Resurrection as Insurrection: Surprise, Surprise.
By Ken Wilson


Surprise, surprise. Some friends--husband a Family Practice doc, wife a pregnant mom--gave birth to a baby boy, only to discover the unpredictability of the universe. "How is that possible!?" They cried out in unison when the delivery doc said, "We're not done! There's another baby in there!"
Nancy and I many years ago: 40, going on 41. Parents of 4, age 22-12; do the math--you see we started young. Yet lo, well into her fortieth year of life, Nancy calls to me from upstairs, "Ken!"--some-thing in  her voice told me my life was about to change, though I knew not how. "What?" I replied after a long pause. "I'm pregnant!"
Being well versed in the elements of surprise, let me break it down. First, mouth went dry, hair on arms stood on end. Blood shunted to large muscles, fear-fight-flight response.  Startle reflex, extended.
Then, disbelief: Nancy & I stared at each other for a week. A month before we told anyone. How could anyone believe what we didn't? 
Finally, disorientation. How to describe the feeling? It's like you've finished decorating living room--spent all your money on furniture to match walls to match the art. Emboldened by While You Were Out your neighbors sneak into your house to paint the walls a different color--with paint that can't be painted over. Nothing matches the new color and there you are: disoriented, because everything now needs to be adjusted to their little surprise; you don't know where to begin.
And so it has been and ever shall be, the elements of surprise--fear, disbelief, disorientation.
Exactly what you see in response to greatest surprise in history of surprising events--as surprising as Big Bang before Time invented.
I refer to the rising in glory of Jesus from the dead and his appearing to disciples in a transformed bodily existence, not at end of history, when resurrection expected by Jewish people, but in middle of history--as though the glorious future or a bit of it, had come crashing into the present. So that now, as we look back to Easter Sunday, we're looking back to the future!
Resurrection is always insurrection, uprising, the overturning of the powers that be, beginning with our expectations. Surprise, surprise.
The First Element of Surprise: FEAR
In Mark's gospel what words describe the first response to the uprising of Jesus? alarmed, trembling, bewildered, afraid. (Mk 16: 5-8)
In Luke: "While they were still talking, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."  They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost." (Luke 24: 36-39)
John's gospel indicates that Peter & the beloved disciple ran back from the empty tomb, holed up inside with the other disciples in a state of stupefied fear. (see John 20: 3-8, 19-21)
Matthew: "So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." (Mt. 28: 8-10)
Can almost detect an awkwardness on part of Jesus, knowing he is about to scare the wits out of them--so what does he say? "Hello"
Some years ago a young British atheist came to our church on Easter, hot-shot engineer with a physics background. During opening worship he sensed an orb of light before him, and from the light his heart heard, "Hi!" And that was his conversion. He's now an Anglican priest.
The Second Element of Surprise: DISBELIEF
Most famously Thomas, who didn't believe his friends, didn't believe his own eyes, but had to touch the wounds in his side. (Jn 20: 24-28)
Thomas wasn't the only doubter: The first eyewitnesses were women, and when the women ran to tell the men, Luke records "But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense" (Lk. 24:11)
On road to Emmaus two sullen disciples, grief stricken by the death of their master: "As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. (Luke 42: 15-16) Blinding, grief-born disbelief.
The Third Element of Surprise: DISORIENTATION
Mary, the first eyewitness, apostle to apostles, is so disoriented by the appearing of risen Jesus mistakes him for the gardener (John 20: 14-15)  So you have initial disorientation.
Also extended disorientation. In John 21, we find Peter, perhaps weeks later, out fishing, almost aimless, his eye definitely off the ball, unsure of himself or what to do in aftermath of a risen Lord.
Fear, disbelief, disorientation--all elements of surprise!
Resurrection did not meet their expectations. It blew expectations out of water. Turned them upside-down, inside-out, half way to Friday.
But here's deal: the surprise of resurrection doesn't wear off.
Could say the element of surprise is a mark of authentic Easter faith.
Inasmuch as we're not living in a state of surprise, we've lost touch with the resurrection.
The surprise of resurrection has lingering effects on mood of church.  
The Surprised Church is Marked by a Mood of WONDER
(The WOW Factor Effect)

