This is Resurrection of the Flesh by Luca Signorelli. It is one piece of Signorelli’s masterpiece on the last judgment from the walls of Chapel of San Brizio in Orvieto, Italy.

After reading several comments on my previous post on the Resurrection (The Pantokrator) I decided it might be best to do a follow up post. This seems more appropriate than leaving an obscenely long response in the comments thread.

The short of it is this: the image above envisions what is the historic Christian hope. Christians for two millennia have waited with expectation for the great and terrible day of the Lord. The day when Christ would judge and restore all of his creation. On that day the dead in Christ will rise. Christians throughout the ages have declared: “I believe in… the resurrection of the body.”

And of course this hope is rooted firmly in the belief that our Lord indeed conquered sin and death when he was crucified and then raised from the grave on the third day. The physical nature of Christ’s Resurrection seems to be by and in large the point the empty tomb narratives in the gospel accounts.

I was confused by some of the comments made in response to my previous post. My good friend Tim Flanders wrote: “I think us (as Christians) arguing over his physical, spiritual, or chemical nature post-crucifixion is really not relevant.” Likewise Miriam wrote “Being a Christian I’m really not concerned with whether or not Jesus was in physical form or spiritual form, what matters to me is that he is resurrected.”

What is especially curious about this to me is that they both connect their lack of concern about this issue to being a Christian. In contrast, belief in the bodily resurrection seems to be a chief concern of those who penned the Apostles’ Creed. For them the belief in the bodily resurrection of the dead was one of the pivotal beliefs of the Christian faith.

So why does it matter? Believe it or not one of the earliest controversies about Jesus’ nature in the Christian Church concerned his physicality. Various gnostic groups – such as the Docetist – believed that Jesus had no human body and only appeared to have died on the cross. Like a phantom. They had no problem affirming that he was divine. They had a huge problem affirming that he was a man. This all stemmed from a tragic misunderstanding of the spiritual as good and the physical world as evil.

This is not only a misunderstanding, it is an anti-Christian disposition. The scriptures paint a picture of a good God that created a physical world and said it was good. But God was rejected by his creation and all of the cosmos is scarred in the spiritual and physical realm. However, the eternal Word of God – God the Son – took on flesh – and dwelt among us in this physical world of flesh and blood. He lived our life and overcame the power of sin and died our death and was raised from the dead overcoming death’s grip. After this he broke bread with his disciples and ate fish on the beach. He ascended into Heaven. And he will return to restore all things not just the ’spiritual world.’ Historic Christianity looks forward to a new Heaven and Earth. The story that God is painting on the canvas of history can be summed up by the old mantra that is all too familiar in some Christian circles and perhaps not familiar enough in others: Creation, Fall, Redemption and Consummation.

In some ways – and in the most positive sense of the word – Christianity is the most materialistic of all of the world’s religions. It affirms the goodness of creation. Christians participate in God’s redemptive work in creation and await its completion. It is a sacramental religion in which the waters of baptism and the bread and wine of the Eucharist remind us of the most important spiritual realities.

Now maybe I was not clear enough but in my previous post but I was addressing the issue of Christians who hold to spiritualized versions of the Resurrection. There are many people outside of the Church: atheist, agnostics, people of other religions – some antagonistic towards the Christian faith and some not so much – with many other explanations of what happened to Christ’s body or what the disciples must have experienced. Explanations range from mass hallucinations to outright lying by Christ’s followers. But like I said It was not my intention to address those issues here.

I was addressing Christians who for what ever reason spiritualize Christ’s Resurrection and the general resurrection of the dead that Christians look forward to. This was common practice in classic liberalism. It is still proposed in various ways by Christians – ranging from Academic types to emergent evangelicals. The motive for liberals was largely to make the gospel make sense to those outside of the Church.

Although I often disagree with the liberal’s conclusions, I am sympathetic to the attempt to contextualize the gospel. However, Christians have often over-contextualized every couple of years in the rapidly changing western culture and then not contextualized enough when bringing the gospel to those in the non-western world. Historically speaking the divide between liberal and conservative theology concerns what one believes about our triune God including what we believe about the life death and resurrection of God the Son.

Christian suggested – jokingly I hope – that I put up an “are they in or out” poll regarding Christians who don’t believe in the physical Resurrection. As I said before I will make no judgments at least with regard to their “salvation.” That is still Christ’s job. However I will say despite the best intentions many well meaning Christians are out of step with what historic Christianity confirms.

