Resurrection and Non Conformity

Apparently I gave up blogging for Lent, but now that Lent is over it’s a good time to begin again. The Scripture readings below come from a lectionary resource that divides the week into two parts. The readings for Monday – Wednesday help us reflect on Sunday’s lectionary texts, while the Thursday – Saturday readings prepare us for the readings for the coming Sunday. The readings for Sunday, April 19 and for the next few weeks include stories of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances to his disciples and they raise questions about who, and what, the resurrected Jesus is.

Perhaps the best way to begin to address these questions is to understand what the risen Christ is not. The risen Jesus is not a ghost or a spirit. In our reading from John the disciples touch him and see that he is flesh and bone just as they are. The risen Jesus is not the product of the hopeful but heartbroken imaginations of his disciples, the product of wishful thinking, like the way we may dream of or “talk to” loved ones who have recently died. Neither is the risen Jesus someone who had a near death experience but came back to life after having walked toward the light. From the stories we have of the risen Christ it is clear he is healthy and whole. While he bears scars from the cross he shows no other signs of the abuse he suffered. The risen Jesus is a real person with flesh and bones and not a ghost, not a product of wishful thinking, nor someone who flat lined for a few minutes before his heart started pumping again.

While we bring our own questions, many of them shaped by a scientific worldview, to Jesus’ resurrection, our questions were not the most pressing ones for Jesus’ first followers and for those who first heard the news of the crucified, dead and risen Messiah. Many Jews believed that the righteous dead would be raised, and they believed they would be raised at the same time. What would have been puzzling for the first disciples is that only Jesus, and not all of the righteous dead, was raised. The authors of the New Testament, especially Paul, understood Jesus’ resurrection to be a pledge, a promise, a kind of down payment made by God to assure us of our own resurrection and of the redemption of the entire world (I Corinthians 15:20-24). The redemption and recreation of the world has begun in Jesus’ resurrection, but it has not ended there. Jesus’ resurrection is indeed the first day of the week, the beginning of the new creation.

For the first followers of Jesus, his resurrection was the Father’s way of proving that the Son really was who he claimed to be, namely God’s Son who has been given all authority on heaven and on earth and the visible image of the invisible God. By raising Jesus from the dead God vindicated him before the powers of this world. This theme of vindication is common in the Old Testament. The readings below from Daniel tell of God vindicating the righteous in the face of worldly powers. In Daniel’s case he and his friends were vindicated in the face of the Babylonian Empire, who had conquered Israel. Daniel and his friends refused to obey mandates that forced all to bow down in worship before images of the king, and these laws mandated death for those who refused to acknowledge the Emperor of Babylon as the only legitimate authority in the world. But God vindicated Daniel and his friends, rescuing them from fiery furnaces and lions’ dens to prove that the God of Israel reigned over all nations and that this God’s servants were right in refusing to acknowledge worldly powers as God. In Sunday’s reading from John’s Gospel, Thomas professes his faith in the crucified and risen Jesus by exclaiming, “My Lord and my God!” What we often don’t realize is that “my lord and my god” was a title used to address the Roman emperor. Thomas isn’t just making a spiritual statement, he’s also making a political one about whose authority is legitimate and whose is not, just as Daniel and his friends know that it is God, and not the emperor, who reigns over heaven and earth.

The invitation to follow the crucified and risen Christ an invitation to entrust ourselves to God’s rule more than the rule of earthly powers. The readings from I John below give us hints of what God’s rule involves. Another guide is this, one of my favorite statements by Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.” How is God calling us to be disciplined non-conformists?

Monday, 4/20
Daniel 3:1-30
I John 2:3-11

Tuesday 4/21
Daniel 6:1-28
I John 2:12-17

Wednesday 4/22
Isaiah 26:1-15
Mark 12:18-27

Read Psalm 135 each of these three days.