This
Easter, let’s start by forgetting the resurrection. We are modern and resurrection
doesn’t fit with our realistic and detailed picture of death. Life decays,
feeding other life as its nutrients seep back into the ground. New organic
forms emerge naturally, recycling the old.
When
Easter comes around, many people divert their ears. They think faith is blind
and stupid for believing in the resuscitation of an expired organism. Science
has written off that possibility. And to refuse science would be to deny all
the wonderful things we live by: technology, medicine, agriculture and physics,
to name a few.
So we
might conclude that in a pre-modern world, it was ok to believe in
resurrection. But not today; today there is no excuse. Jesus’ body was wasted
and broken, its biological functioning stuffed.
But
Easter isn’t about miraculous resuscitation
at all. Jesus isn’t recycled by a God who just gives another turn to the wheel.
The word resurrection carries a
different sort of truth.
Life that
is resurrected is beyond this organic life. It is something new, something
more.
In the
empty and cold stone tomb, the words ‘He has risen!’ ring out. These words
carry certainty; they are a declaration of living faith.
So where
is he, this risen man?
Why do
you look for the living among the dead? ‘He is not here...he is going ahead of
you.’ Why do you look for a body that is temporal and fades away? He is living
ahead of us, drawing us towards his life.
And he
is living among us, a light that shines through every moment. With eyes of
faith, we declare: ‘If anyone is in Christ,
the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!’
Are we looking for a body in the empty tomb instead of seeking the
living God? I believe in the resurrection. He has risen!
Samuel Curkpatrick ‘15
