Earlier this month I had a delightful surprise. One morning I walked out onto the back porch of the rectory and saw that the first flower had opened on the gardenia plant in the back yard. I went to look and enjoy. At some point it occurred to me that the pleasure of finding the first flower on a plant was a lot like the pleasure of Easter. The gardenia blossom was beautiful. Sitting next to it I could already smell its fragrance. But this little flower brought something else with it, too. I noticed the other buds covering the plant, and I realized that they would also be opening soon. So the single flower was lovely, but it also stirred up anticipation, which itself was quite a joy.
Most Jews in Jesus's day were expecting a resurrection to happen. The Sadducees were a small group within the Jews that didn't think there would be a resurrection, but most of the people did. However, people expected resurrection to be the last thing. It would be God's final victorious act--rescuing his people, saving his creation. Death would be conquered, and the whole universe would be healed. It would be the end of the story, not the beginning.
That's part of why Jewish people were a bit surprised when this rumor starts getting around that Jesus of Nazareth had been resurrected. (Gentiles were also surprised, but for more familiar reasons.) Certainly, it must have been a joyful thing for those fortunate souls who were able to see the risen Lord themselves: the Son of God revealed in glory. But it didn't take Christians very long to put it together that in Jesus's resurrection, they beheld the promise of their own. The restoration of Jesus's body was the first glimpse of what would finally happen to everything. He is the firstborn among many brethren, even the firstborn of all creation (Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:15). As St. Paul puts it in his First Letter to the Corinthians (15:20ff), and as we say in the great Easter canticle, the Pascha Nostrum: "Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Alleluia!" The first bloom of the New Creation has opened.
People around the world had different opinions about the old plant (the Lord's creation, that is). It was nice enough to look at ... sometimes. But it rarely flowered, and it didn't produce fruit that was good for very much. And it wasn't hard to figure out the problem. Humanity, in some ways the trunk of the Lord's creation, was itself rotted through with sin, and so death had attacked the whole plant, down to the root. Even the weekend gardener would have been able to tell you that this shrub was good for nothing but to be dug up, root and branch, and tossed on the burn pile. Some thought that was probably what the Creator would do. The Jewish people, with their hope of resurrection, generally knew better. Some of them even thought that, in Jesus, God was finally going to make it happen.
But then something happens that throws even them for a loop: Jesus dies. He was the one branch on the bush that showed any promise. He was alive in a way that other people weren't. He had a beauty about him that other people didn't. He produced fruit in a way that other people couldn't. The disease that was threatening to take down the whole tree (sin), somehow it didn't get into him. But then the Father goes and cuts off the one part of the plant that has life in it. It looked very foolish.
Three days later the Father's wisdom is obvious. On Easter morning the first flower blossomed on the plant that had been counted dead. The dazzling beauty of humanity--all our Maker had always intended us to be--opened up for us to behold in Jesus's resurrected body. The glory of human nature was revealed in his paschal flowering. What a joy! The loveliness of his rising! The fragrance of his victory!
But more--Jesus's resurrection, such a joy in itself, is only the first fruits of what's in store. The thrill of Easter is also found in the hope it stirs up in us. The old plant has been delivered from its disease. It's not going to be uprooted; it's going to bloom. And so we look forward to the day when the hidden beauty of all things will be revealed--even our own--just as we've seen in Christ Jesus. Happy Easter.
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