becoming

在墓前的耶穌確實是「看園的」；馬利亞並沒有看錯，正因為祂是末後的亞當。（約20:15 / 創2:15）

抹大拉的馬利亞，是為了要看看耶穌的屍首，才會在那天清晨，到墳墓嗎？

本來，確實如此。

然而她遇上的，卻是一個活生生的拉波尼。

神所要給她的，遠超過她的所想所求。

難道你認為，從死復活的主，需要輥開石頭才能離開墳墓？

不是的，石頭被輥開，是為你，能進來。

Willimon on the logic of Easter:

Easter begins in the recognition that our faith is not futile, in our present experience of the Risen Christ roaming among us. It is the testimony, not just of preachers like me, but of countless believers like you, that is the evidence. When bread and wine touch your lips and you see, feel the real presence. When you thought your heart would break in disappointment and pain, but it didn’t because He was standing beside you in the dark. When you didn’t know what to say and there were just the right words, words not of your own devising, being spoken by you. When you dragged into the church, cold at heart, skeptical, and distant, yet at the hymns, your spirit rose to greet His, your faith is not in vain.

This is the logic of Easter.

Read it all here.

復活節期的默想：

你們蒙召原是為此；因基督也為你們受過苦，給你們留下榜樣，叫你們跟隨他的腳蹤行。

他並沒有犯罪，口裡也沒有詭詐。

他被罵不還口；受害不說威嚇的話，只將自己交託那按公義審判人的主。

他被掛在木頭上，親身擔當了我們的罪，使我們既然在罪上死，就得以在義上活。

因他受的鞭傷，你們便得了醫治。

你們從前好像迷路的羊，如今卻歸到你們靈魂的牧人監督了。（彼前2:21-25）

這是彼得向面對逼迫的信徒所作的勸籲。
說這話的彼得，
曾經在那大難關頭，三次不認主。
曾經站在遠遠的一邊，望著被審問，鞭打，最後被釘死的耶酥。

現在，
這個曾經第一時間離開的，
卻叫我們
跟隨那為我們受過苦的耶穌腳蹤而行？！

哈！何等荒謬。
有資格嗎？夠見證嗎？

他，甚麼也沒有。
He got NOTHING!
只有失敗。

然而，就是這失敗，
讓他了解
耶穌是被他捨棄而因他受苦。
讓他看見，
要學的榜樣
不再是前呼後湧，神蹟奇事的萬世巨星。
而是被罵不還口，受害不威嚇，
不求報復，卻把生命交給公義之主的「無能者」。

何等荒謬！

因這失敗，
本來誓要至死跟隨的人，
學會了自己原來不過是一隻迷路的羊。

因這失敗，
他明白了，
他需要的，不是一個王，
而是能親身擔當他的罪，讓他能活的救主。

他需要醫治
他接受寬恕
他承擔託付。

真的，
何等荒謬！

因為
使他改變，
那能叫死人復活的大能，
本來就是荒謬！

對我來說，復活日所帶來的，確實是「震撼」而不是其他。門徒和婦女懼怕和懷疑的反應，或者是小信和懦弱的表現，卻是合情合理，甚至是必須的。在復活中，神的心意是要我們的生命被徹底的「搖陷」一下。懼怕和懷疑正是神所預期。相反，胸有成竹和不渝的堅持，卻與整個復活的記述格格不入。復活的基督不需要我們的信心和勇氣來成就；卻是告訴我們，生命中還是有很多的地方需要神的「震撼」來把那些小信和懦弱的雜質搖動乾淨。

孫牧在復活日的講道（1,2,3,4），正好說明這個道理：

So the first Easter did not begin with joy and hope naturally. “Great shock” from God broke through the darkness and woke up the whole world. With stone tolled away and tomb emptied, God declares that He has created a new world with new order. From now on life must be different. Because of the Resurrection, life is accountable only to the Lord of life, neither might or power, nor sin or death.

On this Easter morning, may the almight God shock us once again and remove our stone and raise our lost hope and power that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. May the Lord who has conquered death work within us that we may live a different life to witness the Shock and the Life.

是外交斡旋的成果？是對方送給你的「大禮」？

不論怎樣，對他們的家人來說：

團聚，是一個重新來過的機會。 

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復活節，何嘗不是一種團聚，

一個重新來過的機會？

[link] 

No wonder the Herods, the Caesars and the Sadducees of this world, ancient and modern, were and are eager to rule out all possibility of actual resurrection. They are, after all, staking a counter-claim on the real world. It is the real world that the tyrants and bullies (including intellectual and cultural tyrants and bullies) try to rule by force, only to discover that in order to do so they have to quash all rumours of resurrection, rumours that would imply that their greatest weapons, death and deconstruction, are not after all omnipotent. But it is the real world, in Jewish thinking, that the real God made, and still grieves over. It is the real world that, in the earliest stories of Jesus’ resurrection, was decisively and for ever reclaimed by that event, an event which demanded to be understood, not as a bizarre miracle, but as the beginning of the new creation. It is the real world that, however complex this may become, historians are committed to studying. And, however dangerous this may turn out to be, it is the real world in and for which Christians are committed to living and, where necessary, dying. Nothing less is demanded by the God of creation, the God of justice, the God revealed in and as the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth.

NT Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, p.737