Rising, Out of the Darkness, A Great Light!
The Feast of the Ressurection of the Lord
The most ancient of festivals the new Church celebrated immediately after the death of Jesus (quite definitely around 6-9 April AD30) was the unexpected resurrection of the Lord. This was to be so controversial in the small Roman colony of Judea in the time of Augustus Caesar, that its impact on the whole human civilisation that was to come could not have been underestimated. As historical fact, it would remain a mystery, and it seems part of the Divine Will that this should never be so compelling a fact that unbelief would be impossible. For this would make faith unnecessary, if doubt were impossible. This perspective is dealt with in the Gospel of John, after Jesus’ resurrection:
“Thomas, called the Twin, who was one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came… Eight days later the disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. The doors were closed, but Jesus came in and stood among them.
‘Peace be with you,’ he said.
The he spoke to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; look, here are my hands.
Give me your hand; put it into my side.
Do not be unbelieving any more but believe.”
Thomas replied, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:24, 26-28)
In fact, like many events and wonders worked by Jesus in the gospels, the profession of faith by the once-doubtful apostle becomes pivotal to the new faith. It is not as compelling in authority as Peter’s proclamation of Jesus being the Annointed of God, the long-expected Messiah of the Jews. But instead, this is the other parenthetical event, which answers the question as to the identity and nature of Jesus, human and divine.
It is a prophecy that is fulfilled, a joyous event so great it is likened to the greatest of feasts:
“On this mountain, for all peoples,
Yahweh Sabaoth is preparing a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines,
of succulent food, of well-strained wines.
On this mountain, he has destroyed
the veil which used to veil all peoples,
the pall enveloping all nations;
he has destroyed death for ever.” (Isaiah 25:6-7)
Indeed, that is what the new Pasch of the Christians, Easter, is to become: the greatest feast of the Church. This event is celebrated in the mystery of the blessing of bread instituted by Jesus with his disciples in the evening before his death, and since then, commemorated by the faithful to experience the mystery of the Risen Lord:
“Now while he as with them at table,
he took the bread and said the blessing;
then he broke it and handed it to them.
And their eyes were opened and they recognised him;
but he had vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
‘Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road
and explained the scriptures to us?’” (Luke 24:30-32)
The resurrection of Jesus, the mystery of that experience, and exactly how this surpasses the laws of nature on earth, is the basis of the hope that Christians are given, as Paul exhorts the faithful to look towards the Risen Christ, from whom we are to receive complete transformation:
“But our homeland is in heaven and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ,
who will transfigure the wretched body of ours into the mould of his glorious body,
through the working of the power which he has,
even to bring all things under his mastery.” (Philippians 3:20-21)
In other words, if you cannot accept this idea, it is plainly because we are too enticed by the mundane physical and natural perception of this tangible world. Yet, the nature and physics a Christian faithful is called surpasses all that, into a life that is governed by the Spirit:
“You, however, live not by your natural inclinations, but by the Spirit,
since the Spirit of God has made a home in you.
Indeed, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
But when Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is alive because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has made his home in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.” (Romans 8:9-11)
Paul, whose writings are considered among the earliest in the Christian genre, even prior to the gospel canons which were most likely written after the epistles, does not mince his words about the teaching and oral tradition about the resurrection. He affirms the Risen and Glorified Jesus many times in all his epistles, as his own experience of conversion, and the basis for witnessing this great cosmic event which completes the whole Incarnation mystery of God revealed in Jesus Christ:
“The tradition I handed on to you in the first place,
a tradition which I had myself received,
was that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures,
and that he was buried;
and that on the third day, he was raised to life, in accordance with the scriptures;
and that he appeared to Cephas;
and later to the Twelve;
and next he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still with us, though some have fallen asleep;
then he appeared to James,
and then to all the apostles.
Last of all he appeared to me too, as I was a child born abnormally.”
(1 Corinthians 15:3-8)
Historical, cosmic and glorious: these words describe the dimensions by which the resurrection event affirms what no mind or intellect could have anticipated: that God will literally scoop those who are faithful to him, draw them in a life in union with him, not because we have proved ourselves worthy of redemption, but because of his great mercy:
“But God, being rich in faithful love, through the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our sins, brought us to life with Christ – it is through grace that you have been saved – and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-6)
So central to Paul’s teaching on witnessing the resurrection of the Lord, that he issues the ultimatum:
“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ cannot have been raised either, and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without substance, and so if your faith… In addition, those who have fallen asleep in Christ is utterly lost. If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are of all people the most pitiable.”
