Mark's Resurrection

As we enter Holy Week again, the Gospel of Mark's version of the events surrounding Jesus' resurrection is worth lingering over.  That version, recorded in Mark 16, raises serious questions about the way in which Jesus' followers received the news of his resurrection.  In particular, when the three women who went to the tomb to anoint the corpse heard from a "young man dressed in a white robe" that Jesus was raised from the dead, they, "fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." (Mark 16:8)

If we follow the rule concerning historical documents that a thing is more likely to be true if it is inconvenient to the larger purpose of the author, this account  seems quite credible.  The women didn't see Jesus.  They weren't inspired or fell at his knees.  This was no Pentecost with flames of holy fire.  The empty tomb and the young man scared them out of their wits.  They fled an evident display of God's holy power, and unlike Moses at the burning bush they did not bow down in worship.  They ran.  And in their terror, they told no one.

According to scholars, Mark 16:8 is the end of the original version of the gospel, so far as we know.  If that is the case, it means that Jesus' followers initially greeted his resurrection with fear and silence.  The accounts of the resurrection in the other gospels are much more inspiring, but this one seems more likely.  It is consistent with a tendency found in the gospels to highlight the spiritual ignorance of Jesus' followers—an inconvenient truth that rings true down through the long years since.  It is also consistent with how people of a time when there was a holy terror of things divine would react.  It is also consistent with how three women might react in a male dominated society where they were used to being treated as "just women."  Why risk ridicule?  Finally, the reaction of the three women as Mark describes it is just plain typically human.  Most of us most of the time prefer the known to the unknown, the safe way to the dangerous one; and it makes perfect sense that we do.

This is not the resurrection that the Easter crowd wants to hear about.  It is not the resurrection preached from pulpits on that "glorious and wonderful morn."  This is an account shorn of piety.  In that sense, it may be taken as a call to a faith shorn of piety and the pretensions of religiosity.  We run, we tremble, we keep quiet, but eventually we stop to catch our breath, calm down, and find our voice—eventually.  Amen.

The One Journey That Matters

The one journey that ultimately matters is the journey into the place of stillness deep within one’s self. To reach that place is to be at home; to fail to reach it is to be forever restless. At the place of ‘central silence’ one’s own life and spirit are united with the life and Spirit of God. There the fire of God’s presence is experienced. The soul is immersed in love. The divine birth happens. We hear at last the living Word.

N. Gordon Cosby

Source: Foreword to Search for Silence by Elizabeth O'Connor

From: inward/outward

Thinking Beyond Thinking

"What inclines even me to believe in Christ's Resurrection? ... If he did not rise from the dead, then he decomposed in the grave like another man ... but if I am to be REALLY saved - what I need is certainty - not wisdom, dreams or speculation - and this certainty is faith. And faith is faith in what is needed by my heart, my soul, not my speculative intelligence. For it is my soul with its passions, as it were, with its flesh and blood, that has to be saved, not my abstract mind. Perhaps we can say: only love can believe in the Resurrection. Or: it is love that believes the Resurrection ... what combats doubt is, as it were, redemption ... so this can come about only if you no longer rest your weight on the earth but suspend yourself from heaven. Then everything will be different and it will be 'no wonder' if you can do things you cannot do now."

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Quoted in Anthony Kelly, "ONLY LOVE CAN BELIEVE: THE SINGULARITY OF THE RESURRECTION"

However many times I've read this passage, it's meaning seems to slip by me in one direction or the other.  I share it with you here, however, because it suggests something that I am coming to accept more and more: rational thought is not the only nor even the best measure of faith.  Meaning, purpose, and faith are constructed by the heart as much as by the mind.  The human spirit's thirst for more, deeper, and truer can't be satisfied by reasonable discourse alone—nor do "the facts" no matter how solid bring it profound rest.

It Is All About the Stump (x)

This is the tenth in a series of postings looking at the meaning of Isaiah 6 for today; it began (here).

