Of all the things Christianity asks us to accept on faith, the Resurrection may be the most difficult for me.
By way of comparison, I find the Resurrection more difficult than the Incarnation. Probably, part of that is life experience: the birth of a child is something that many of us can relate to, but I don't have any personal experience of someone rising from the dead. And part of it, in my case, is just personality: I find it easier to accept the pessimistic case, that death is the end, than the optimistic case, that it's not the end and that beyond death is something wonderful awaiting us.
It seems that, for early Christians who hadn't personally experienced Jesus during his life on earth, their life in Christ was based on spiritually and personally experiencing the risen Christ. For me, ecstatic spiritual experiences have not been frequent; they've been few and far between, occasional punctuation marks in the lengthy paragraphs of my life. I cling to the memory of them like a spar in a seastorm.
I guess my experience of the risen Jesus is of a quieter, gentler, everyday sort. For whatever reason, it seems that Jesus's plan for my life here on earth is to live a sort of "little way".
What sustains me is the faith of the people around me. The faith of our parishioners is amazing. Many of them are kind enough to thank me for whatever I am able to do for them, but what they don't realize is that, by their faith, they're doing much more for me than I could ever do for them.
I wish everyone a happy Easter, today and throughout the season. This Easter season, go in peace, Alleluia, Alleluia!
A few years back, one of my sons and I had a discussion about the Resurrection. His take was, "If it turned out that Jesus' resurrection was a spiritual thing, rather than literal, would it really be a big deal? Isn't it the spiritual that matters more?" My take was that the Resurrection is a load bearing beam, maybe the most important load bearing beam. You take that away, and the whole structure of Christian faith is weakened.
ReplyDeleteI don't have trouble believing that Christ rose from the dead, given all the people who saw him alive, and Thomas touching his wounds. What I have trouble with is the concept that I will rise again in the body, even though that is promised. The repentant thief was promised that "...this day you shall be with me in paradise." But are we just spiritual beings between our death and the Parousia? Not too worried about it, I assume that God has it covered. Just something I think about sometimes .
I agree with you that we are sustained in faith by the faith of those around us. Yes, happy Easter!
I think it's pretty normal to waffle on life's Big Questions: Should I have got married? Ought I to have had children? Did I do right by my dying parents? Do I believe in the Resurrection?
ReplyDeleteSome days it seems like a no-brainer. How could God die? If course he got up and walked around.
Other days it seems murkier. Was Jesus really God incarnate in the first place?
Doubt and second-guessing are part of being human. Thomas doubted the Resurrection. Judas doubted that Jesus was on the right track and sold him out. Peter doubted that he could survive by acknowledging that he knew Jesus.
I think you can get a lot out of a faith that sees the resurrection as a metaphorical event, though I am not pushing that idea. But the metaphorical interpretation was the way I was raised to see Easter as a Unitarian child. It may become the load-bearing beam eventually, but it takes a long time to strengthen.
You can only try to live it as if it were true. Like those long droughts in marriage when you fake it in order to hold things together. Doesn't mean you have to lie to yourself about your doubts. God certainly isn't fooled.
Happy Easter.
Alleluia, everybody. Jesus was dead, to begin with. Everybody saw him on the cross. Joseph of Arimathea, who was known to the authorities, provided a tomb. My man Nicodemus, who was an authority himself, brought myrrh and aloes because he believed it would be needed; you don't bring that stuff on spec.
ReplyDeleteThe tomb was empty. Mary Magdalene said so first, but she was a woman. Even the disciples didn't believe her. But men went to look. The tomb was still empty. Caiaphas or Pilate could have ordered the tomb opened and called in nose witnesses to take a whiff. They didn't. They concocted the story (today's Gospel, in fact) that the disciples stole the body. The disciples!?? Those scared witless performers of a recent disappearing act who (the Gospel admits) had hidden themselves behind closed doors (and probably under the beds)?
So, on this day in history, Jerusalem began to divide into two groups -- those who said He was dead and now was risen, and those who said, "No way." The second group would have had to admit that it was a) wrong and b) very bad when it decided to kill the son of God. Not a good idea at any time, especially in Jerusalem. Lots of good reasons to deny it. There was a third group, the oblivious "no opinions" that show up in surveys.
Whose side are you on?
The side last seen here hiding under the bed is the one that eventually won. At least amazing. Probably miraculous. If that bunch of dimwits Mark described could create a church that would last 2,000 years, in spite of itself, Jesus rose from the dead, or the frightened dimwits did something even more unlikely.
Whose side are you on?
ReplyDeleteDecidedly among the frightened dimwits!
One of the post-Resurrection accounts which I find intriguing is Luke 24:43-44, in which Jesus appears where some of the disciples are gathered and asks if they have anything to eat. All versions say that they gave him a piece of broiled fish. I remembered from the readings in my childhood that they also gave him a piece of honeycomb. The version used at the time would have been the Douay-Rheims. My husband, who grew up with the KJV, also remembers the honeycomb. The more modern versions do not mention the honeycomb. So I did a little digging, and found that it only appears in one Greek manuscript. It is mentioned by Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and St. Jerome in his Vulgate translation, among others. Not important that it didn't make the cut into the modern translation, and I'm sure not theologically important. Just an interesting bit of Biblical trivia.
ReplyDeleteBroiled fish and honeycomb. I'd last about 2 1/2 days on a subsistence diet.
DeleteKatherine, As I read your comment, I was eating my lunch - a Chick-Fil-A salad that I picked up on my way out of an airport terminal. In the world of salads, it's not exactly high art, but it's got fresh greens, strawberries, apples, blueberries, craisins, bleu cheese and granola, not to mention a deep-fried chicken breast, topped with an avocado lime ranch dressing. Even if Jesus's disciples had those ingredients available, the time it would take to compose the dish (said composition, at Chick-Fil-A, presumably done by a minimum-wage-earning teen in a fry kitchen) would probably strike the farm laborers in Jesus's time as a colossal waste of time and energy that could be spent trying to get to the next meal.
Yeah, the fish with the honeycomb for dessert sounds paleo. Probably very healthy, but I'd prefer your salad!
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