orthodox Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The other is a modest tomb in a small garden just down the street—the last stop of our trip. As we went to this tomb, Julia was somewhat grieved. Times up, Jesus. At this tomb, each person goes in one at a time. I went in. Looked around. I thought, Yup. Looks like a tomb. Headed out. Julia goes in. She takes time. A little while longer. Then, bursting out, full of joy, almost running, shouting to me, “He’s not here! He’s risen! He’s not here, he’s risen! He’s not here, he’s risen!”
There is a little-known Catholic tradition called risus paschalis. It translates to Easter laugh. “It was customary for the parish priest to tell jokes during Eastertide” recounts the Jesuit priest James Martin, “The idea behind it was laughing at Satan, who had been discomfited by the Resurrection.”2 Because in the words of the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh, the resurrection is “a laugh freed, for ever and ever.”3 This kind of holy laughter took a hold of Julia as she recounted her experience to me. Julia told me that she basically had my same experience of the tomb. She looked around, Yup. Looks like a tomb. Then sighed, “He’s not here.” But on the way out of the tomb Julia saw a heavenly sign! It wasn’t an angel but a literal old sign adhered to the exit of the tomb. I had missed it. But Jesus and joy didn’t let Julia miss it:
“He is not here. He is risen.”
When Julia burst forth from that old tomb, I witnessed time stand still. It was as if I saw the original joy of the first women who preached the good news of resurrection. In fact, I did. It was the very same joy. Because joy bursts forth from the heart of God and runs to us proclaiming the confounding good news. Joy danced with Jesus out of the empty tomb, danced with the women preachers on their way to the apostles—and she still dances with us. But joy also loves a good set up so that she can burrow deeper into our souls.
Julia had the first refrain down. But He is not here is the anthem of leyros without the second refrain, He is risen. The full refrain captures the arch of how resurrection joy unfolds in us. From leyros—He is not here—to confounding joy—Where is he?—to overjoyed unshakeable joy—He is risen! When Julia saw the words, He is risen—when the refrain was put back together, the world stopped from a blip of monochromatic sight to full technicolor. Julia came out with an epiphany of her own. But more so, her momentary grief turned into a fresh dose of the unshakeable joy of resurrection.
We’ll never forget it.
Jesus isn’t found in the tomb or on some religious holiday. Julia’s encounter of Jesus wasn’t brought about by geography or some holy relic. The truth is the tomb is empty. What’s so powerful about an old empty tomb? Jesus isn’t there. This is a historical fact. He is not here. He is risen. When Jesus says to his apostles, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” it’s verified. It’s true. This is the most enduring joy we can know on earth. Because as Jesus said, nothing can take resurrection joy away from us.
The joy of resurrection dancing in triumph over death with that mischievous Easter laugh.
Taken from Longing for Joy: An Invitation into the Goodness and Beauty of Life by Alastair Sterne. ©2024 by IVP. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.
BTW: Easter is more than a day …
If you want to join me in celebrating the entire season of Easter, I encourage you to read 50 Days of Joy: An Invitation.
“Matter matters to God” is a lovely turn of phrase coined by N.T. Wright somewhere
Martin, James. Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life. New York: HarperCollins, 2012, 22
Kavanagh, Patrick. ‘Lough Derg’, Collected Poems, London, 1972