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Re-Creating Easter Part I
The Background
It was the noted author Jim Bishop, more than a generation ago, who first created a series of books that chronicled the minute-by-minute narratives of what turned out to be crucial events in world history. One thinks of such titles as The Day Lincoln Was Shot or The Day Christ Died. Later, Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly expanded in his aggressive style this genre of writing, turning it into a series of best-selling books. O’Reilly focused not on one day so much as on the event and the things that led up to it in the lives of significant figures of history. His titles were Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Patton and even Killing Jesus. Both Bishop and O’Reilly had mastered the fast-paced, dramatic story-telling technique of these books that gripped the imagination of their readers. Can such an attempt be employed to chronicle an event so much less specific and considerably more vague, namely as to just how it was that the meaning of Easter first dawned on human awareness? Is there sufficient data in the New Testament to allow us to recreate the moment and to probe the meaning when the claim was born that the crucified Jesus had somehow transcended the limits of death and finitude? Can the “Easter Moment” actually be forced into that kind of format? I think it is worth a try. I sought to lay the groundwork for developing this possibility earlier this year when I did a series of columns on what the New Testament actually says about the resurrection. It turned out to reveal that what the Bible actually says and what Christianity has traditionally taught in regard to the resurrection are not the same.
There is no doubt in my mind that the word “resurrection” chosen by the followers of Jesus to describe this moment stood for a life-changing experience, but what the nature of that experience actually was is confusing, contradictory and has clearly been expanded over the passage of years. We noted the many inconsistencies in the biblical texts themselves. Paul, the first writer of any material that later became part of the New Testament, seems to assert that the risen Christ was “seen” by a list of witnesses that he records (I Cor. 15). He gives us no narrative details, however, of any of these “sightings.” His list raises as many questions as it solves. Are the “Twelve” and the “Apostles” two different groups? Paul seems to think so. Who was the James whom Paul singles out as having “seen” the raised Christ? Why is there no corroborating evidence for what Paul calls a vision to 500 brethren all at once? What is Paul saying when he lists himself as one of those to whom the raised Christ “appeared?” If Paul’s conversion was as late as one to six years after the crucifixion, as most scholars today attest, then what kind of “seeing” is it to which Paul refers? Can a physically resuscitated body still be “seen” by Paul one to six years after the crucifixion? If that was possible, then why were there no other people who claimed to have seen this Jesus during that long span of time? Paul stated that physical resuscitation is not what he is thinking about when he wrote in Romans that “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more. Death hath no more dominion over him.” Does that not mean that he cannot die again? Then is he still physical? He lives to God, Paul asserts. We are left to wonder what that means.
The later gospels do not agree on such essential parts of the story as who were the women who went to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week. Every gospel contains a different list. Did these women see the risen Christ? A quick reading of the texts of the gospels will reveal that to that question Mark says no, Matthew says yes, Luke says no, and John says yes, but only on the second look. Not even the world’s most clever fundamentalist can make these details appear to be consistent. The disturbing questions continue. Who was the first person to see the reality that came to be called resurrection? Paul says it was Cephas, that is, Simon Peter. Matthew says it was the women in the garden. Luke says it was Cleopas and his friend in Emmaus. John says it was Mary Magdalene alone. There is no agreement.
Where were the members of “the Twelve” located physically, when resurrection dawned on them? Again, there is confusion. Mark says it will be Galilee, but he does not describe it. Matthew says it was Galilee and he describes it in detail. Luke says it was never in Galilee, but only in Jerusalem and/or its immediate environs. John says it was in Jerusalem only, but the Epilogue to John (chapter 21) says that much, much later resurrection was also experienced by the disciples in Galilee.
What was the amount of time between crucifixion and resurrection? Paul says that resurrection was experienced on the third day. Mark says that the resurrection announcement was heard after three days. “On the third day” and “after three days” are not referring to the same day. Matthew says the first appearance to the disciples was in Galilee on a mountain top. Galilee is a seven to ten day journey from Jerusalem, placing this experience well outside the three-day symbol. Luke says that the experiences of the raised Christ occurred over a period of forty days before such appearances ceased. John says that experiences of the raised Christ occurred over a period of eight days. So who is correct?
How did those who claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus actually experience what they called “seeing?” What caused their eyes to be opened to this new reality? What was the context in which their eyes were opened? The data from the Bible itself falls into no consistent pattern. Yet whatever this Easter experience was, lives were dramatically changed, God was re-defined, liturgical practices were never the same. Easter has to be something! It cannot be nothing! So what is it?
Over the next few weeks, I will probe not just the resurrection stories themselves, but the entire corpus of the New Testament for clues. When I have assembled what I believe are the essential clues, I will try to recreate, in a Jim Bishop type manner, the moment when Jesus was believed to have transcended the barrier of mortality and finitude.
Can something be real and still not literal? Can human language permeate the realm in which resurrection is presumed to be experienced? Or is Easter one gigantic fraud? Was it a misunderstanding, born in the ancient world in which human minds were still under the power of ignorance and superstition? It will be my intention to speak to each of these issues.
My task over the next few weeks will be to assemble the data. In doing so, I will seek to address four basic questions. Who was the first to see whatever it was that resurrection means? What kind of “seeing” was that? How did that person open the eyes of others to enable them to see or to experience what this original person had seen or experienced? How does a person, bound by time and space, “see” an apparently objective reality involving truth that is not bound by time and space? That will be my first topic for inquiry.
