24.07 | Only Wonder Can See

Luke 23:50-24:12

‘…and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.’

Luke 24:9-11

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Sometimes the sheer wonder of something makes it hard to believe.

It’s a very grown up problem. Kids have little problem believing in things fantastic and beautiful—magical and beyond their experience. But us grown ups have often had this capacity for wonder clipped and curtailed, chipped away at through growing experiences of pain, disappointment, and the cynicism that we mistake for maturity. Oftentimes we feel that it is pain and suffering that we find most difficult to understand; in truth, we have a far greater deficit in understanding the sheer wonder of what God has prepared for those who love Him.

Around two years before today’s reading, as those women and those disciples were presented with this empty tomb, Jesus told them what was going to happen to Him:

“The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”¹

It’s pretty clear. And yet, as He spoke these words to them, they simply couldn’t receive them. It wasn’t cryptic like a parable could be. It wasn’t that Jesus shrouded these events in mysterious language. It was simply that they had a limited capacity for wonder. Their frameworks for understanding the world didn’t include the possibility of a dead Messiah being raised to life. What Jesus was sharing was a world vastly greater than the world that they knew. Their problem was that the world of God included a measure of glory and goodness beyond their wildest dreams and expectations. 

And so we find them, presented with these set of circumstances:

The Son of Man has suffered. He was rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes. He was killed. And on the third day, they’ve found an empty tomb, with two dazzling angels declaring that Jesus has risen from the dead.

When the disciples hear these things, what is their response? 

These words seemed an idle tale. They did not believe. 

Despite the perfect alignment with the prediction of Jesus, they still cannot see it. The sheer wonder if it makes it hard to believe.

We can be quick to criticise, but doesn’t this heart issue feel just a little familiar to us? Aren’t we so often tempted to view our circumstances through the assumption that God will not be faithful to His word, that death and sickness and pain and injustice will win, that the darkness is greater than the light? Don’t we also find ourselves as skeptics before an empty tomb, assuming that all the evidence points to any explanation except for that Jesus has risen from the dead? 

I wonder that this speaks into our moments when we find ourselves questioning the presence of pain. When we are confused, disappointed, disorientated, and grieving. 

Because in such moments, it is easy to think that our primary problem is that we do not understand the pain.

And yet, the disciples show us something. 

For the disciples, it was less that they failed to understand the pain. But rather, it was that they were so fixated upon the pain that they were unable to entertain the possibility that from this place—in its tears and grief and confusion and disorientation—God may just be preparing wonders beyond their imagining.

They couldn’t see it without a greater capacity for wonder. 

Just because you find it hard to believe it does not mean that He is not risen. Just because it hurts doesn’t mean there isn’t a coming dawn. The glory always outweighs the pain. And we follow a Jesus who knows the pain of the cross you are facing, and in this very knowing, He knows the way out of it.

It is a road of increasing wonder, into deathless glory.

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Reflect:

You can’t just grow wonder by your own effort. You need Him to teach you. All you can bring is your need for Him and your openness to His work.

Lay your cynicism and disappointment before Him. And invite the Spirit of God to come and lead you into a greater capacity for wonder.

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Pray:

Lord Jesus,

I hear your promises of goodness,

And yet,

When faced with pain,

It is hard to believe.

I find myself with those disciples—

Knowing what you have said,

And yet,

A skeptic still.

But Lord,

I invite you

To open the eyes of my heart—

That even in my deepest grief

I may see

Through teary eyes

Glimpses of resurrection life,

And that wonder

And the captured vision of glory

May fill my hurts

With wondering hope.

Lord Jesus,

In the power of Your resurrection,

And in Your Name,

Amen

Old Testament: 

For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:

Jeremiah 13-14 | Psalm 89:38-52

1. Luke 9:21-22