Resurrection

Many have said the two things you can't talk about at work are politics and religion- that's what blogs are for. Touched on politics last fall, but I haven't really approached the third rail of religion yet, though not for lack of desire. In fact, I once thought about starting an entirely separate blog for matters of religion to allow for longer and deeper discussion. For now though we'll start here, and with no smaller matter than the entire foundation of the Christian faith.

I listened intently to yesterday's sermon in which the priest focused on the importance of the empty tomb. His point was that Christianity centers on the belief in the unseen, that Peter and the "other disciple" (John) left the empty tomb believing in the resurrection, though they hadn't seen anything. They went back and reported in, telling the others that Jesus had risen. Only Thomas doubted, and needed to see the risen Christ to believe. Jesus of course would soon show himself to Thomas and the others, but would then declare that with regards to the resurrection, "blessed are those who do not see, but still believe".

But what if the resurrection was more of a spiritual event than a physical one? What if it was more allegory than literal fact? Is it possible that those first two disciples came back from that empty tomb, professing their belief with such conviction that a miracle was born? What if it was not the return of Christ to a human body that was the true resurrection miracle, but rather the ability of those two disciples to believe that He would live on forever?

For Christians, a resurrected Christ is necessary to show God's ability to conquer death and to bring to believers the gift of eternal life. If the resurrection is not corporeal, than how could that need be filled? The answer is in the empty tomb. For Peter and John, the resurrection was not a vision of Christ. It was the absence of his dead body that caused them to believe. Once they believed that death had been conquered, the resurrection was real regardless of what happened to Christ's body. It is easy to question that if Christ did not return to his earthly body, then how did the tomb become empty in the first place, and how did Christ appear to the apostles later? That is not the point. How the body left the tomb does not matter, nor does his appearance later matter. Whether Christ rejoined his body at all does not matter. What matters is that we believe that after he died, Christ returned from death to live on first in John (because he got there first, of course), then in Peter, then the rest of us.

The sermon I remember more than any other was one I heard probably 25 years ago. It was given by a deacon about the gospel of loaves and the fishes. He suggested that perhaps the miracle that day wasn't Jesus creating food for 5,000 from thin air, but rather was Jesus convincing everyone other than the kid with the fish and bread to share the food they had brought with them. People in attendance, reluctant to share their food, were touched by Christ and produced enough food to feed everyone, with plenty to spare. Bible literalists would consider any possibility other than Jesus creating food to be blasphemy, but this exegesis struck a deep chord within me. It was a way to explain a miracle while still considering it a miracle.

If Christ can live on in each of us, than he has in fact conquered death. If we believe that Christ has conquered death, than we believe that we too can live forever. And if those beliefs are held in good faith, then isn't that what the resurrection is for?