Newsletter: Vol. 11. Iss. 1
April 2012
Much More than a Metaphor,
cont'd.
Easter is a tough day to preach, because even many clergy do not understand and are ambivalent about the message. I suspect that more than a few of Easter Sunday's sermons will sow the seeds of doubt even if they try to reassure. I suspect that ambivalence about the Easter message is rooted in confusion between resuscitation and resurrection. At the end of the day, though, Easter is about resurrection, not the resuscitation of a corpse. It is natural to be skeptical about corpses coming back to life and Christian faith does not require us to believe that.
What does the Bible actually tells us? It seems that many are so heavily influenced by repeated affirmations of faith. i.e., "I believe in the resurrection of the body," that they confuse the statements of the creed with the testimony of the Gospels. Let's not be naïve. There are many who reject the Easter faith, because their 21st Century intellects simply cannot accept the concept of dead bodies coming back to life. For many contemporary Christians and quasi-Christians alike, reason is the ultimate arbiter of truth and to them too many elements of Christian faith seem to require the suspension of the intellect. If the creed is telling us that bodies return from the grave, the creed seems incredible. After all, where is the proof? Others, if not outright rejectionists, are skeptical for the same reason. Skepticism is natural. It is an element of faith. It is particularly natural, especially if we think we are obliged to believe in the resuscitation of a corpse. There were those in Paul's churches in Thessalonika who were skeptical--anxious about the fate of those who had died and demanded reassurance from Paul. In Corinth, there were those who denied the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:12). Obviously, neither outright denial of nor skepticism about the resurrection is new.
The Bible does, indeed, tell stories about corpses being resuscitated and returning from the grave. The raising of Lazarus (John 11:1-44) is the primary example. Lazarus is so dead that when Jesus indicates his intention to revive him, Martha exclaims that the corpse already has the stench of a decaying body. Nonetheless, Jesus commands Lazarus to come forth from the grave and he does. The corpse is revived. It is an incredible story in that it is amazing, full of powerful meaning, packed with drama and rich in significance. For many, though, it is just incredible, i.e., hard to believe. We just don't have a lot of experience with corpses rising from graves and so we look for and find alternative renderings of the meaning of the passage. All this is natural enough and the Bible does not tell us to take the Bible literally. The story seems to demand that we suspend our faculties of intellect and believe the unbelievable. Reluctant to do so, we find alternative renderings, ones that are more harmonious with our rigorous 21st Century brains. Don't get me wrong. I believe that the resurrection of Jesus is real. I believe that it is amazing. I believe that it is life changing when we experience it, which we can do. But I do not think it is unbelievable. Neither do I believe it is about a resuscitated corpse.
Let's be clear that disbelief is natural. In fact, all
the resurrection stories in the Gospels state that disbelief was the fist reaction
of some of Jesus' closest followers. Fortunately for believers and skeptics
alike, Jesus' resurrection is not the same thing as the resuscitation of Lazarus'
corpse. The Bible does not say that Jesus' corpse came back to life. When Jesus
appears, his followers do not recognize him. He appears in their midst suddenly.
He is taken to be a ghost. He seems to walk through a closed door. Jesus even
chastens Thomas for expecting some kind of corporeal proof.