Finally, I want to say that I agreed with most of what you guys had to say. Christian, I could not agree more that contemporary Christians do not understand nearly enough about the Jewish roots of their faith. Bill, I love what you say about the Holy Spirit transforming our bodies even now. Tim Flanders, I love you and miss you and hope we hang out soon, and I love your insistence that we root whatever we believe about these things in the biblical text. Tim Farmer, I definitely concur. That is exactly what the six points I offered were getting at. And Miriam, absolutely: weather it was only Mary Magdalene (John 20), Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (Matthew 28) or a group of women (Mark 16 and Luke 24) it is amazing that the first witnesses in all accounts of the empty tomb were women!!!

I hope this helps to better clarify where I am coming from. And I hope that this post and any discussion that follows will serve to fan the flame of the Resurrection, burning in our hearts.

Shalom,
Wayne

This is an Orthodox icon of the Pantokrator: the “all-conquering” or “all-powerful” Christ. The sustainer of the world. The life giver.

My friend Christian asked me quite a while back if I would write something about why I am adamant about the importance of believing in the physical resurrection of Christ. In asking me this, I think he is also asking me what I find unconvincing about modernist/liberal explanations of the resurrection as strictly a spiritual event.

I very strongly disagree with spiritualized explanations of Christ’s resurrection. I fervently believe that Christ experienced some kind of bodily resurrection; that after the resurrection he possessed a body that had continuity with the body he lived, breathed, ate and was crucified in. And someday he will come to judge the living and the dead and all who are in Christ will also experience the resurrection of the body.

So first let me say up front what I can and cannot or will not do. I cannot even scratch the surface of all of the ink that has been spilled on this subject. Many, many brilliant minds have devoted years of study and wrote dissertations, books and even volumes of books on this subject. And on both sides of this issue. I will make no judgment about Christians who do not believe in the physical resurrection of Christ.

I will do my best to unpack some of the arguments given by those who prefer a spiritualized interpretation of the resurrection. Most of those concerns center either on the tradition of the empty tomb or on Saint Paul’s epistles, especially I Corinthians 15. For some of my more theologically astute readers this will be way too over-simplified. But I know for some of you this may be the first time you have ever heard such arguments. I will also share what I believe is a good apologetic (I once never thought I would use those two words together) concerning the resurrection. It may not be a sufficient explanation to a non-believer. However I believe it is a good explanation and reinforcement for Christians who really struggle with this issue but are still compelled to hold to the traditional stance of the Church.

There are several reasons given by those who argue against a belief in the tradition of the empty tomb. The most obvious yet perhaps the most superficial reason given is an appeal to the “conflicting” accounts in the gospels themselves. One account tells us that just Mary Magdalene went first and discovered the empty tomb while another reports that several women went. One reports two angels were present and another only states that there was one angel. Questions arise: Where was the stone? or Why were the women going in the first place? and answers can vary depending on which gospel account we look at.

Secondly, those arguing against belief in an empty tomb appeal to Paul, especially to I Corinthians 15. Paul never mentions an empty tomb. Furthermore, Paul speaks of Jesus as having a “spiritual body” after the resurrection. He also says in this passage that flesh and blood will not inherit heaven.

Those who interpret Paul as saying this spiritual body is not one that has continuity with Christ’s earthly body will then argue that the tradition of the empty tomb was a later development of the gospel writers for apologetic purposes. Paul’s writings were indeed earlier than the gospels. I make no contention of that. And Paul does use some language that may seem strange to us: a spiritual body? But I believe that this is an acknowledgment of the fact that Christ’s resurrected body was different or greater than the one he went into the tomb with. It was not a mere resuscitation. He did not just pick up where he left off. However it was still his body, it had continuity with the body that he went into the tomb with. But as I mentioned Paul did not speak of this tradition of the tomb.

If we turn aside the debate over the empty tomb, there are still several observations that we can employ in presenting our best historical case for the belief that Jesus was indeed raised from the dead. For the following six observations I am indebted to my Christology professor at Calvin: Dr. John Schneider. I do not take credit for the argument. But I do believe it is a pretty good defense of the resurrection.

First, we can say with little doubt that this man, Jesus, existed. Very few people, even those antagonist toward the Christian faith doubt this claim. Secondly, Jesus embarked on a tacit campaign to be considered God’s ‘Messiah’ or ‘Christ’. Consider Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah after the feeding of the five thousand. Jesus did not (as John the Baptist would have) deny that this claim was true about himself. Third, we know that the expectation for the Jewish Messiah was that he would be an all conquering liberator: the Pantokrator.

