I was invited to take part in a radio programme on Easter Sunday. It was a magazine programme and the producer was hoping to have a slot on the Resurrection and hoped I might be interested in talking about it. I wasn’t free so unable to do it but it got me thinking about how I might explain the Resurrection or what kind of questions I might be asked. Growing up I took the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection at face value and gave little thought to it. My first real challenge to understanding it came when, as a young sister, I did a summer theology school and the learned Jesuit who was taking the class asked if a photographer had been present when two of Jesus disciples encountered him on the road to Emmaus would there have been two or three figures in the photograph. The idea that there might only have been two figures was rather startling. And yet all that I had been taught about the resurrection was that it was not a resuscitation. In John’s gospel there is the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus, the brother of Martha and Mary back to life and it was always impressed upon us as children that the resurrection of Jesus was in a different category. Jesus was alive, we were taught, in his community, in his word contained in the bible and through his spirit present not just in his disciples but present where ever people showed forgiveness and love and worked for justice and peace.
What actually happened at the moment of resurrection as it is told in the christian gospels is not known. What is known is that a group of disciples who were distraught and afraid after his death were transformed into a believing community prepared to continue Jesus ministry of teaching and healing in the face of opposition and persecution. There are contradictions in the story of Jesus’ appearances. When Mary Magdalen first encountered Jesus when she went to visit the tomb she took him for the gardener until, in the story, he called her name and she realised that the relationship she had with Jesus in life had survived beyond death. When the two disciples were on their way to Emmaus, talking over the events that had happened in Jerusalem, they only recognised that they were accompanied by Jesus when they broke bread together. The apostle Thomas was doubtful about talk of resurrection until he came to terms with the reality of Jesus suffering and death, described in the gospel as him touching the wounds on Jesus hands and side. There was something familiar yet different about these encounters with Jesus. Even Paul who did not know Jesus in the flesh came to believe in the resurrection when he had an experience on the road to Damascus during which he heard a voice ask, ‘why are you persecuting me?’ and, having asked who the ‘me’ was, being told that it was Jesus whom he was persecuting. This revelation rendered Paul blind for a time when no doubt he wrestled with what could be taken as a kind of koan or a riddle that has no rational answer. How can he be persecuting Jesus of Nazareth when he was dead? The identification of Jesus with his community, a community he was persecuting, was an aha moment, an insight that transformed his life and led him to see the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as transformative for all and the focus of his preaching.
For me Jesus is alive in his community when it keeps alive his memory and puts his teaching into practice. Often this community distorts his memory and obscures rather than reveals his message. But there are many good and even heroic examples of ordinary people struggling to live a life of love and compassion, suffering for what they believe in, opposing injustice, walking the way of peace, trying to make their place in the world as life-affirming as they can. When we see incidents such as these on a large and small scale we see that Jesus is indeed still living, in the spirit if not in the flesh. These are truly signs of the Kingdom of God that was so central to Jesus’ teaching and is all around us if we have eyes to see. For Christians the belief that Jesus is risen is a sign of hope that death, destruction, tragedy, evil will not be final, that in spite of evidence to the contrary life and love will triumph. But above all I believe that death and resurrection which is so central to the story of Jesus and often taught as doctrine is in fact the basic Christian practice. We Christians are called to die to selfishness and greed, to let go of this moment to welcome and engage in the next, to let go of resentments and conflict to be open to forgiveness and reconciliation, to let go of our abuse of the earth to treat it with reverence and respect – the list in endless. We are called to stand up for what is true and just even when it’s difficult. It is not an easy practice but in so far as we can live by it – or try to live by it- we too can offer hope to our world and can share in the resurrection of Jesus. Easter is a time of rejoicing for Christians but also an invitation and challenge on how to live and keep alive the memory and presence of Jesus.
What actually happened at the moment of resurrection as it is told in the christian gospels is not known. What is known is that a group of disciples who were distraught and afraid after his death were transformed into a believing community prepared to continue Jesus ministry of teaching and healing in the face of opposition and persecution. There are contradictions in the story of Jesus’ appearances. When Mary Magdalen first encountered Jesus when she went to visit the tomb she took him for the gardener until, in the story, he called her name and she realised that the relationship she had with Jesus in life had survived beyond death. When the two disciples were on their way to Emmaus, talking over the events that had happened in Jerusalem, they only recognised that they were accompanied by Jesus when they broke bread together. The apostle Thomas was doubtful about talk of resurrection until he came to terms with the reality of Jesus suffering and death, described in the gospel as him touching the wounds on Jesus hands and side. There was something familiar yet different about these encounters with Jesus. Even Paul who did not know Jesus in the flesh came to believe in the resurrection when he had an experience on the road to Damascus during which he heard a voice ask, ‘why are you persecuting me?’ and, having asked who the ‘me’ was, being told that it was Jesus whom he was persecuting. This revelation rendered Paul blind for a time when no doubt he wrestled with what could be taken as a kind of koan or a riddle that has no rational answer. How can he be persecuting Jesus of Nazareth when he was dead? The identification of Jesus with his community, a community he was persecuting, was an aha moment, an insight that transformed his life and led him to see the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as transformative for all and the focus of his preaching.
For me Jesus is alive in his community when it keeps alive his memory and puts his teaching into practice. Often this community distorts his memory and obscures rather than reveals his message. But there are many good and even heroic examples of ordinary people struggling to live a life of love and compassion, suffering for what they believe in, opposing injustice, walking the way of peace, trying to make their place in the world as life-affirming as they can. When we see incidents such as these on a large and small scale we see that Jesus is indeed still living, in the spirit if not in the flesh. These are truly signs of the Kingdom of God that was so central to Jesus’ teaching and is all around us if we have eyes to see. For Christians the belief that Jesus is risen is a sign of hope that death, destruction, tragedy, evil will not be final, that in spite of evidence to the contrary life and love will triumph. But above all I believe that death and resurrection which is so central to the story of Jesus and often taught as doctrine is in fact the basic Christian practice. We Christians are called to die to selfishness and greed, to let go of this moment to welcome and engage in the next, to let go of resentments and conflict to be open to forgiveness and reconciliation, to let go of our abuse of the earth to treat it with reverence and respect – the list in endless. We are called to stand up for what is true and just even when it’s difficult. It is not an easy practice but in so far as we can live by it – or try to live by it- we too can offer hope to our world and can share in the resurrection of Jesus. Easter is a time of rejoicing for Christians but also an invitation and challenge on how to live and keep alive the memory and presence of Jesus.
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