rawest reality of resurrection

As we have come to this season in the Church, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection has been in mind. I have been a bit silent as of late, so I have decided to try to put into words a theory/hypothesis I would like to submit for your chewing, thinking, and theological pleasure. Just to be clear: This is not something I have bought into, but thought of and would like a little dialogue on.

Going through college, I heard my professors make the point that Christ’s coming was predestined from the beginning; however, they would go on to clarify, Christ’s sacrifice, the need for atonement is not said to be determined or even alluded to before the Fall, specifically when Paul talks of Jesus. This technicality is a huge issue in determinist/free will/ omniscience discussion…however, let us assume my professors knew what they were talking about when it came to the writings of the Gospel writers and Paul (they have, after all, spent much more time researching and learning the original languages and Scriptures than I have). The first premise is then that Christ would have descended into Creation had humanity never sinned. But why?

Heaven, the New Jerusalem, is joined with earth in the end. I guess according to Ezekiel 36 people will be given crops (meaning there will be crops to be given), and from Amos 9 new wine will be dripping from the mountains. In Revelation the tree of life changes its fruit every season. Point being, for crops, wine, and seasons to exist, some sort of rhythm is made. But this rhythm requires some sort of waste, decay or death. Crops do not grow without seed, and seeds do not plant without dying. Wine must ferment and fermentation is decay. Seasons to season somethings die, while others flourish, many times relying on the death of the previous season. Heaven includes these things though they require something that seems unheavenly.

The third premise is this, and all Christians should find this easy to buy into: Christ shows us reality at its rawest. The resurrection is not just an exception, it is the reality. People live, die, and resurrect. Death is not the end, nor does it have the final word. Life is the standard state of all things, and death is only natural in bringing life (I mean to attempt a strange and complex statement of human existence; namely, that human [maybe even animal] death is not the natural state of Creation, by which I mean Heaven and Earth being one).

To qualify my statements above, how God created plays a huge part in the first premise; therefore, I must insist that in this dialogue we come from a theistic evolutionary stance on the creation process. This is not due to some underlying vendetta, it is simply that for consistency’s sake if Eden is not in some way communicating a truth beyond historical events, it seems inevitable that Christ was predestined to descend to earth to die for sin from before the world existed…contradicting the first premise. To restate: Christ shows us that all things live, die, and resurrect, which is reality at its rawest.

If you are still with me, you might know where I’m going with this. Assuming these premises, as well as a historical, theist evolutionary view, death is part of the way things have been created. Sin absolutely does make Death a prison of humanity and creation, but this is a furthering, perhaps even an unavoidable result, of the death included in the creation process. Now, to be clear, this would be a two-sided view of death…on one hand, death is necessary as a passing on of life, as the in-and-out of breath, as the step by step of a dance; on the other hand, death is the threat of all that is evil, it is the inevitability that convinces us that power and fear are reality at its rawest, it is the despair of the hopeless. IF the second type of death, the one resulting from sin, had not entered the world, it is my contention that Christ’s first coming would have ended with an old aged death, followed quickly by resurrection. In the end, we see a Messiah who would come testifying to reality, that death is not final, that resurrection is the natural process of what happens after bodily passing; simply put, Jesus came to reveal that death is not the end. This would have required God’s single humiliation (The Philippians 2 hymn speaks of Christ humbling Himself twice, once to human form and once to death, even death on a cross), but was the intension of God from the start.

Practically speaking, this brings up a couple of issues:

1) The Dual Nature of Death – As part of God’s created order; and as the product of sin. This would demand a renovation of terminology.

2) This maintains humanity’s culpability for sin and the murder of Jesus, but it also makes sense of how a Christian may maintain a theistic evolutionary stance, while also keeping the Death of sin the enemy.

3) The necessity of Christ even in the created world.

Chew on this and then dialogue please…

on resurrection

Jesus…raised from the dead.

The resurrection is the clearest and most definite evidence we have that Jesus was and is fully God. I would go so far as to say everything done in Jesus’ life is worthless if not for the resurrection. Son of God? Maybe…the centurion at the cross declared Jesus as “a son of God” (that’s right, your translations of the Bible interpret things for you more than you know), but this proclamation, or kerygma, is simply vapor, lost in the wind if Jesus does not resurrect.

Let me try to explain with an illustration. If I live my entire life working and striving under the assumption that before I retire I’ll be able to build a dream home and live there until I die; but instead, I find myself at the ripe age of 70 breathing with the support of an oxygen tank in a nursing home, broke and alone, all of my efforts have been for naught. Should I achieve the dream home and find myself surrounded by my children and their children at the ripe age of 85, I am fulfilled. (Please disregard the faults of such an illustration, I’m trying to make a point)

Jesus lived life in faith. His faith was “confidence in what [He] hop[ed] for and assurance about what [He did] not see.” Jesus was sure from the start of the resurrection, and in sight of it, Jesus makes sense. If we assume our Experience is absolute then we are left to excuse the resurrection, somehow explaining it away like the Romans and Jewish leaders tried to do. But this is why the Gospel becomes “good news,” why we can be the Eucharist to the world, and why we are confident in Jesus, because of His resurrection.