(1 Corinthians 15:12-14, 18-19)
Our cause is lost, if the Christian faith were to be composed of miracle legends and all sorts of pious events but hollow without the singly victory over death:
“So by our baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glorious power, we too should begin living a new life. If we have been joined to him by dying adeath like his, so we shall be by a resurrection like his; realising that our former self was crucified with him, so that the self which belonged to sin should be destroyed and we should be freed from the slavery of sin.”
(Romans 6:4-6)
For he knows that his readers know the ancient scriptures, all which point to the End of Times, when the old covenant and its norms would fail, and be superseded by the fulfilment of ancient promises, when the faithful are transformed to eternal life beyond human death, where they will illuminate the faith for all generations to come:
“At that time Michael will arise – the great Prince, defender of your people…
Of those who are sleeping in the Land of Dust, many will awaken,
some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace.
Those who are wise will shine as brightly as the expanse of the heavens,
and those who have instructed many in uprightness,
as bright as stars for all eternity.” (Daniel 12:1, 2-3)
A faithful life in the Promised One of God will be so transformed by that experience, that death brings them to the perfect peace in God:
“But the souls of the upright are in the hands of God,
and no torment can touch them.
To the unenlightened, they appear to die,
their departure was regarded as disaster,
their leaving us like annihilation;
but they are at peace.” (Wisdom 3:1-3ff)
It is not merely the promise of bliss in paradise, or in the heavenly court of God. The scriptures are explained to mean the hope of new life:
“We want you to be quite certain, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, to make sure that you do not grieve for them, as others do who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that in the same way God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14ff)
Paul, who ready knew the traditions of the gospels, was elaborating on Jesus own promise:
“In all truth I tell you,
whoever keeps my word will never see death.” (John 8:51)
Indeed, Jesus himself taught of the resurrection in terms that surprised the Sadduccees (who unlike the Pharisees, did not believe in angels, souls or the resurrection). In answer to their test, he explained that there is a life to come, just as all the faithful of Israel looked forward to it because God’s own nature is Life, life-giving:
“For when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry;
no, they are like the angels in heaven.
Now about the dead rising again, have you never read in the Book of Moses,
in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him and said:
I am the God of Abraham, the God of Issac and the God of Jacob?
He is God, not of the dead, but of the living.” (Mark 12:24-27)
In two separate incidents, Jesus secretly reveals his ministry over the mortality of man, where he explicitly reveals his Divine nature without proclaiming it aloud. That God is God of life, then he who can give life to the dead, is of God. Thus, in the events of the daughter of Jairus and the widow of Nain, we enter into this mystery about the Life-giving nature of God and the nature of Jesus as Man and Divine.
“And suddenly there came a man named Jairus, who was president of the synagogue. He fell at Jesus’ feet and pleaded with him to come to his house, because he had an only daughter about 12 years old, who was dying… While he (Jesus) was still speaking, someone arrived from the house of the president of the synagogue to say, ‘Your daughter has died. Do not trouble the Master any further.’ Jesus heard this, and he spoke to the man, ‘Do not be afraid, only have faith and she will be saved.’”
(Luke 8:41-42, 49-50ff),
and,
“It happened that soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. Now when he was near the gate of the town there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople was with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her and said to her, ‘Don’t cry.” Then he went up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I tell you: get up.’ And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother.”
(Luke 7:11-15)
In fact, we see this latter event foreshadowed in 1 Kings 17:23 with Elijah and the widow of Zarephath in Sidonia, whose son fell ill and died. The scriptures relate the event:
“He stretched himself on the child three times and cried out to Yahweh…Yahweh heard Elijah’s prayer and the child’s soul came back into his body and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother.”
Two things are remarkable here:
(1) picture Elijah stretching himself, arms outstetched like the figure of the crucified Christ outstretched over the dead boy. He is calling out to Yahweh as Lord of Life. This is the very title Jesus refers himself to as the “resurrection and the life”. (John 11:25, see below)
(2) second, it is the empathy and compassion Jesus has for the widow. For being the only son of Mary, even as he re-enacts Elijah’s miracle of mercy, he must know the sorrow of his own mother that is to play out on the Cross at Calvary, where hanging arms outstretched, he would deliver her to John for care, a reverse in the instance described here, where he “gave him to his mother” (precise quotes in Greek used by John the disciple who took Mary into his own home as his own mother).