Isaiah 6 closes with a curious analogy.  After the Hebrews have been subjected to a brutal process of being repeatedly cut down, only a stump will remain, and "The holy seed is its stump."  According to this ancient Hebrew religious text, God's plan was to destroy God's people for their rebellion and immorality, but out of all of that destruction God was going to bring forth new life out of the apparently dead stump.

Read from an early 21st century perspective, this ancient text reflects two important spiritual realities built into us and our world by God.  The first is the reality of karma, that is "what goes around comes around."  According to the ancient Hebrew myth of the Garden, humanity chose death, and it has been paying the price for that choice ever since.  The myth reflects reality.  The things we do have consequences for us and for those around us.  Individually and collectively we are able to build a more or a less peaceful world by our own peace-making or trouble-making actions.  Beat a child and both parent and child pay the price.  Hug a child in pain and both the hugger and the hugged reap the benefit.  Yes, the innocent suffer, but it is because other human beings make them suffer and suffer themselves (in one way or another) as a consequence.  It sounds unjust until one considers that the system ultimately self-selects for justice and peace.  Evil choices lead to evil consequences for the chooser.  The Arab Spring is only the latest massive human movement clawing its way through the reality of karma toward something better.

According to the ancient Hebrew texts of the Old Testament, the nation and its leaders in their rebellion against God chose injustice and oppression, and they reaped the consequences.  Sow death and you get it.  This law permeates and defines human reality no more or less than does gravity.  Like gravity, it hurts and limits us—and we can't live without it.

Also built into us is the second reality: resurrection.  It is a common human experience: we fall and fail, and when the dust settles and we pick up our life again we discover that the "death" of the failure has opened doors to something better than before.  It is in resurrection that we experience the grace of God.  It is in the rhythms of dying to new life that we feel the work of the Spirit.

And, again, we don't have a clue why things are this way.  Anyone who tells you they know God's plan is fooling themselves.  What I do believe personally is that God has built a future into us, which in biblical terms we call the Kingdom of God.  We are evolving spiritually as much as we are biologically, but to what ultimate end is not clear at all.  What is clear is that a Hebrew prophet living 2,800 years ago dimly perceived what we dimly perceive: we reap what we sow, and God the Holy Spirit is constantly at work bringing a new, unexpected thing out of the sowing and reaping—something that transcends and reshapes the fundamental truth of karma.  Go figure.

Having Faith in the Resurrection

It is widely understood that Christ's resurrection is central to the Christian faith.  Stated somewhat starkly, the general idea is that if you don't believe in the resurrection you aren't a Christian.  Like most bald, simple statements this one is filled with difficulties beginning with the meaning of "resurrection" itself.  As numerous scholars point out, there were no witnesses to the resurrection only witnesses to its aftermath when Jesus suddenly started appearing to his disciples.  When the disciples reported that Jesus was risen, what did they mean by "risen"?  The gospels insist that there was a bodily resurrection, but they were written some two generations after the resurrection.  Paul said he saw the risen Lord just like the other apostles, but he saw Jesus only in a vision.  So,  was there an actual bodily resurrection or was the resurrection perhaps more of a mass vision of some kind?

When we talk about believing in the resurrection, questions like these can become huge obstacles because we are focused on a historical event and whether or not it really, actually happened.  By and large, about all we can really say for sure regarding the resurrection is that Something Happened, otherwise we can't make sense of subsequent events.  But what that "something" was is all but impossible to determine.  Or, rather, we determine what we think happened based on our own theological perspective not on the meager historical data as such.

The historical and theological issues of the resurrection are important, but maybe not that important for our daily Christian walk.  The more important issue for our faith is whether or not we put our trust in the Risen Lord, trusting that his resurrection is real in a deeper sense.  If we put our faith (trust) in the message of the resurrection, we are convinced that tyranny, religiosity, power politics, cynicism, and fear do not have the last word.  Death is not lord.  If we have faith in the Risen Lord, we are able to see the pattern of his life in our own lives.  Darkness does not lead to defeat but to resurrection, which is defeat transformed into hope, possibility, and new purpose.

At the end of the day, the most important thing is to remember always that faith is not belief, it is trust.