Bumps in the Road of Faith, Part 4 – Wings

  
 

Let me remind the reader that I am describing my own journey of faith. This is how it has happened for me. I am not asking anyone else to accept my conclusions of viewpoint. If this doesn’t work for you, ignore it. This is my testimony.

The resurrection of Jesus is at the core of the Christian faith. Paul makes it clear in the letter to the Corinthians: “If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our faith is futile.”

Over the years I have been indoctrinated to accept the literal, physical, bodily resurrection of Jesus. I have studied a zillion scholarly articles and read numerous books showing the overwhelming historical and textual evidence for the resurrection as a literal, historical event. But the further along I got on my faith journey the more I had nagging questions in my mind about the nature of the resurrection. I knew there was some kind of ‘resurrection’ that took place because the Church exists. There is a theological axiom: The Church did not create the resurrection; the resurrection created the Church. I still believe that. The question for me became: But what kind of resurrection?

I have changed my mind about the nature of the resurrection of Jesus. Three questions came to my mind which have ended up changing my understanding.

THE FIRST QUESTION WAS: Why didn’t Jesus appear to any non-believers? If you read the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in the four gospels you will notice that Jesus appears only to disciples. Even Paul’s statements at the beginning of 1^st Corinthians 15 about multiple appearances mention only believers. In other words, the Biblical writers did not assert that the resurrected Jesus appeared to anyone except the believing community. That is an explicit ‘inside-the-group’ assertion, which leads me to believe that such an assertion isn’t making an objective, historical statement. If Jesus appeared after his death to many people who did not believe, we would have some record of it. That would give us an objective, historical testimony. But the only testimony we have is from those who write the advertisements for the believing community. I concluded that the Church did not want to assert a public, historical happening; but something more like a subjective or in-house assertion.

THE SECOND QUESTION WAS: Why did Jesus disappear? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the resurrected Lord to stay on earth and show himself all over the planet if God really wanted everyone to believe?

The gospel stories of Jesus dying, rising, appearing, then ascending to heaven to ‘sit on the right hand of God’ (which is why God can’t do much about wars, hurricanes, etc – Jesus is sitting on his hand! [  ): ]) is a neat, convenient plot. Someone rightly asks the Church, “So, where is this resurrected Jesus?” And the Church says, “Oh, he went away for awhile; but he’ll be back some day.” Really? How convenient. (The wizard is behind the curtain.) It all sounds a little too neat.

Since becoming a grandfather I have read a lot of children’s stories; and I have enjoyed hearing my granddaughter use her vivid imagination to make up stories. And I have been reminded of how easy it is to make a story come out any way you want it to. When I step back from the whole ecclesial structure and look at the resurrection story objective as I can, it seems like a ‘convenient truth.’ Where is the evidence—where is the body? Where is Christ today? Oh, he’s gone away for awhile. How convenient. I concluded that the so-called ‘bodily resurrection’ begs the question is there is no body.

THE THIRD QUESTION WAS: Where are the angels? I was rereading Matthew Fox’s book, The Cosmic Christ where the author makes the point that the gospel story is set within a cosmic mythological framework. I was already well aware of various cosmological symbols used frequently in Scripture, such as clouds, darkness, deep waters, fire, stars, etc. But in regard to the resurrection an important clue was right in front of my nose all this time: angels.

The appearance of angels in a Biblical story is a mythopoeic prop. That is, angels are part of the cosmic and mythology of ancient tales. Where angels appear, you know that a story is being set within a mythological framework.

In all four gospels angels show up on Easter morning at the tomb. This tells us how these stories should be read; namely, as mythic visions of hope. The appearance of angels indicates that the author is writing in a genre not meant to be taken literally.

Popular culture thrives on stories about angels. It feels good to think you and I each have our guardian angel looking over our shoulders. But I’ve never seen an angel. No one I know has. When angels appear we are in fantasy land.

So, I concluded: The nature of the ‘resurrection’ of Jesus has to be put in the category of non-literal religious literature. That doesn’t mean that it has no meaning! Let’s be clear on this point. Poetry, parable and myth function to tell the truth just as much as historical reporting. In fact, myth, parable and poetry can tell us more about reality that straight historical reportage can.

CONCLUSION

The gospel stories of the resurrection of Jesus and other New Testament statements about that ‘event’ are statements about something real, but not historical. There was something about the man Jesus—what he taught and what he embodied—that cannot die. It was validated through the spiritual experiences of his followers. They were willing to die for this life-giving truth. When they wrote about the truth of Jesus they packaged their stories and writings in an acceptable first-century genre.

The New Testament scholar Marcus Borg has written that we should understand the resurrection stories as parables. After all, Jesus loved parables. He used that genre all the time as a way of teaching truth. Let me repeat: Jesus used non-historical, non-literal literary forms to teach truth. Would not his followers do the same? It would be a very Christ-like thing to do.

There is salvific power in the resurrection stories about Jesus. Those stories tell us something about the universe and the power behind the universe; they tell us something important about life and the world we live in. They attest to the Sacred, with its power of renewal and liberation. Love is stronger than hate; life is stronger than death; hope reigns.

I believe that there is a power in the world that gives hope and meaning to our lives. Call it ‘God’ if you wish. Call it the Divine; call it the Sacred; call it Life; call it the Spirit; call it the Light; call it Love. Whatever you call it, I believe in it.

The spiritual experience of the apostles and disciples was real. They used a literary form available to them to spin stories and catechize. The life-giving power of Being is part of our experience. It is beyond scientific proof. It is part of who and what we are. Our eyes cannot see our own eyes—only reflections or images. There is something so fundamental to life that we can’t see it. But we experience it. The resurrection and ascension of Jesus of Nazareth is a parable about this reality.

There was a man named Jesus. He was a Jewish rabbi. He got into trouble with the authorities. They executed him. But his spirit lives on. It is a transforming spirit. The Jesus Movement gathered around his truth and his life. They carried it forward. And inevitably, they institutionalized it. The institutional church stills carries the spark of that truth, but so often it gets smothered in hierarchy and self-righteousness.

That spark—the living spirit of Jesus—is not held captive by the Church. It can be discovered in other world religions, in philosophical traditions, and in humanistic movements. The spirit of Jesus is the spirit of peace, the spirit of justice, the spirit of compassion. The meaning of the Easter stories in the Bible is not found in some creedal statement or ecclesiastical pronouncement. It is found in our experiences of liberation and joy.

I believe there is something that is eternal. My reinterpretation of the gospels sees in Jesus of Nazareth a window into the infinite love that empowers the universe. When the man Jesus died, that infinite power of love did not. For me, that is the meaning of Easter. The stories of resurrection and ascension are parables that expose the truth about the eternal, spiritual nature of our existence. And at the center of it all is love.

I no longer believe in Santa Claus as I once did when I was a child. But I still believe in the spirit of giving and the magic of anticipation. I do not believe that there really are angels. But I do believe in the angelic songs of Christmas that announce peace in the world if we really want it.

At Easter the Church shouts, “Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!” Yes, indeed he is.

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