Introduction for Encountering the risen Jesus
Reflections for the Easter season
Introduction
In a time when most people didn’t read or write, and when copies had to be made by hand, the Gospel writers recorded an overview of events, capturing the key moments of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
Long before these Gospels were written, the followers of Jesus would have been sharing their stories, experiences, and memories of the things that he taught and did. These testimonies would have been key sources used in the construction of the gospels, but because of the need for brevity, much of the detail of these personal testimonies would have been left out.
The Gospel writers each had different styles and different things they wanted to highlight. John focuses on relatively few events in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, but tends to go into more detail. Matthew, Mark, and Luke include a lot more of what Jesus did and tend to focus on different details than John. For example, in John’s account of the last supper, we have 4 chapters of Jesus teaching and encouraging his disciples in deed, in word, and in prayer (John Chapters 13-17), whereas Matthew covers the same event in 18 verses (Matt 26:17-35) - and only 5 verses of that (the ones relating to Peter’s denial) overlap with any of the content in John’s Gospel.
Even when reading some of their more detailed accounts of an event, there is much that had to be left out. For example, in John’s account of Mary Magdalene finding the empty tomb (John 20:1-2), he gives no details of who was with her, but (as we shall see in chapter 1) the passage implies that she was not on her own when they found the stone rolled away. The Gospel writers did not give us much detail on Mary Magdalene, yet she is a prominent figure at the end of all the Gospels. The only detail we have about her is a brief note that Jesus had cast out seven demons from her (Luke 8:2), but we don’t know when or where this happened.
Reading across the Gospel accounts we can piece together some of the stories of the people that feature in them, but there are still huge gaps: How did Peter feel when he encountered the risen Jesus for the first time (Luke 24:34)? What did they say to each other? Did Peter ask for forgiveness for his denial of Jesus?
Ignatian imaginative contemplation is a method of prayer that uses our imagination to put ourselves into the story. This can help to join the dots from the accounts given in the gospels and build a picture of what it was like to be there; engaging all our senses and emotions as we prayerfully become part of the story, helping to recapture the perspective of those who initially shared their testimonies.
This imaginative contemplation can give a new perspective on stories we’ve heard many times before. This isn’t re-writing scripture, it’s a spiritual practice that can help us notice different details, which in turn can prompt new questions, and so open us up to hear God speaking to us afresh.
I first came across the idea of inserting yourself into the story about 20 years ago, when I listened to an amazing double CD, ‘A Fisherman Remembers’ by Eric Delve and Mal Pope. Since then, I’ve enjoyed many compelling novels based on biblical stories, by authors like Francine Rivers, Lynn Austin and, more recently, Paula Gooder. A well-researched biblical novel can be a window into what life was like in those days, bringing the biblical account alive and helping us avoid a simple reading of scripture without understanding its context.
A few years ago, I completed an Ignatian retreat in daily life, called ‘the 19th annotation’ (on account of the fact that Ignatius included a number of notes, or annotations, to his Spiritual Exercises, and the 19th note was an instruction as to how the exercises could be adapted to be incorporated into the pattern of daily living). This was an incredibly enriching experience, and I’ve continued to regularly pray through scripture in this way.
The stories of the characters in this book are a reworking and expansion of a series of contemplative prayer services that were live-streamed in the 2021 Easter season. They weave together the accounts of different characters who encounter the risen Jesus, from that first Easter morning, through to the day of Pentecost.
For some of them, I’ve worked on constructing a back story for the character to help me make sense of the various bits of information about that character in the Bible, others are based primarily around the passage as it’s given. For all of them, I start with an exploration of the background of the passage/character to help build the context for the reflection.
I’ve used English words for the days of the week and the hours of the day. The Jews named the days of the week, 1st day, 2nd day, etc., Sabbath, and 6am was called the 1st hour of the day, so noon was at the 6th hour of the day. I felt that using English, made it a little easier for the reader to follow what was happening
The order of the resurrection appearances
Arranging the resurrection appearances chronologically is not straightforward. The risen Jesus appears in all four Gospels[1] and Acts. Whilst there is some overlap in what they cover, the Gospel writers often focus on different resurrection appearances.
Six of the encounters that we’ll explore in this book have clear times given for when they happened (see table overleaf). All these events took place in or near Jerusalem. The Bible does not give dates for the encounters that happen in Galilee; the meeting on the beach (John 21:1-19) and the Great Commission (Matt 28:16-20). For the purposes of this book, I’ve assumed these were 4 and 5 weeks (respectively) after the resurrection.
[1] The earliest manuscripts of Mark finish at the discovery of the empty tomb, and they don’t include the summary of the resurrection appearances in Mark 16:9-20