Lamplighter – March/April 2011
Some Thoughts on the Mystery of Easter
Stephen Quinlan ~ Easter 2011
I greet you in the name of our risen Lord Jesus Christ. This year, on the last Sunday of April, we celebrate the central event of the Christian faith – the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This event is a great mystery, and it is important to authentic faith that it remains so. I cannot comprehend this event. My faith tells me that something extraordinary really happened, but the reality of what happened is entirely beyond me. The language used in the Bible to describe this event often seems fantastic to me – even mythological. These strange Biblical reports raise more questions for me than they answer. And yet, this real event changed everything and has become the basis of the Christian faith and of my faith. Yet, it remains more or less incomprehensible to me. But I live with many incomprehensible things, so I can live with this. How about you?
In this Lenten and Easter season I want clearly to proclaim that the resurrection is a mystery. A mystery is a reality that cannot be fully understood or explained. The resurrection is a reality that transcends – goes beyond – any thoughts, explanations or even experiences of it. It is a reality that can transform our lives and our world in powerful ways, but it is not a reality that we can finally grasp, take hold of, or possess. It is a reality – like the reality of God – which takes hold of us, but is at the same time beyond us, and eludes us when we try to manage or seize it. This may make us very nervous, since we are accustomed to explanations that make things manageable. But it’s pointless for us to try to explain what happened in the resurrection. The biblical stories that bear witness to this event make this much very clear.
1. What Really Happened?
Looking closely at the biblical stories about the resurrection, the first thing I see is that the authors themselves seem to struggle to find words that adequately express what happened in this event – and ultimately they are content to leave us with this inadequacy. The stories therefore convey a somewhat mythological sense of both the strangeness and power of God. That is exactly as it should be.
When I consider the biblical stories of the resurrection, I notice is that they say nothing – absolutely nothing – directly about the event. None of the stories presumes to take us inside the tomb during the resurrection. Instead, all the stories tell us about an empty tomb and experiences that people had of the risen Christ following the event.
The language of the empty tomb is perhaps as good a language as the authors could find to speak of the reality that they had experienced. First, it is, like much talk about God, the language of negation. “He is not”… not here, not dead, not ended. But it is also the language of affirmation. Something positive has really happened. An event has taken place. God has acted. “He is risen!” This is a message of the negation of death and affirmation of life. “He is not here. He is risen!” The message is strange and unexpected. The strangeness and mystery of the message is underscored by the appearance of strange and mysterious beings. Angels, those peculiar other-worldly messengers of God, first proclaim, but also embody the mysterious character of the event.
2. Who Is Risen – Jesus or Christ?
The next thing I notice about the stories of the resurrection is that it is often not clear who the risen Christ is. That is, the risen Christ’s identity with Jesus of Nazareth was not immediately and directly apparent. Resurrection is not merely resuscitation. Resurrection is counterintuitive, and so it was not always obvious that the Christ they experienced as risen was the Jesus who had died. Christ lives, but not in just the same way that Jesus lived. In one account, he appears as a stranger traveling the road to Damascus. In another he seems to be a ghostly apparition. In another, he is mistaken for a gardener. In all the stories, the risen Christ must do things to demonstrate his identity with the crucified Jesus. The story of Thomas in the gospel of John is a striking example of this. The point is, I believe, that ordinary human perception is not adequate to this event. For this event to make any sense at all, God must heighten perception or demonstrate reality. God must reveal or disclose the reality of this event because in it God is not ordinarily, but mysteriously present to human experience. In short: God gives faith.
3. Appropriate Doubts
Finally, it is liberating to acknowledge that all the stories of the human experience of the risen Christ recognize and accept the element of doubt. In each account, the disciples doubt either the testimony of others or the content of their own experience. In Mark 16:11, “when they heard he was alive… they would not believe it.” In Luke 24:11, the words of those who had seen the risen Christ “seemed to them and idle tale, and they did not believe them.” In John 20:25, Thomas famously says, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” In Matthew 28:17, even when the disciples personally experienced the risen Christ, we are told that “some doubted.” The stories of the experience of the risen Christ, without exception, contain this element of doubt. And it is important that while Jesus admonishes his disciples to believe, he never condemns them for their doubt. My point is that misapprehension, cognitive dissonance, confusion, and doubt are expected, anticipated, and above all, appropriate human responses when confronted with such a profound mystery. Questioning and doubt are concomitant to mystery. They go hand in hand. So if you have your doubts about all of this, don’t worry. It’s a mystery and it’s the nature of the thing that you should. Let the doubts and the mystery stand together.