Another illustration: I recently read an article about a guy who has, for years, been handing out pamphlets to jurors outside of a courthouse. These pamphlets encouraged the jurors to judge with their conscience rather than what the law says. He is now on trial for tampering with the jury(ies). But what’s funny about this is, as far as I know, he did not single out one type of jury or certain types of cases! The guy is simply making an effort to reform the way juries think and judge, because the law can be nonsensical.

This is a perfect illustration for the Powers in operation. Resist or expose them and they will do everything within their means to do violence to your social, political, financial, personal, relational, and spiritual life. Jesus does this. Exposing what is at best a misinterpretation of the Jewish leaders and at worst, a perversion of the Scripture for their own affluence and control. But you have to see this, the Powers are not the leaders, they are not the state charging a guy with tampering, the Powers are those metaphysical forms that dictate a reaction to resistance and exposure. It may come in the form of critique, criticism, violence, or even death, but be sure, the Powers’ response to resistance is control.

The argument is not for chaos or anarchy though, the argument is that only God is God and only Jesus is Lord. Jesus came preaching the Kingdom of God, which, once again, makes no sense in a world without resurrection. Jesus’ call is the carry the cross daily, but in a world where death is the final bow on this stage of life, there is little sense in the cross. Jesus dead just means Jesus failed.

It is important, I think to differentiate between Hell and Hades. Hell is a lake of burning sulfer…Hades is the proverbial Grave, a hole in the ground where rot and decay are your only friends and God has turned His face away. Jesus descended into Hades, the place of death. That place that is the end of all who resist the Powers. Until the resurrection, there is no escaping Hades. It is for all people, no matter how righteous. However, it is the ultimate threat the Powers have. So we come to realize that in Jesus’ innocent death, the Powers are exposed for what they are in their evil, perverse and controlling ways; but, in Jesus’ resurrection we understand the Kingdom of God can be enacted in the here and now with no fear of death. Death is like your mother’s spankings once you turned 20…it may be unpleasant, but it is futile.

As you may be able to tell, this is my understanding of the atonement, that in Christ we live, move and breath, free from the threats of death and destruction. This means that we will experience more death though in our lives. When the Powers are challenged, brothers kill brothers, mothers disown children, and credentials are never to be found. Death is never the ally, but like a house built on a rock near the shore, we should experience a consistent and enduring clash of waves on our walls. We must remember though that the arbiters of the Powers are not the enemy, but that the Powers and principalities are.

What does it mean to have faith in Jesus? It means to practice resurrection, to expose the Powers, envision a Kingdom of God future, and then enact it. But how?

Easter prayer

Forgive us LORD

For our cries of ‘Crucify’ on Friday

For our despair and forgetfulness on Saturday

For our disbelief and confusion on Sunday

Forgive us LORD

Thank you LORD

For your forgiveness from the cross on Friday

For remembering and hoping for us on Saturday

For your belief that we can do what you have done on Sunday

Thank you LORD

under bridges

Under Bridges – Brave Saint Saturn. As we approach the end of this Lenton season, this song has been on my mind. There is little that is complete about this song. It’s not the best, it was a short-time hit on Christian radio but few remember it (I think). It’s not encouraging to those who find themselves having never wanted or in need of the necessities of life. Many, my church included, would probably have a hard time with this picture of Jesus.

And yet.

This song reminds me that here, on this earth that lives too often in Good/Broken Friday, Jesus is hard to recognize. This is not a fault of His but it is upon us. Why, even Peter and Judas have a hard time recognizing who Jesus is. Good Friday, the day we proved how blind we were to Jesus; the day we claimed, “We would know Him if we saw Him”; the day we killed Jesus. I love this song because even as Jesus is Savior, Jesus is the one we refuse to recognize; the one we crucify. Death is our answer. Death is our curse.

And so we are damned.

Yesterday while walking,
Beneath an overpass,
I saw the figure of Jesus,
Standing barefoot on broken glass.
His beard was graying,
The smell of urine filled the air,
Asking if I had some change,
Anything that I could spare.

Emaciated,
His shaking fists balled up,
Influenza and pneumonia,
Begging God to take his cup.
So different from his pictures,
Breathing air through yellowed tubes,
Jesus Christ, dying of AIDS,
Can look right through you.

And all have hated,
Crucified and walked away,
The Savior of the prostitutes,
Drunkards, rapists, and the gays.

Under bridges,
With hands raised,
From the ghettos they praise his name.
Broke and crippled in the dark of night,
Raise your voices to Jesus Christ,
Hallelujah.