This past Wednesday I was asked to address the Newport Mesa Irvine Interfaith Council on what Easter means to the Christian church. I was one of five speakers, so we also heard about Passover, Ramadan, Bahai, and the Zoroastrian holy days. The challenge for me was to speak about Easter to those who may not know our story, and to decide what to leave on the cutting floor in order to meet the ten-minute limit. I decided to offer an overview of biblical and theological representations of the significance of Easter, then conclude with a suggestion that is my own. Here goes.
Jesus of Nazareth was a Galilean Jew living in the first century of the common era, whose life and teachings are described in the first four books of the Christian New Testament known as the Gospels. The arrest, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus is described narratively in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, which most biblical scholars agree were written between forty and sixty years after the events. But while the stories took some time to pass through oral traditions into writings, the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection was a matter of immediate consequence for the Jesus’ followers, which is made plain in the letters that an apostle named Paul wrote to various Christian churches within a decade or so after Jesus’ death and resurrection. So, first we’ll look at the storied accounts of Easter, before turning to what Paul – the first significant theologian of the Christian church – had to say.
Each of the gospels tell a story about the first Easter morning. Each of them shows that it was women who first saw the empty tomb and who became the first evangelists about the good news that Christ was risen. Each of them attests that Jesus was, in fact, dead and buried, and then raised from death as he promised. At the same time, the gospel stories differ in many ways, from details about who was there, what they saw, what they did with what they saw, as well as in stories of the risen Christ visiting with his followers. For someone who wants to reconcile all the stories as historically factual without difference, the gospel accounts can be frustrating. Personally, I find it a gift that the early church, which preserved and gathered and granted to us these gospel stories, did not try to reconcile them all into the same thing, but was willing to accept diverse ways that people experience and relate what happened on Easter morning. So, if one wants to read about Easter morning and the day of Jesus’ resurrection, these gospel accounts are where one wants to go, and Christians churches do that on Easter Sunday year after year.
For a more theologically-driven approach to Easter – and to resurrection more generally – one is better off turning to the Apostle Paul. Paul never met Jesus before the crucifixion, but Paul did encounter the resurrected Christ and claimed to have as much of a relationship with Jesus as those who were present throughout the Gospel stories. For Paul and for the Christian Church, Jesus was not just an inspiring teacher, profound prophet, or courageous martyr. The resurrection means that Jesus is really present in the world, even after death and even today. Paul’s writings address the resurrection in 3 respects: Personally, communally, and cosmically.
Paul’s insistence that he had met the risen Christ just as really as some of the disciples who were with Jesus all along, is an incredible claim. It means that Jesus’ resurrection was not just a daylong event, or a 40-day excursion as some of the gospels tell the story, but an everyday, ongoing reality. Christ was raised, but Christ is alive and present among us. For Paul, that was a personal and life-transforming reality, and for the Christian church it is why we use the present tense in speaking about the presence of Christ among us. The personal presence of Christ that Paul had, and which Christians generally share, comes out in our language about the real presence of Christ when we break bread and share wine together, as well as when we speak of Christ as the head of the body, which is the church.
There is another way that Paul and the church speak about the resurrection. We see the resurrection of Jesus as the “firstfruit” of our own promise of resurrected life. This is the communal aspect of the resurrection. Paul says, “Just as Jesus shared in a death like ours, so too will we share in a resurrection like his.” This is a promise that has brought comfort to many persons facing their own death or grieving the death of others; and it has brought courage to many who face tyranny and the threat of death by others.
And finally, Paul had a cosmic view of what the resurrection means. It’s not just Jesus, not just Christians, and not just humans who are implicated in the promise that Jesus’ resurrection brings. It is all of creation, which Paul describes as “groaning” under the threat of death, awaiting new life. Simply put, the resurrection puts an end to the domination of death. Insightful persons have reflected for years on how the reality of having to die has been the motive for many human anxieties and practices. The threat of death is often the main tool by which tyrants rule and the fear of death has often led to the exploitation of women so men could leave a prodigy. For Paul, when God raises Jesus from death, the power of death is broken, and creation is freed from the bondage of sin and death. That is no small thing.
At first glance, one might think that Easter is what distinguishes Christianity from other religions the most, since it is rooted in the resurrection of the one whom we call the Christ. But I want to offer just one last thought. When Jesus spoke of resurrection, he used a metaphor that was grounded in nature. “Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it falls into the ground and dies, it produces much fruit.” In the end, the mystery of the resurrection is something that we see every day.
Mark of St. Mark
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