4. Not Superstition, but Mystery
My friends, like it or not, the followers of Jesus Christ are required to live with mystery. But let me be quick to add that this is not the same thing as living with superstitious nonsense. Superstition is the belief in a kind of magic. Usually based in fear, superstition is belief against reason and without evidence. Mystery is quite a different thing. Mystery is the reasoned knowledge – often supported by the evidence of experience – that reality is greater than us. It is beyond what we can encompass in our experience, comprehend in our thought, or express in our language.
We should not be in the least surprised or concerned, if the way that God is among us remains mysterious. When we are confronted with the decisive act of God among human beings in the resurrection of Christ, should we not expect that this act would be in some measure unknowable to us? Should not this incomprehensible and deeply mysterious event be just the sort of thing we would expect of contact with ultimate reality? Should not doubts and questions arise? Christianity claims that it has to do with the reality of God among us – and therefore Christianity must always be a mystery.
My friends, the power of the resurrection is in its mystery, so let us live with the mystery. Let us resist any easy explanations or rationalist reductions. Let us not attempt to simplify, contain, or manage this reality with our theology or doctrine. Let us be brash and boldly say, “I don’t understand.” Let us say with that courageous man, “I believe, help thou my unbelief.” I wish you all a thoughtful Lent and a gloriously mysterious Easter!
Spring Spruce Up Day
On April 16th we will be holding our annual ‘Spring Spruce Up Day’ at the church from 8 am to 12 noon. We need all the volunteers possible to help with this undertaking.
This year, I’ve decided we will be building a new church. No, just kidding, but now that I have your attention, we WILL be painting the rear hallway (the space between the pulpit and the assembly room), scrubbing and polishing the sanctuary and doing some light raking and yard work to the grounds.
Any other suggestions of small projects that can be completed in the four hour span at a minimum budget are encouraged. Everyone is asked to bring tools, brushes, drop cloths, cleaning supplies, mops, etc. to help with the jobs.
There’s a passage somewhere in the Bible about how God loves people who work for free, but I don’t remember where it is. Ask Steve.
In any event, I’ll be there on April 16th. Hope to see you, too.
In Christianity for the Rest of Us,
Elder Hershberger
Dove Singers
The Dove Singers will be performing this year at the following locations:
Saturday, March 19
Orchard Christian Fellowship
Matthew Thornton Elementary School
275 Mammoth Road, Rt. 128, Londonderry
603-425-6231
Sunday, March 20
St. Anthony of Padua
172 Belmont Street, Manchester
603-625-6409
Saturday, March 26
Riverside Christian Church
27 Depot Street, Merrimack
603-424-1711
Sunday, March 27
St. Joseph the Worker
777 W. Hollis Street, Nashua
603-883-0757
Take a Hike for Humanity
The annual hike-a-thon fundraiser to benefit area affiliates of Habitat for Humanity is taking place either at Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, MA on May 7, 2011 or at Mt. Monadnock State Park in Jaffrey, NH on May 14, 2011. For more information and to pre-register, see www.takeahikeforhumanity.org.
This year, Greater Nashua Habitat for Humanity is finishing a new house at 23 Russell Street in Wilton and starting a rehabilitation project on the house at 24 Adelaide Street in Hudson.
Did you know…?
- that Peter and Kristel had a daughter Julie Caroline Dobratz on February 20, 2011?
- that Jean Lister and Cheryl Wolczok have joined our church as the newest active members?
- that Spring Spruce Up Day is April 16?
- that the Take a Hike for Humanity fund-raiser is being held on May 14 at Mt. Monadnock or May 7 at Blue Hills Reservation this year?
Birthdays
March 13: Don Edwards
March 13: Paige Marie Colby
March 13: Jacob McQuesten
March 22: Michael Couture
April 3: Travis Durand
April 3: Kristel Dobratz
April 5: Peter Dobratz
April 8: Jean Allen
April 15: Christine Marsden
April 19: Daphné Valentino
April 20: Andy Hershberger
April 27: Maria Dojny
May 6: Wayne Hilson
May 11: Joan Hall
May 13: Lynda Sommer
May 21: Nadine Collins
May 31: Tara Hershberger