The uprising of Jesus is harbinger of a world destined for a recreation analogous to the mortal body of Jesus being infused with immortality.
He is the firstborn of a new creation!
The ultimate hope of Christianity is not going to heaven when you die after leaving your body behind. (That's ultimate hope of the Greeks.)
We trust that after we die, our spirit will be kept safe in the arms of Jesus.  Heaven is important, but it's a way station. Jesus talks of going ahead of us to prepare a place: "In my father's house are many rooms" (Jn. 14:2) Gk. mones; "temporary lodging" (N.T. Wright)
Heaven is a Comfort Inn; comfort much anticipated in vale of tears.
But biblical hope is resurrection; beyond comfort, a shocking surprise: a new heaven and a new earth fully integrated.  A New Creation.
Jim Collins says every company built to last needs "a big hairy audacious goal."  Heaven isn't the BHOG; a New Creation is.
To think that when we are moved in our souls by the beauty of this world, when it feels like something beyond this world is winking at us thru this one….the hope of new creation signaling us…because every-thing in sight will be charged with the manifest glory of God which is shining through already…
How? I have no idea.  When? I have no idea.  What will it be like?  I have no idea. Like the uprising of Jesus, a surprise no doubt.  Before such a prospect, explanations vanish, all you can do is drop your jaw, gape, and wonder!
Like the universe itself before it dawned: a shocking surprise! 
AND IN THE MEANTIME: Heaven, what's that in light of the uprising?  What if we thought of heaven as the God-space next door, running parallel to space-time? The appearances of the Risen Jesus involved him slipping from God-space to our space. Until he ascended into God-space, poured out the Spirit to move freely back and forth. 
Our man, Jesus, in God-space right now, right next door. Spirit moving freely between God-space and our space now. Whole creation longing for God-space to break in to our space once and for all.  
The Surprised Church is Marked by a Mood of HUMILITY
(The "I must not be in charge" Factor Effect)

The reason we don't like surprise is simple: we like to be in control. When we're in control, there are no surprises!
But the dedicated disciples, the ones who had left all to follow Jesus, these God-fearing, Bible believing disciples, who spent three years with him, were completely surprised by his rising from the dead. 
Though Jesus alluded to his vindication in three days in advance of his death, they assumed he meant something other than what happened. Because everything they knew about resurrection placed it as an event at end of ages.  A general resurrection of dead.
They were sure of it.  Their Bibles told them so or so they thought.
So the event took them by surprise. God took them by surprise.
Jesus took them by surprise.
 
And ever after they proclaimed Jesus is Lord! meaning, Caesar is not, and if the ruler of Rome is not Lord, neither are we!
(We often forget the political implications of the earliest Christian creed--Jesus is Lord. In context it was Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not because "Caesar is Lord" was a trademark of the Empire.)
The resurrection as insurrection, an uprising.
That's why a theology that celebrates doubt for it's own sake is spineless. It lacks any nerve. And uprisings, if they call for anything, call for nerve. Faith, if it means anything means taking a risk, showing a little chutzpah.   
But a theology that lacks humility has missed the lesson of the resurrection. Jesus is Lord, and we are not, which means we hold a little more lightly to some of our religious opinions. God reserves the right to surprise his people! Jesus reserves the right to surprise his disciples! 
Don't let your desire for control, force you into a false certainty about things that are not under your control!
Humility (here's what I think about coming attractions, but I might be wrong--I've been wrong before, it could happen again) is the mood of resurrection theology!
The Surprised Church is Marked by a Mood of HOPE
(The "Let's get crackin'!" Factor Effect)

When Jesus ascended into God-space after many appearings, the disciples are staring upward. A angels say, "Stop staring up, you'll get a crick in your neck. He'll be back." Interesting, because you'd think "If he's coming back the same way he left, we ought to keep an eye out."  But no, the opposite lesson. Stop staring up, and get crackin'--as if there's work to be done here on earth.
Same lesson at end of longest written treatment of the resurrection: "Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give your-selves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." (1 Cor. 15: 58)

If we you want to wiggle out of this, you could say "labor in the Lord" means "your specifically Christian labor, narrowly defined (soul saving); that would be a complete distortion though of the biblical worldview both of what it is to be "in the Lord" and what labor is.
If you're a heresy tracker it would be the Gnostic one at work in this distortion. A gnostic view sees a firewall between what's "spiritual" and what's "material." Spirit = good; material = bad. Paul is fighting this view all the time. The view that says the created order is insignificant or worse. 
The fact that Jesus material body is risen tells us otherwise. God is  creator, creation is good, and hope of its resurrection is further proof.
What this means is that our work here on earth, or tending the earth, our stewardship of it's resources, our everyday labor, our earning a living, our making of art, our gardening, farming, engineering, our so called ordinary labor isn't so ordinary. 
Jesus himself spent many more years as a carpenter than as a rabbi and his labor wasn't in vain. 
His building of homes wasn't in vain, his repairing of doors wasn't in vain, his earning a living wasn't in vain. 
And neither is ours, in Him. Because God cares about this place, the earth, the world in which we live.  It's his place.  He came to dwell herein. He intends to unite this place one day with God-space, that dimension beyond but nearby, from which this place came.  Not out of no-where; out of God-where.
Look around you, the resurrection says. Open your eyes! (The posture of Hebrew prayer) What do you see?  You see a glorious creation groaning under some weight, some burden.  The uprising tells us the burden will be lifted, the shackles thrown off this creation and the glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Live, play, sleep, and labor here as if the uprising has begun, because it has. As every dictator knows, watch out for the people with hope, because they are the world changers. In him. 
Surprise, surprise.