The fourth observation is that Jesus was crucified. This led many to believe that Jesus could not have been the Messiah. Fifth, something happened to make many knowledgeable Jews believe that Jesus was/is the Messiah or Christ. That he is the all conquering liberator of humanity! Whatever happened, we must not forget that it happened in the context that Jesus was indeed crucified and his followers were for a time filled with grief and doubt. Finally, this belief that Jesus was indeed God’s Messiah persisted even in the face of systematic persecution of those who believed it.

This resurrected life giver, this all conquering liberator of humanity is who restored hope to the disciples who were filled with grief and doubt. And I believe it is this same Jesus that Paul experience on the road to Damascus. This is why he said so adamantly:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (I Corinthians 15: 12-19 NRSV).

Christian, my friend I do not know if you will find this line of reasoning convincing. I am not sure how much you are still wrestling with this issue. But I do hope that you and anyone else reading this will be encouraged by this post to continue in the faith, seeking understanding, but above that to continue to grow in love for God and neighbor.

Shalom,
Wayne

In The Morning

Last May I had the privilege of visiting St. Gregory’s Abbey in Three Rivers MI. We arrived there on Ascension Day (forty days after Easter) and the hallelujahs during Evening Vespers were something to remember. It was actually during that trip that I first learned of the age old Church tradition of not saying hallelujah in worship during Lent. The brothers, like so many Christians before them, had abstained from singing hallelujah for forty days – from Ash Wednesday through Good Friday and Holy Saturday until Easter Morning had broken like the first morning with the power of the Resurrection. Now they had been singing it for forty days and were ready to celebrate the ascending of our Lord to his throne. It was the beginning of a lot of things for me: a deeper appreciation of Church tradition, Liturgy and the Church calendar along with the habit, restraint and patience that is built into it. I was learning that whether in forty days or four that Joy will come in the morning.

It was a great stay with the brothers at St Gregory’s. They are a Benedictine Monastery, but they are part of the Episcopal Church so we were able to partake in the Eucharist with them. It was a time of mental and spiritual renewal.

However, it was also one of my first times hearing a classically liberal sermon. It was hard for me. In such a truly spiritually rich atmosphere where I was learning so much it was a temptation for me to uncritically accept everything I heard. One of the brothers gave a homily the second day that we were there about the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. He said that it really didn’t matter if one believed that Christ’s body was resurrected or if the disciples just experienced a ’spiritual resurrection’ of our Lord. He said that the important thing was that Jesus’ spirit could renew us like it had the original disciples. Finally, he said that he felt to argue over whether Jesus’ body was actually resurrected was not very Anglican and hardly seemed Christian. Well it was too hard to see it or say it then but on that issue my dear brother in Christ was wrong. It was hard for me to discern then, in part because my Mother had recently passed and was open to any thoughts on resurrection (Christ’s or ours) that seemed warm and fuzzy. But it is worth arguing over!!! Christ is risen from the grave and he is the first fruits of all who fall asleep in him. In a couple of days we celebrate Christ’s Resurrection again. And someday whether in four days or four thousand years the dead in Christ shall rise and celebrate his glory with him. In time. Until then we pray come Lord Jesus come. Joy comes in the morning.

In The Mourning

Now, I have been speaking thus far of an eschatological hope. The historical reality of the Christ event gives us hope for the future and this prayer I mention “come Lord Jesus come” reminds us of that and some morning Christians everywhere will wake up and it will be a regular day and Christ will return.

However, If tomorrow is just a regular day and Christ does not yet return Then I need to remember the further implications of our prayer, “Come Lord Jesus come.” He comes new to us each day reminding us of his love mercy and grace, reminding us to act justly love mercy and walk humbly with our God.

The transforming, redeeming and renewing power and grace of Christ’s resurrection is our comfort in times of trouble, grief and sorrow. The Holy Spirit that he sent to us after his Resurrection and Ascension testifies to this and leads us in spirit and truth. When times get hard when mothers die, friends hurt us or we hurt them, when there is no money left, when we mess it all up again or when we persist in doing good and are faithful and it seems to be a fruitless endeavor while the unloving and unkind seemed to be doing better than ever. Christ is risen and he comes in our mourning. This is the reason we can say Hallelujah 325 out of 365 days in the year.

Good Friday is almost here. Soon I will sit in Friday morning’s Tenebrae (service of shadows) at Calvin. I will confess how I made a mess of Lent again – I did better than last year but I still didn’t do all I should have or give all I should have given, how my feast days turned into feast weekends. And Christ will be there. And then Sunday I will read the Liturgy aloud with Erin and with the whole Church and affirm we believe he has risen and we will all say Hallelujah. And Christ will be there. In my mourning and the morning, come Lord Jesus come!

May the Joy of our risen Lord be your strength these final days of Lent and this Easter

Shalom,

Wayne