In the raising of Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany, Jesus reveals the fullness of his power and relationship with the Father.
“Jesus said to her,
‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said, ‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said:
I am the resurrection.
Anyone who believes in me,
even though that person dies, will live,
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:23-26a)
While Martha alludes to the end-time resurrection of the body, Jesus does not deny it; instead he points to the immediate resurrection that anyone who believes in him would experience. The resurrection a Christian therefore claims is spiritual (immediate) and physical (historical); you experience an uplifting and complete spiritual transformation by belief in Jesus, and that the temporal body is secondary, but the effects of both is eternal and permanent.
In this way, all the longing of the prophets and kings to understand what their faith pointed to, is revealed to us in Jesus:
“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see,
for I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see,
and never saw it;
to hear what you hear, and never heard it.” (Luke 10:23b-24)
In very similar words, following the doubt of the apostle Thomas in our story quoted above, Jesus blessed those who are given to believe even without the benefit of seeing first hand what the apostles and their contemporaries witnessed.
The ancient faith of the Church included a very real expectation of the physical resurrection. Hence, the bodies of those who died were kept carefully and honoured (dulia, Latin, meaning venerated) because of the belief in the Resurrection. This true belief faded as the persecutions wore on, and found expression in the creed for the “communion of saints”, the “resurrection of the body, and the life to come”. Hence, honouring the death faithful by careful burial and prayer became part of the liturgical life of the Church. Underpinning this, is the scriptural teaching on resurrection which Jesus affirmed, and the merciful practice to prayer for the dead, which was part of Jewish life among those who believed in the resurrection of the faithful:
“For had he not expected the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead, whereas if he had in view the splendid recompense reserved for those who make a pious end, the thought was holy and devout. Hence, he had this expiatory sacrifice offered for the dead, so that they might be released from their sin.” (2 Maccabees 12:44-45)
Allelu-Yah! Allelu-Yah! Allelu-Yah!
The most ancient of festivals the new Church celebrated immediately after the death of Jesus (quite definitely around 6-9 April AD30) was the unexpected resurrection of the Lord. This was to be so controversial in the small Roman colony of Judea in the time of Augustus Caesar, that its impact on the whole human civilisation that was to come could not have been underestimated. As historical fact, it would remain a mystery, and it seems part of the Divine Will that this should never be so compelling a fact that unbelief would be impossible. For this would make faith unnecessary, if doubt were impossible. This perspective is dealt with in the Gospel of John, after Jesus’ resurrection:“Thomas, called the Twin, who was one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came… Eight days later the disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. The doors were closed, but Jesus came in and stood among them.
‘Peace be with you,’ he said.
The he spoke to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; look, here are my hands.
Give me your hand; put it into my side.
Do not be unbelieving any more but believe.”
Thomas replied, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:24, 26-28)
In fact, like many events and wonders worked by Jesus in the gospels, the profession of faith by the once-doubtful apostle becomes pivotal to the new faith. It is not as compelling in authority as Peter’s proclamation of Jesus being the Annointed of God, the long-expected Messiah of the Jews. But instead, this is the other parenthetical event, which answers the question as to the identity and nature of Jesus, human and divine.
It is a prophecy that is fulfilled, a joyous event so great it is likened to the greatest of feasts:
“On this mountain, for all peoples,
Yahweh Sabaoth is preparing a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines,
of succulent food, of well-strained wines.
On this mountain, he has destroyed
the veil which used to veil all peoples,
the pall enveloping all nations;
he has destroyed death for ever.” (Isaiah 25:6-7)
Indeed, that is what the new Pasch of the Christians, Easter, is to become: the greatest feast of the Church. This event is celebrated in the mystery of the blessing of bread instituted by Jesus with his disciples in the evening before his death, and since then, commemorated by the faithful to experience the mystery of the Risen Lord:
“Now while he as with them at table,
he took the bread and said the blessing;
then he broke it and handed it to them.
And their eyes were opened and they recognised him;
but he had vanished from their sight.
