Jesus is Risen… But He’s Not Here

When the scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’ day begged him for a sign that he was really all that he claimed to be, he said they wouldn’t be given any sign, except the sign of Jonah. Thy knew well how God had called Jonah to cry out against Nineveh, and how Jonah had decided instead to quietly slip on down to the shore and catch the first boat headed in the opposite direction. As if trying to get as far as possible from the God of heaven, Jonah went down into the bowels of the ship and fell asleep. But when a storm like they’d never seen before was about to destroy the crew and all their cargo, they hauled Jonah up and asked him what the gods had against him. Rather than repent of his rebellion against Yahweh, Jonah told the men that he was running from the God of heaven and opted to go down even further—down into the sea where he was swallowed by a giant fish.

Right about then, things weren’t looking so good for Jonah. You might say he’d reached rock bottom. But it was just when Jonah had run as far from God as he could that he decided to pray to God. And God heard his prayers. The fish spit Jonah out, and he rose up and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. The word God gave Jonah to preach was brief, but those scribes Jesus was talking to had devoted their lives to the study of words, so they would have caught its clever double meaning: “Forty days more, and Nineveh is overturned—or turned around” (Jonah 3:4). Nineveh is about to be either destroyed or converted. It could mean either one. The paradoxical prophet proclaims a message of judgment and hope at the same time. The end of the world as they know it in Nineveh is also the beginning of something new. In the ruins of an old life lies the promise of new life with God.

Jesus refused to offer any sign other than the sign of Jonah, but he proved that sign to be enough by performing it in his death and resurrection. Paul captures the paradox well: “He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God” (II Cor. 5:21). The author of life submitted himself to death, and just as Jonah was three days in the belly of the whale before he got up and went to Nineveh, so too did Jesus get up on the third day from the dead. He gave us the sign of resurrection.

The 20th century Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote that the life of “every Christian is signed with the sign of Jonah, because we all live by the power of Christ’s resurrection.” The sign that marks the life of the church in the world is God’s victory over death through death—the ultimate winning by losing. If we remember who we are in the transition from Good Friday to Easter morning, we have reason to hope, even in the darkest night.

It is hard for the church to remember God’s resurrection power. In the New Testament Paul wrote to the Ephesians, praying that they would know “what is [God’s] immeasurably great power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power which he put into effect when he raised Jesus from the dead” (Eph.1:19-20). Evidently those early converts to Christianity at Ephesus had a hard time remembering God’s power over death. So too with American Christianity today. But throughout the history of the church God has called people to pray as Paul did for grace to remember what Christ’s resurrection means for the church. Thomas Merton, who was heir to a long monastic tradition of prophetic witness, articulated his sense of vocation this way: “I feel that my own life is especially sealed with this great sign … because like Jonah himself I find myself traveling toward my destiny in the belly of a paradox.”

So, too, I think, are we. We are witnesses to an incredible awakening of hope. We see signs of resurrection all around. Yet, they are fleeting. For every dead person raised to life, there seem to be a dozen addicts relapsing–sometimes the same one who was raised from the dead last week. Jesus is risen, yes. But, as the angel at the tomb says, “He’s not here.” He’s going ahead of us into Galilee.

The power that raised Jesus from the dead is loose in the world, raising the dead and bringing things to new life wherever it will. But this power is not mine to control. The Jesus who wouldn’t be burried won’t be bottled for convenient use either. We who would follow are invited to live with our eyes open, imitating his way in the world. We look for resurrection, but we hang around places of death. We trust the sign of Jonah, be we ought not expect it to stay. A glimpse is enough to keep us going. The best is yet to come.