Unbelievable!
I’m fond of joking that I have my resurrection body already reserved, and it’s a size 8. Everyone always laughs. Of course I don’t know what it will look like - I may have feathers, or fins! But we all know, don’t we, that whatever resurrection is about it isn’t going to include bunions or backaches. We’re all pretty clear that we’re going to get a brand new model, straight off the show-room floor, and we don’t even have to have all the parts handy to trade in, either.
People used to be much more literal about the Gospel promises of resurrection, says Jacques Barzun in From Dawn to Decadence, the massive cultural history of the Western world that I am currently plowing through. The great 4th century theologian St. Augustine taught that even the hair and fingernails shed in this life would be restored in full - although invisibly - in the heavenly body. We moderns take the resurrection much more symbolically, and most people - even Christians - really believe in the immortality of the soul only. Because, you see, we know so much more about science nowadays. Did you know that there’s not a single cell in your body that’s more than 7 years old? Our bodies are part of the great intertwined ecosystem, with atoms and molecules that once made up our skin and blood recirculating through other lives, lives of grass and trees and mosquitos and the like. So how can it possibly make sense to think that somehow we take this package with us across the great divide?
And I am one of those who believe that we don’t take our current bodies with us. St. Paul says so, in fact, in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians... that when "the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." [2 Cor 5:1] So it’s quite Biblical not to believe you need to have all your bones assembled in one place in order to partake of "that great gettin’-up morning."
But some people - even some Christians - take the de-literalizing of the Gospel somewhat farther. They believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ itself was only symbolic, metaphoric, spiritual. This group believes that the miracles recorded in the NT were for a simple, primitive people, people who didn’t understand the laws of cause and effect, people who didn’t understand that miracles just don’t happen. We know better, we modern, scientific, enlightened folks. Miracles can’t happen, therefore they didn’t happen. We can take the core meaning, they say, and discard the fairy tales. What was important for the apostles - and for us - to understand is that love is eternal, that love cannot be killed, that love has power beyond the grave. This is called "de-mythologizing" the Gospels. There’s something faintly embarrassing for this group of people about claiming to believe in something so inherently irrational as an actual bodily resurrection; sort of like believing in the Easter bunny but not as cute.
But what it boils down to is that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is unbelievable - and so they won’t believe it.
And they’re right. It IS unbelievable.
It was unbelievable to Peter and James and John and all the rest of them, that first Sunday morning so long ago. They knew that death was permanent. One of the reasons that they had been certain that Jesus was the Messiah was that he had already proved his power over death - at least three times, with Jairus’ daughter, with the son of the widow of Nain, and with Lazarus. No one else had ever done such a thing, except Elijah. And with him gone, nobody else was ever going to do it. Jesus was dead, and that was that.
When the women went out to the grave that morning, they were carrying oils and spices to anoint the body. They were probably silent, except as Mark tells us they wondered briefly who would roll the stone away. I doubt that they were hurrying, as people do who are eager for what they are about to see. They had no doubt already wept themselves dry over the Sabbath; I wonder if they went to the temple? On this holiest Jewish holiday, how could they rejoice? But now the day of rest was over, and like women everywhere have had to from the beginning of time, they rolled up their sleeves to do what had to be done. They didn’t expect a miracle.
The men were afraid and ashamed; only John, as far as we know, had been there at the cross when Jesus died. Peter had actually denied him. I’ll bet he could hardly hold his head up, and wouldn’t look at anyone, and growled when they spoke to him. They huddled in the upper room, wondering what to do, their hopes and plans and dreams in ashes around them, not knowing if the officials would come looking for them next, or not. Perhaps they didn’t care, or even wished that they would, so they wouldn’t have to decide what to do next, or go home to their villages and be mocked for fools.
They wouldn’t believe that Jesus had risen, even when Mary came back and told them she had spoken to him. I can hear them, can’t you? brushing them off as "hysterical women." They had to see for themselves. Later on, even with the eye-witness testimony of the rest of the apostles, Thomas wouldn’t believe it either, until he had seen and touched the nail-holes in Jesus’ hands.
People have been explaining away Jesus’ resurrection for 2000 years. Some people claim that he wasn’t really dead, that he took some sort of drug before the crucifixion that put him in a coma, and that he was revived later on. The story circulated by the Jewish authorities was that his disciples stole the body.
"...Some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, "You must say, ’His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day. [Mt 28:11-15]
The big problem with all of these stories is, of course, the change in the disciples. It’s like night and day. One minute they were cowering in a locked and darkened room, wondering how fast they could get out of town, and the next they were defying the authorities to spread the news, risking beating and worse.
