Sunday Reflections: The Miracle of Easter

While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”  LUKE 24:36

The most amazing verse in all of scripture is simply this; “Jesus himself stood among them”. Jesus crucified, Jesus dead and buried; Jesus stood among them.  The resurrection story is a resurrection of belief. 

The disciples discouraged, worried, even fearful, had either betrayed or deserted Jesus in despair. Guilt racked, hunted and hopeless, they huddled together because there was nothing else to do, nowhere to go and no plan. 

Three years of their lives a ghastly wreck of futility. Their beloved leader dead and gone. His promises seemed like a cruel hoax. And then it happened. Jesus stood among them.  From that room of gloom came forth the great joy of the resurrection.

This small band of homeless, jobless disciples changed the world. There would have been more than twelve, that number is just a symbol; and there would have been women among them. Whether twenty or a hundred; (scholars don’t agree) they influenced the world out of all proportion to their size and nearly powerless standing.

Power though is the ability to persuade.  They persuaded first their friends then strangers and then people throughout the known world.  Two thousand years later Christianity is still a major world religion eclipsing in numbers the Jewish faith it sprang from and outlasting the Roman Empire, which was nearly its demise. This to me is the miracle of Easter. 

This weekend faithful followers of Jesus will worship and others will come to see the show.  They will gawk at the lilies, belt out off key songs of resurrection, smile at the children, bite off the heads of chocolate Easter bunnies and all the while, somewhere among them, Jesus stands.

The Rev. Dr. George Hickok is minister of the Spring Hill Furnace Presbyterian Church in Lake Lynn, Pa. and adjunct professor of sociology at the Community College of Allegheny County-South Campus. He is married to the Rev. Beckie Hickok, minister of  in Regent Square.