Then they said to each other,
‘Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road
and explained the scriptures to us?’” (Luke 24:30-32)
The resurrection of Jesus, the mystery of that experience, and exactly how this surpasses the laws of nature on earth, is the basis of the hope that Christians are given, as Paul exhorts the faithful to look towards the Risen Christ, from whom we are to receive complete transformation:
“But our homeland is in heaven and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ,
who will transfigure the wretched body of ours into the mould of his glorious body,
through the working of the power which he has,
even to bring all things under his mastery.” (Philippians 3:20-21)
In other words, if you cannot accept this idea, it is plainly because we are too enticed by the mundane physical and natural perception of this tangible world. Yet, the nature and physics a Christian faithful is called surpasses all that, into a life that is governed by the Spirit:
“You, however, live not by your natural inclinations, but by the Spirit,
since the Spirit of God has made a home in you.
Indeed, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
But when Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is alive because you have been justified; and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has made his home in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.” (Romans 8:9-11)
Paul, whose writings are considered among the earliest in the Christian genre, even prior to the gospel canons which were most likely written after the epistles, does not mince his words about the teaching and oral tradition about the resurrection. He affirms the Risen and Glorified Jesus many times in all his epistles, as his own experience of conversion, and the basis for witnessing this great cosmic event which completes the whole Incarnation mystery of God revealed in Jesus Christ:
“The tradition I handed on to you in the first place,
a tradition which I had myself received,
was that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures,
and that he was buried;
and that on the third day, he was raised to life, in accordance with the scriptures;
and that he appeared to Cephas;
and later to the Twelve;
and next he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still with us, though some have fallen asleep;
then he appeared to James,
and then to all the apostles.
Last of all he appeared to me too, as I was a child born abnormally.”
(1 Corinthians 15:3-8)
Historical, cosmic and glorious: these words describe the dimensions by which the resurrection event affirms what no mind or intellect could have anticipated: that God will literally scoop those who are faithful to him, draw them in a life in union with him, not because we have proved ourselves worthy of redemption, but because of his great mercy:
“But God, being rich in faithful love, through the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our sins, brought us to life with Christ – it is through grace that you have been saved – and raised us up with him and gave us a place with him in heaven, in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-6)
So central to Paul’s teaching on witnessing the resurrection of the Lord, that he issues the ultimatum:
“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ cannot have been raised either, and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is without substance, and so if your faith… In addition, those who have fallen asleep in Christ is utterly lost. If our hope in Christ has been for this life only, we are of all people the most pitiable.”
(1 Corinthians 15:12-14, 18-19)
Our cause is lost, if the Christian faith were to be composed of miracle legends and all sorts of pious events but hollow without the singly victory over death:
“So by our baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glorious power, we too should begin living a new life. If we have been joined to him by dying adeath like his, so we shall be by a resurrection like his; realising that our former self was crucified with him, so that the self which belonged to sin should be destroyed and we should be freed from the slavery of sin.”
(Romans 6:4-6)
For he knows that his readers know the ancient scriptures, all which point to the End of Times, when the old covenant and its norms would fail, and be superseded by the fulfilment of ancient promises, when the faithful are transformed to eternal life beyond human death, where they will illuminate the faith for all generations to come:
“At that time Michael will arise – the great Prince, defender of your people…
Of those who are sleeping in the Land of Dust, many will awaken,
some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace.
Those who are wise will shine as brightly as the expanse of the heavens,
and those who have instructed many in uprightness,
as bright as stars for all eternity.” (Daniel 12:1, 2-3)
A faithful life in the Promised One of God will be so transformed by that experience, that death brings them to the perfect peace in God:
“But the souls of the upright are in the hands of God,
and no torment can touch them.
To the unenlightened, they appear to die,
their departure was regarded as disaster,
their leaving us like annihilation;
but they are at peace.” (Wisdom 3:1-3ff)
It is not merely the promise of bliss in paradise, or in the heavenly court of God. The scriptures are explained to mean the hope of new life:
“We want you to be quite certain, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, to make sure that you do not grieve for them, as others do who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that in the same way God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14ff)
Paul, who ready knew the traditions of the gospels, was elaborating on Jesus own promise:
“In all truth I tell you,
whoever keeps my word will never see death.” (John 8:51)
Indeed, Jesus himself taught of the resurrection in terms that surprised the Sadduccees (who unlike the Pharisees, did not believe in angels, souls or the resurrection). In answer to their test, he explained that there is a life to come, just as all the faithful of Israel looked forward to it because God’s own nature is Life, life-giving:
“For when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry;
no, they are like the angels in heaven.
