Newsletter: Vol. 11. Iss. 1
April 2012
Much More than a Metaphor,
cont'd.
But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body
do they come?" Fool!...So it is with the resurrection of the dead…It is
sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body." (1 Cor. 15:35-44,
NRSV)
Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all
be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and
we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability,
and this mortal body must put on immortality." (1 Cor. 15:51-52)
For Paul, and I believe, for you and I, the proof of the resurrection is not a story about a corpse brought back to life. Neither does he cite stories of an empty tomb to persuade the Corinthians of the reality of the resurrection. In fact, Paul knows nothing of empty tomb stories. Rather, for Paul, and for you and I, the proof of the resurrection is, first of all, in the very real encounter with the risen Christ. Paul did not relate to Jesus as a memory. He encountered the risen Christ as a present, immediate reality-over and over again. Such an encounter is available to all and it is all the proof you need. Such an encounter must be described metaphorically, but it is as real as real gets. Paul knew that Christ was raised, because Paul, himself, was raised. No one proved it to him. Rather, he experienced it and then he trusted it.
The proof of the resurrection is transformed life, reordered Being itself. For Paul, the resurrection was real when it induced him to reorder his values and his loyalties. He no longer trusted the standards of value the world had imposed upon him-class, wealth, gender, status, political power and ethnic group-the reality of all these dissipated faster than the morning mist in the rising summer sun. Instead, he insisted on living life according to new standards and new values-God instead of Emperor, love instead of power, forgiveness instead of vengeance, humanity instead of parochial, artificial, divisive nations, community rooted in eternal, ultimate reality rather than in fleeting, accidents of personal existence.
I believe in the resurrection, not because I read about it in the Bible, not because someone told me about it or preached it to me, but because in my own life I experience Christ not as a memory, but as a present, persistent reality and I experience the resurrection as much more than a metaphor. Easter does not ask for sympathy to the crucified Jesus, but loyalty to the resurrected one. What would be the point of expressing sympathy for the crucified Jesus while maintaining loyalty to the values and systems that crucified him? Try reordering your values, aligning them with a vision of eternal life and you'll find out very quickly just how real the resurrection is.
At the end of the day, the reality of the resurrection is not proved, but expressed in a loving and enthusiastic embrace of life itself and of those who are living. It is not known, but experienced at a level far deeper than the mind can comprehend. It is not believed in without evidence, but trusted in without reservation when its reality renders the demand for intellectual proof and any other choice pitifully insignificant and utterly absurd. The Easter faith insists not only that Christ is risen, but that He is risen pro nobis-for us. As the hymn goes, "Made like Him, like Him we rise…ours the cross, the grave, the skies…" Maybe Easter is not as sentimental as Christmas, because it is not just a promise, but a demand, an invitation to respond. On Easter Sunday we all affirm the resurrection of Christ, but too many remain voluntarily entombed in self made graves. We say, "Thanks be to God who give us the victory" (1 Cor. 15:57), but do we too claim the prize? Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. The only question left is will we rise with him.
The Rev. Peter J. Miano: United Methodist Minister, Founder and Executive Director of The Society for Biblical Studies.
