{"id":120389,"date":"2023-04-19T12:06:48","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T16:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=120389"},"modified":"2023-04-19T16:48:14","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T20:48:14","slug":"ian-paul-the-surprise-of-the-resurrection-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=120389","title":{"rendered":"Ian Paul&#8211;The surprise of the resurrection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>It is all such an unexpected surprise<\/strong>. So does Easter Sunday catch you by surprise? As winter is followed by spring, so for us Good Friday is followed by Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. I don\u2019t suppose anyone woke up this morning and cried out \u2018Easter Sunday\u2014I wasn\u2019t expecting that!\u2019  As the seasons roll on, the church calendar helps us in many ways, but I wonder if in this regard it doesn\u2019t serve us well. You probably expected Easter Sunday, expected an Easter egg, expected to come to church and perhaps even expected to hear this reading.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the message of Easter is not (apologies Mr Cameron!) about taking responsibility, and hard-working families, and doing your duty. It has nothing to do with that! Easter is about the unexpected thing that God does\u2014that he surprises us with his grace. No-one was expecting this. No-one was expecting one person to be raised from the dead, now. Of course, faithful Jews were looking for the resurrection of the dead\u2014but this was going to come at the end of the age, when (as Isaiah prophesied) the heavens and the earth were going to be wrapped up like a worn-out garment, and there would be a new heaven and a new earth\u2014and the dead would be raised, and all would be judged. That is what they were expected\u2014but this, Jesus\u2019 resurrection, caught them completely by surprise.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.psephizo.com\/preaching-2\/the-surprise-of-the-resurrection\/\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Today&#39;s art: Walking to Emmaus &#8211; Fritz von Uhde <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/RuS1wZ5WrH\">https:\/\/t.co\/RuS1wZ5WrH<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/37eeBqkyXT\">pic.twitter.com\/37eeBqkyXT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Art and the Bible (@artbible) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/artbible\/status\/1516348390258401280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 19, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is all such an unexpected surprise. So does Easter Sunday catch you by surprise? As winter is followed by spring, so for us Good Friday is followed by Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. I don\u2019t suppose anyone woke up<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=120389\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571,178],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-easter","category-eschatology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120389"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120391,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120389\/revisions\/120391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}