Now about the dead rising again, have you never read in the Book of Moses,
in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him and said:
I am the God of Abraham, the God of Issac and the God of Jacob?
He is God, not of the dead, but of the living.” (Mark 12:24-27)
In two separate incidents, Jesus secretly reveals his ministry over the mortality of man, where he explicitly reveals his Divine nature without proclaiming it aloud. That God is God of life, then he who can give life to the dead, is of God. Thus, in the events of the daughter of Jairus and the widow of Nain, we enter into this mystery about the Life-giving nature of God and the nature of Jesus as Man and Divine.
“And suddenly there came a man named Jairus, who was president of the synagogue. He fell at Jesus’ feet and pleaded with him to come to his house, because he had an only daughter about 12 years old, who was dying… While he (Jesus) was still speaking, someone arrived from the house of the president of the synagogue to say, ‘Your daughter has died. Do not trouble the Master any further.’ Jesus heard this, and he spoke to the man, ‘Do not be afraid, only have faith and she will be saved.’”
(Luke 8:41-42, 49-50ff),
and,
“It happened that soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, accompanied by his disciples and a great number of people. Now when he was near the gate of the town there was a dead man being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable number of the townspeople was with her. When the Lord saw her he felt sorry for her and said to her, ‘Don’t cry.” Then he went up and touched the bier and the bearers stood still, and he said, ‘Young man, I tell you: get up.’ And the dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him to his mother.”
(Luke 7:11-15)
In fact, we see this latter event foreshadowed in 1 Kings 17:23 with Elijah and the widow of Zarephath in Sidonia, whose son fell ill and died. The scriptures relate the event:
“He stretched himself on the child three times and cried out to Yahweh…Yahweh heard Elijah’s prayer and the child’s soul came back into his body and he revived. Elijah took the child, brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother.”
Two things are remarkable here:
(1) picture Elijah stretching himself, arms outstetched like the figure of the crucified Christ outstretched over the dead boy. He is calling out to Yahweh as Lord of Life. This is the very title Jesus refers himself to as the “resurrection and the life”. (John 11:25, see below)
(2) second, it is the empathy and compassion Jesus has for the widow. For being the only son of Mary, even as he re-enacts Elijah’s miracle of mercy, he must know the sorrow of his own mother that is to play out on the Cross at Calvary, where hanging arms outstretched, he would deliver her to John for care, a reverse in the instance described here, where he “gave him to his mother” (precise quotes in Greek used by John the disciple who took Mary into his own home as his own mother).
In the raising of Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany, Jesus reveals the fullness of his power and relationship with the Father.
“Jesus said to her,
‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said, ‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said:
I am the resurrection.
Anyone who believes in me,
even though that person dies, will live,
and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:23-26a)
While Martha alludes to the end-time resurrection of the body, Jesus does not deny it; instead he points to the immediate resurrection that anyone who believes in him would experience. The resurrection a Christian therefore claims is spiritual (immediate) and physical (historical); you experience an uplifting and complete spiritual transformation by belief in Jesus, and that the temporal body is secondary, but the effects of both is eternal and permanent.
In this way, all the longing of the prophets and kings to understand what their faith pointed to, is revealed to us in Jesus:
“Blessed are the eyes that see what you see,
for I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see,
and never saw it;
to hear what you hear, and never heard it.” (Luke 10:23b-24)
In very similar words, following the doubt of the apostle Thomas in our story quoted above, Jesus blessed those who are given to believe even without the benefit of seeing first hand what the apostles and their contemporaries witnessed.
The ancient faith of the Church included a very real expectation of the physical resurrection. Hence, the bodies of those who died were kept carefully and honoured (dulia, Latin, meaning venerated) because of the belief in the Resurrection. This true belief faded as the persecutions wore on, and found expression in the creed for the “communion of saints”, the “resurrection of the body, and the life to come”. Hence, honouring the death faithful by careful burial and prayer became part of the liturgical life of the Church. Underpinning this, is the scriptural teaching on resurrection which Jesus affirmed, and the merciful practice to prayer for the dead, which was part of Jewish life among those who believed in the resurrection of the faithful:
“For had he not expected the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead, whereas if he had in view the splendid recompense reserved for those who make a pious end, the thought was holy and devout. Hence, he had this expiatory sacrifice offered for the dead, so that they might be released from their sin.” (2 Maccabees 12:44-45)
Allelu-Yah! Allelu-Yah! Allelu-Yah!
Comments
Post a Comment