Jesus is Rising...

Every Easter, we pastors stand in front of our congregations--usually swelled to capacity by the mystical "call" to turn out for the Resurrection Story--and begin the service with "He is RISEN!," to which the congregation has been conditioned to respond: "He is RISEN, INDEED!" And then comes the impressive music by the choir, brass, pipe organ, praise band, or what-have-you. Oh, and if you are a Methodist, you will sing the rousing Charles Wesley classic, "Christ the Lord is Risen Today!" What are we celebrating?

It is a tenet of orthodox Christianity that Jesus the Christ, the unique God-human being who embodied both the full attributes of humanity and the full attributes of divinity, was crucified by religious leaders and Roman authorities, and on the third day, arose from the dead, fulfilling various Bible prophesies, including his own promise to arise. Christians since that historic first century have affirmed a "bodily resurrection" whereby Jesus was physically raised, although conservatives and progressive theologians alike espouse that more happened on that first Easter than just a "resuscitation" of the physical body of Jesus. The Apostle Paul refers to the resurrected Jesus as the "first born of the dead," and the "second Adam," setting forth the idea that Christ--in his risen form--was a kind of "prototype" or hybrid being who was both a physical being and an eternal being as well. In the general epistle of I John, the author suggests that in eternity, we will be given this same "eternal body" like Christ models in the resurrection. It is an intriguing thought: a physical body with form and feeling and "looks," but one that isn't touched by time, disease, or the "Dorian Gray" effects of aging. Which brings up another question: if this is so, how "old" will we be "frozen" at in this eternal visage? Well, if we want to play that game, how about this: if it is an "eternal" body no longer subject to linear, temporal bounds, maybe we can be any age we want to be at any given moment? If I don't live to see 90, maybe I can "run up" there in Heaven and check it out? Or maybe an infant who perished gets to "grow up" and experience a full life, maybe in the presence of the perpetually grieving family which lost her or him? We could do this kind of speculation all day long, and about all we might end up with would be a "B" screenplay.

I don't know what happened on that first Easter some 2,000 years ago. I can confess to what I believe, but that's about it, at least when it comes to Jesus being physically raised from the dead. But what I can clearly see is the on-going evidence of whatever happened back then, and the continuing rising of the life, teachings, and reconciling power of Jesus in us today. The Christian experience continues to transform lives--we hear stories of this every week. The media is full of usual and unusual testimonies of people "finding God," kicking addictions, being reunited with loved ones via God's program of reconciling people to God and people to people. This stuff is certainly real and has staying power. I suggested to my Easter congregation at St. Paul's that we should change that greeting to "Christ is RISING! In YOU and in ME!

How real is this unfolding Christ experience? Just ask someone who has been changed by it--or someone who is being changed by it. Or, if you belong to a mainline denomination church (such as my own United Methodist Church), and know how we seem so adept at making lame-brain decisions and creating unnavigable structures, the incarnational miracle is that we are STILL here, and even growing in many places! If this isn't evidence of divine resurrection power, I don't know what is!

In the final few years of my ministry and the whatever number of years of my life, I think I'm going to stop talking about something that supposedly happened over 2,000 years ago that I didn't witness, and start pointing others--and myself--to the "rising" Christ who continues to break into the human condition and reconcile us all to God. Oh, some of my colleagues will say, "Are you denying the bodily resurrection of Jesus?" No. With apologies to the apocryphal "Gandhi-ism": I'm just trying to BE the resurrection I want to see in others and in the world. Less "living for Jesus," and more "living WITH Jesus," I guess. Won't you join me?

This Sunday, St. Paul's is doing a kind of "stump the pastor" thing whereby we're passing out note cards and inviting members of the congregation to submit questions for Rev. Karen and I to answer during the message time. If we get a bunch more good questions than we can address on Sunday, watch for a few of then to turn up here on my blog. Could be intriguing...Shalom, All!