Easter & the Creation Story

     Did you know that the gospel writer, John, is preoccupied with the days of the week?  It’s true.  The calendar is vitally important to him.

     John begins by telling us that the scene of that first Easter takes place on the first day of the week.  But does it really matter what day of the week it is?  It matters to John.

     If we look carefully at the Gospel of John as a whole, we notice that John’s Gospel is really a new interpretation of the seven days of creation in the Book of Genesis.  Whether or not we see those seven days as literal 24 hour days is not really the point for John.  The point is that each day of creation, however you define a day, is to remind us that God created the world and called his creation good.

    We remember that for the first five days of creation, Sunday through Thursday, God created the heavens and the earth, the sea, the dry land, the plants, the fish, the birds, and the animals.  When John begins his Gospel, he reminds us of the story of creation by using the same three words that are used to begin the Bible… “In the beginning…” 

     John gives us another detail that relates back to the creation story.  This detail comes later in his gospel when he tells us that Jesus appeared before Pontius Pilate on a Friday. We call this day, Good Friday.

     And it was on Good Friday, with Jesus standing next to him, that Pilate said these words about Jesus, “Here is the man.”  And if we remember from the Book of Genesis, it’s not until the sixth day of creation, that God creates humans, male and female.  And in creating man and woman on the sixth day, God’s design is for the man and the woman to care for creation wisely and lovingly and to help all of creation worship and honor God.   According to the Book of Genesis, that is what it means to be fully human.  To take care of creation so that all of creation will worship the Creator.

     By presenting Jesus to the people on Good Friday as the man, Pilate was unknowingly pointing to Jesus as the man who is the true living human embodiment of the Creator, God.  This is the man who has made the invisible God, visible. 

     To continue his seven days of creation motif, John carefully points out that Jesus was placed in a tomb on the Sabbath which is Saturday, or the seventh day of the week.  Just as God created the world in six days and then rested on the 7^th day, the body of Jesus will also rest in a tomb on the 7^th day. 

     And of course, all of this is leading up to John's account of Jesus' resurrection.  Up to this point, John has creatively woven the seven day creation story into the life and work of Jesus.        

     Just to summarize, he begins his Gospel with the words, “In the beginning” which are the same words which begin the Book of Genesis and then go on to tell the creation story.

     On Good Friday, Pontius Pilate presents Jesus to the people by saying, “Here is the man” which is a phrase that also takes us back to the Genesis creation story when God created man and woman on the sixth day. 

     And then on the Sabbath, the day that God rested after the six days of creation, Jesus’ body is taken from the cross, wrapped in linen cloths, and placed in a tomb to rest.

     By telling the life of Jesus in this way, John has covered each day of creation, and by doing so, helps us to see what he meant when he tells us at the beginning of his Gospel, “He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”  John wants us to see that Jesus and God are one.  Jesus is the full embodiment of God.  Jesus was with God when the world was created.  When we look at Jesus, we are looking at God.  That’s quite a powerful claim.  Jesus is God in flesh.  Maybe we need more convincing.

     John has taken us through the seven days of the creation story in telling us who Jesus is in his Gospel, but he still has one more day left.  On the Jewish calendar, Sunday is the first day of creation and is the first day of a new week which brings us back to how John begins the Easter story.  “On the first day of the week, very early, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb while it was still dark.” 

    Mary, grief-stricken, and somber, makes her way through the garden to find the place where Jesus had been laid to rest.  She will do what is appropriate to do on this day after the Sabbath.  She will pay her last respects to Jesus.

     This was supposed to be a day of mourning and a day to reflect on what could have been.  Hopes and dreams of a better world now crushed. Thrilling moments and mountain top experiences, now just a faded memory.  A relationship like no other relationship now ended.

     We’ve all been there, too.  We know what it’s like to face that first day of the new week, with that feeling of emptiness and despair. 

     The loss of a loved one.  A broken relationship.  Unemployment.  A broken dream.

     But time doesn’t stand still.  The next day comes.  There are pictures from the funeral still spread out on the kitchen table.  There are bills to pay, clothes to fold, the lingering uncertainty of what the future holds, the self doubt, and trying to decide where you will go from here.

     It’s the first day of the week.

     But this isn’t where John’s Gospel ends.  Because, it was while Mary was walking to the tomb early on the first day of the week, that to her amazement, she finds an empty tomb, and Jesus, risen from the dead.

     This is where the Gospel was headed all along.  First, with Jesus, present with God in the creation of the world.  Then, Jesus, the perfect image bearer of God offering his life for the sins of the world on the sixth day, Good Friday.  Jesus placed in an empty tomb on the seventh day, the Sabbath.

     And finally, we make it back to day one.  And on this day, Jesus is raised from the dead, the power of sin and death is broken, and new life and new hope bursts forth in ways we could never have imagined.

     What began as just another beginning to a new week, has for John, become a day of new creation. For the church, the surprising good news of the resurrection of Jesus Christ has led to a renaming of this first day of creation, from simply being the first day of a new week, to what we now call, the eighth day.

     The eighth day of creation is the long awaited biblical hope for that time in the future when God would begin to make all things new.  This eighth day language, in referring to Jesus’ resurrection and Easter Sunday, is the church’s way of saying that a new day is dawning and hope is alive.  Death has lost its sting and new life is bursting forth. Every Sunday is a reminder that God’s work of new creation has begun because of Easter and the empty tomb. 

     And the good news of our faith is that the same Jesus who was present when the world was created and who died on the cross on the sixth day of the week, Good Friday; and who was laid in a tomb on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week; is the same Jesus who rose again on a Sunday, now the eighth day; and who is present with us every single day.
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