Thank you for reading along through this year’s 40 Days. A huge thanks to our writers that shared this year.
If you were not able to be present at 4 Days with Jesus, here are links to the video feeds for each service. And included below, as the final post this year, is the narrative script from Sunday morning, written by Jared Wright.
Thursday: https://vimeo.com/331339191
Friday: https://vimeo.com/331499612
Sabbath: https://vimeo.com/331589494
Sunday: https://vimeo.com/331655869
One week long ago . . . a community found a new story to tell.
Weeping may endure for the night, the expression goes . . .
Certainly weeping had endured. Long into the night and into the early hours of the morning after Jesus died, weeping endured. With it came an asphyxiating sense of emptiness.
But now with the night almost past, cold morning stole across the land, like ghosts of the bodies the Roman government discarded just outside Jerusalem.
It was the first day of the week. The Sabbath had past. In the gray predawn hours, a small group of women took their prepared burial spices and went to the tomb to find Jesus’ corpse. What they found when they arrived is actually kind of understated. (I know that you know this story by now—but it’s kinda gotten exaggerated a bit in the retelling.)
Not some scene of victory with a tombstone shattered into pieces. Not some graveyard with Easter Lillies magically bursting forth from the dirt and rocks. Not even a bunch of Roman guards sitting in stunned amazement.
What they saw was that the large stone that had covered the entrance to the tomb–was gone.
So they did the obvious thing: they went inside this tomb-cave and looked around. Jesus’ body was nowhere to be seen. Then it did get a little weird. While they were inside the cave trying what was happening, two men appeared without warning. And they said,
“Why are you looking for the living here among the dead? You won’t find his body in this place because he is alive. And he’s gone.”
Somewhere in their memories, synapses were making vague connections. Jesus had said things that maybe, sorta, kinda made sense of this?
So the women gathered up burial spices and hurried back to the place where the eleven (Judas was no longer with them) and other followers of Jesus were staying.
These women, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some others returned to look for the twelve—eleven—companions of Jesus. When they got back, they shared everything they had seen and experienced. And would you believe it—are you sitting down for this—the men in the group who followed Jesus, they did not believe what these women reported. The women’s witness seemed too fantastical to be true.
A few of the men decided they should at least investigate for themselves. Peter got up and went to the tomb. Could these women be even partially correct? He began to run. When he got there, he stooped down inside and you know what he saw?
Strips of linen cloth, grave clothes, lying there. Nothing more. So he left, just as puzzled as the women had been at first, not sure what to make of it all.
Later that same day, two of the men were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. As they walked toward Emmaus, they were rehashing the events of that weekend. Processing. Rationalizing. Grieving. What else can you do? They were so lost in their thoughts that they didn’t notice a man had matched their stride and was eavesdropping on their conversation. (Spoiler alert: It was Jesus.)
He coyly asked them what they were talking about, but they just couldn’t. Couldn’t muster politeness. Couldn’t pretend to be generous. Not today. Cleopas replied: “Are you the only person here visiting Jerusalem who hasn’t heard about what has been going on around here these days?”
“What has been going on?” Nice, Jesus.
“About a person named Jesus.” Cleopas was a little irritated. “He was a prophet who seemed to have the blessing of God and all the people. We had hoped . . . But the priests working with our rulers leveled a bunch of false accusations against him that got him the death penalty from the Romans.
“They killed him, the other traveler added. “We had pinned our hopes on him. Someone who really could solve the nation’s problems—solve all our problems, really. Now he’s gone.”
“And then, to make things even crazier,” they chuckle, “some of the women who are part of our group came back with this disturbing account of what they said happened to them. They said that when they went to the tomb early this morning to apply burial spices, his body was gone.”
“They said two men who told them Jesus was actually alive. We didn’t believe them, but then some of our friends went to the tomb and found confirmed part of their report.”
“The body wasn’t there. Jesus wasn’t there.”
The whole time that Jesus was walking with them, they had no idea it was actually him. But Jesus took on that Rabbi role again and began a careful walk through Scripture. Maybe there was another way, another framework, for understanding all that had happened.
When they finally made it to Emmaus, Jesus kept on walking as if he had somewhere else to be. But they asked him to stick around. This was a stranger, a visitor, after all—they ought to at least invite him in, they figured. “It’s getting late. Would you like to stay and eat with us?” they asked. Jesus agreed to join them, so they headed into the village together.
That evening, they gather around a table for the evening meal. It was an ordinary table. Nothing special about it. Wood, a little rough around the edges. They began the meal, and at some point bread was served. The guest, Jesus, reached across the table and took the bread. He held it, and gave thanks for it. Then he—the guest—broke the bread and gave it to those at the table.
And that’s when it happened. Not before, walking on the road. Not when they heard Jesus’ voice. Not even during the detailed Bible study from Jesus himself.
It was now, at the table, when Jesus broke bread and gave it to them. That’s when it happened. The blindfolds came off. They recognized Jesus at once! But as soon as it became clear who he was, Jesus was no longer there.
He was . . . gone.
One long ago, a community found a new story to tell.