What the de-mythologizers say is true. Love is eternal, love cannot be killed, love does have power beyond the grave. But this love has a name. And the name is Jesus Christ, and he is a person, not a feeling. The Sunday morning adult class has been watching a A.D., a video about the early church - basically, a dramatization of the book of Acts. But I noticed that they avoided saying Jesus’ name... quite often when characters were talking to Gentiles about the good news they would substitute the word "love" for the name "Jesus." What is the problem? Why is the name Jesus so hard so say? Why is the reality of Jesus so hard to swallow?
Love is popular. Love makes the world go ‘round. All you need is love, love... Love is all you need. Love is something we can do.
But Jesus... Some people have only ever heard his name as a swear-word. Some people have only heard caricatures of Jesus. Some people know almost nothing about him at all. Some people knew him once, and rejected him. Shortly after I became a Christian, I ran into a man I had been dating the previous year, who has been raised Catholic. I told him of my conversion. His response was a mocking, "Oh, so you’re into the big JC now, are you?"
I believe people mock the reality of Jesus not because he is unbelievable but because he is threatening.
The resurrection was a frightening event. "...There was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. [Mt 28:2-4] The women had to be reassured. And when they left, it was not only with great joy, but also with fear.
What were they afraid of?
They were afraid, I think, that they would not be believed.
But they were also afraid because things were about to change.
When we grasp the reality of the resurrected Jesus, we too, like the disciples, must change. Because this Jesus who is love is the power that created the heavens and the earth. Do you have any idea how powerful that is? I think some people duck the name of Jesus and use the word "love" instead because we can control it. Our love is only as big as we are, which isn’t very. But God’s love - God’s love shakes and shapes the universe. God’s love turns frightened, cowering peasants into giants who changed the world. When God’s love is unleashed, angels blaze like fire and the earth rocks on its foundation - and we have to change, too.
When we meet the resurrected Jesus, we may find that we lose the very things we once thought were most important to us. Peter left his fishing boat behind, Paul left his reputation and status as a rising Jewish scholar. They all left the safety of a world in which all their friends spoke and believed the same things, and ventured out into waters even more dangerous than the ones Jesus had once calmed for them.
You too may be asked to leave a place of safety, of security. Whatever you have to give up, Jesus offers something bigger, grander, more important, and more enduring. Others may define their lives in less rosy terms, experiencing life as filled with conflict, made up of endless, meaningless drudgery, burdened with fear or anger or guilt or loss. These, too, Jesus calls us to leave behind - and enables us to leave them all behind - because he has something better to offer.
And we can grasp hold of it, that astonishing offer of life - because when Jesus says "go," he also says, as he did to his disciples so long ago, "I am going before you," and "I am with you always." And they believed him, and so they went. They changed, and the world changed. And if we believe him, and follow, we too will change, and so will the world around us.
There were three responses to Jesus’ resurrection in this short passage, and it gives us the three choices everyone has when faced with the unbelievable news of Jesus’ resurrection:
Most of us aren’t a bit like the first group, the priests. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they made a conscious decision to use all the power at their command not only to deny the resurrection but to make sure nobody else believed it either.
The second group, the guards, fell down unconscious. When they awoke, they were most concerned about their jobs, their livelihood, their security. All they wanted was to cover themselves, to get things back to normal and go on with their lives. They looked to authority figures to explain away the unexplainable, and were willing to accept a bribe to turn their heads aside, not to have to deal with this power that had knocked them cold. It was safer not to investigate, it was better not to know. I think that most people fall into this category. They want their religion safe, kept neatly in a box where it won’t disturb their tidy lives. Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead; that’s just a story told to illustrate the power of love. Stay just like you are, only be nicer, and you’ll be doing what God wants. Don’t worry, be happy.
The third group, the women, fell down and worshiped, and then they obeyed. So, when they saw the Lord, did the twelve. And that is what we are to do, too. First worship, then follow.
The resurrection of Jesus IS unbelievable - but only if you deliberately close your eyes to the evidence, or manufacture reasons for disbelieving it. Because the angel was there, and the tomb was empty, and the disciples were changed.
We’re going to get a new body one day. That’s for sure, and I’m grateful. But you also get a new spirit, the minute you say yes to the reality of the living Christ. And I know which one matters more.
That’s the real gift of this awesome day, the day when we celebrate the most glorious, most astonishing, most important event in the history of the world. We can be part of Jesus’ resurrection, even now, and it can be part of us, as well, lifting us above and carrying us through anything else life can dish out. If you haven’t yet said "Yes, Lord," to the risen Christ, now is the time to do it.
The tomb is still empty; have you been changed?
