Saturday 4 April 2015

Forget the Resurrection

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