Even Christians fall into the trap of believing the Titanic truth -- life will go on. So Easter is more of an assurance of something that is presumed to exist rather than the surprise of something new or radical. Easter joy is that what we hoped for and expected is true -- some part of us will live on after death has claimed us.
This is not, however, the message of Jesus. He has not come to assure us of a vague and spiritualized future. Rather, He has risen from the dead to reveal the shape of the things to come. The life He offers is not some sanitized version of a movie script or pious version of the hope that nearly everyone has for a life beyond death. He has risen from the dead to show us that the life that death cannot overcome is a real life, a life of new and glorious flesh. He eats and yet walks through locked doors. He is here and can be touched and then is gone. He is seen but not recognized and then is known. We know not what to make of it but we don't have to. He has not come to explain Himself to us but to prove that He has done what He said, that He is trustworthy and true, and that He is the first born of many to follow.
Jesus is not a disembodied spirit who has left flesh behind but wears the glorious flesh and blood and bone of a real man (“. . . handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 23:39). When Thomas' approaches Him, He extends His hands so that His wounds may be seen and invites him to touch His side. This is one time when sentiment does not live up to reality.
Our sappy dreams of growing wings or living free from the constraints of flesh and blood or seers who look down on us from on high (laughing at us and with us) are unworthy of Easter. Christ is risen. He is risen just as He said. He is risen in flesh, the glorious new flesh of One who died but over whom death has no more power. As He is, we shall be.
As Christians we bear a solemn responsibility. We who have received the good news of this Easter surprise, cannot give into the vain and sentimental notions of a good life or better life or a spiritual life that violates the revelation Christ has made known. We dare not consent to be comforted by anything less than the full and true reality of Christ's resurrection. It is the witness of Christ and now it is our witness to the world. While this has to do with such things as funerals, it has as much to do with the way we speak of the things of Christ and of His resurrection in daily life. What we say to our children, what we share with our loved ones, and what we pray in our own times of sorrow and loss must accord with the full and rich witness of our Risen Lord. As dangerous as Easter bunnies and analogies to springtime are, they are not as dangerous to the faith as Christians who are willing to be contented with angel wings and disembodied spirits instead of the glorious promise witnessed in Jesus glorious body and His profound words at His resurrection!
The surprise was not the empty tomb or an angel in the grave where the body was supposed to be. The surprise was a bodily resurrection. And the people of God have confessed this over the centuries: I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting!
No comments:
Post a Comment