“How was your Easter?” he asked. “Glorious!” I replied. “Bells, brass quartet, full -throated congregation…” “No, what I meant is, What’s Different? Is the church excited about a Holy Mystery; or are they still fussing about the logic of bodily death?” Can Easter happen without fourteen hypotheses about suspended animation, earth temperatures and bodily fluids? Doubting Thomas has spoken for us all.
The third chapter of Acts has a marvelous story about Peter & John’s encounter with a lame man at the Temple. The man can now walk normally, which impresses the crowd. “When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, ‘You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?'” (v.12) Just as in today’s culture, a few individuals may have quietly believed, but the greater community wouldn’t accept the wonder. This verse could be heard in every generation between then & now: the greater community resists the resurrection.
The First Letter ascribed to John has this hopeful verse, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.” (3:2a) The author sees himself in a bi-polar world, with a small number understanding themselves as “children of God”–and the rest of the “world” which is basically lawless. Sometimes it seems as if we are aliens; other times I can deal with being a change-agent, “yeast in the flour”. After all this hard work, even to death, why do they still resist the resurrection?
Luke’s Gospel reports that on the evening after the resurrection, Jesus suddenly was among the gathered believers. (24:36-42) They thought they were seeing a ghost! (I can relate to that.) The Lord told them, “Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.” (v.39) To further his proof, he ate a piece of broiled fish; it didn’t fall on the floor, so he must have been human! Well, who would have expected this? Even his close companions tended to resist the resurrection!
I’m done whining about this: the post-modern Christian movement really works best as a lean and committed minority. Throughout holy-history the greatest and most effective results have been realized when the Church has been a small enclave of monks in The Dark Ages…or underground cells meeting in the catacombs…or bleary-eyed scholars illegally translating holy writ into the language of their people… By God, the revolution has survived! There’re always a few who haven’t resisted the resurrection!!
God Bless Us, Every One Horace Brown King
My Blog 
Leave a comment