How do you understand the Resurrection of Jesus? Most Christians would see it as something very central to their faith – something they celebrate every Sunday – or is it?
I grew up in a time when everything was closed on Sundays except for Churches. You might find a dairy open to buy milk, but little else was open. How our world and lives have changed! I suspect people's attitude towards the Resurrection of Jesus has also changed because they no longer believe the way they used to. In a way, I don't blame them. Perhaps our traditional interpretation of Jesus' Resurrection is part of the reason.
I grew up believing the resurrection of Jesus was a historical fact. It is in the Bible, and I was taught the Bible was the Word of God and was without error. Since those days, a lot of research has explored the background of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life and teachings. Now we know that the Gospels weren't written as eye-witness accounts. They didn't have video recorders or cell-phones to record the actual deeds and words of Jesus. Instead, various Christian communities recalled and retold, explained and interpreted the life and teachings of Jesus. No doubt they enriched the stories with their own interpretations and illustrations because there were no written accounts at that stage. In this way, the communal memory of Jesus' life and teachings gradually took shape. This included the Resurrection stories in our four Biblical Gospels. While the Resurrection of Jesus will always remain a mystery because it lies outside our experience, I find it helpful to treat it as a parable. Treating it this way opens the story to fresh inquiry and insight.
My first reason is that Jesus often spoke in parables. They were ways he helped people to grasp spiritual truths by engaging their imagination. His parables were often short, vivid, inspirational and memorable word pictures, that would have meaning for the hearer. They could take them away to mull over them and draw new insight. They were conversation starters, and Jesus was good at telling them. In a way, each one was like a drop of yeast which has the power to transform a bowl of flour, causing it to rise into mouthwatering and life-sustaining bread. Jesus would then send the people away to give time for his word-picture to do its work and transform their lives with new insight and meaning.
The Resurrection story can be treated similarly. When I read it as a parable, I am reminded of a comment the French Philosopher, Gabriel Marcel, once made. He said we live in a world that is riddled with problems but on the other-hand allows no room for mystery. A problem is a question for me to try and solve, whereas a mystery questions 'who am I?' and cannot be answered in the same way. We have to learn to give mystery time and space to work within us as it slowly transforms our lives into the answer. He referred to this process as an intuitive grasp of experiential insight that our rational mind can never fully grasp or express.
Both Jesus' parables and the Resurrection story invite us to contemplate the mystery of our becoming. While the Resurrection story has many answers, at its centre, it reminds me that death is both an ending and a new beginning – and the reason why? Because in God, we are always in the process of new becomings: old things pass away to allow new possibilities to arise!
So, what new growth and unfolding do you sense happening in your life?
Is it helpful for you to sense God's presence is at work in this area of your life?
Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga
May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.
Phil.
__________Gabriel (-Honore) Marcel, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcel/
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