Second, where was this person located in space when this life-changing experience happened? A revelation may not itself be spatial, but the one who receives it always is. There is no such thing as a human life not located in a particular place when his or her life is dramatically impacted. That person is objective, whether the experience that impacts his or her life is or is not. So where was that place? What is the actual locus of what has come to be called Easter?
Third, I will look at the question of time. Time is also a human category; it is the medium in which all life is lived. Nothing happens in human life that does not happen in time. God may not be bound by time, but every human being, who experiences the reality of God, is. This is true whether the experience is real or delusional. So when in time was the meaning of resurrection experienced? Is three day in either of its forms “on the third day” or “after three days” a measure of chronological time? Or is it a symbol? If it is a symbol, of what is it symbolic? Do we think Easter is three days after the crucifixion because that is how we have always celebrated it liturgically or is there some other possibility? Why is the New Testament so inconsistent regarding the time of Easter?
Finally, I will look at the question of how or perhaps more specifically at the issue of context. What was the setting in which the eyes of the first witness and later the disciples were opened to “see” whatever it is that resurrection was. When all of that investigative process is complete and the recoverable data collected, then using that data, I will try to recreate: “The Day That Easter Dawned.”
I believe the reality of the resurrection is far more substantive than the secular critics of Christianity imagine. I also believe that it will never be capable of being literalized as biblical fundamentalists and conservative Catholic literalists still try to pretend.
I hope this journey will be enlightening to my audience whom I call “Believers in Exile.” They are believers, they do not deny the reality of the Christ experience, but they are in exile from almost all of the ecclesiastical patterns and institutions of our religious past. Can we build an understanding of Easter that enables them to believe with integrity? I believe we can and in this series of columns over the next few weeks, I will attempt to do so. So stay tuned.
~John Shelby Spong
Read the essay online here.
Question & Answer
Tom Brennan from Chicago, Illinois, writes via the internet:
Question:
I would like to have you give us your perspective and ideas regarding all the violence in the Middle East, ISIS, the anti-Semitism in France, the emergence of neo-Nazism, the various belief systems within the Muslim faith and the ludicrous statements by politicians on the right, Speaker John Boehner especially, how can he even think like that? (He went to Xavier University – a Jesuit University – which surprises me greatly)
Thank you…I am grateful for your vision and wisdom. I have read most of your books and have been reading your column since at least 2006 (if my memory serves me well) and have greatly appreciated them and found them helpful for me in my journey of faith.
Answer:
Dear Tom,
I wish I had the ability to understand and the wisdom to distill to my readers all of the issues that lie beneath the multiple conflicts that today plague the Middle East and to be able to do so in the format of the single question and answer part in my column. It is far too complex for that. I also will refrain from commenting on Speaker Boehner’s education in a Jesuit school. I am pleased that he has invited Pope Francis to address Congress, though if the rumors turn out to be correct, the Pope’s subject of global warming is not likely to be pleasing to John Boehner’s Republican hard liners.
I think it is possible to identify some of the elements in the background of today’s conflict in the Middle East. So let me list them.
The Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries sowed the seeds of hatred toward the West that most of us do not seem either to understand or to appreciate. The Crusades were organized by the Vatican to kill infidels, which was what the Christians at that time called the Muslims.
The breakup of the Ottoman Empire following World War I in which most of the nations that now exist in the Middle East were once a part. The lines that separate and distinguish many of these nation now were drawn at that time to serve Western political and economic interests, with little regard for the religious diversity and tribal identities of the people who lived there.
The establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948 by Western powers with little consultation with those then living in the Middle East. In the minds of the Palestinian and Arab population that was one more insensitive Western act toward Islam.
The insatiable thirst for oil in the West has meant that Western politics has determined and dominated Western policy toward the Middle East with little regard for the needs of the people living there. Remember that American armed might installed and protected the Shah in Iran until Moslem fundamentalists swept him out of power in a surge of nationalistic revolution some years ago.
Western money has poured into Israel since its establishment in 1948 turning it into a very modern, powerful state, but in the process, revealing the poverty, lack of modernity and opportunity present among so many of the Palestinian and Arab people. The comparison is sometimes odious.
Finally, the Western wars initiated in our time against Iraq and Afghanistan disrupted life and the economy of the entire region. Iraq was left with a destroyed economy and a political vacuum. That is never a reality that leads to stabilization.
The Middle East from time in memoriam has been the place where civilizations clashed. That began with the two earliest civilizations – one in the Nile River Valley and the other in the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. Those two ancient civilizations fought over that territory constantly. That part of the world is also where Asia, Africa and Europe come together. It is the place where Islam, Judaism and Christianity collide. In an energy driven world very nation on this planet has a stake in the Middle East. That is not a formula for peace.
Diplomacy might still work, but it is a long, slow and tedious process. Success is not guaranteed. Feelings are so deep, hostile and untrusting. The proposed Iran nuclear treaty, so laboriously worked out by the United States, Iran and the great powers of the world, may actually fail even to win a majority on either side of the aisle in the United States Senate. That would be a tragedy, but the rhetoric is already so distorted that the average person cannot discern what the realities are. Those who were not part of the negotiations are the only ones who are sure that they could have gotten “a better deal,” presumably if they had been doing the negotiating themselves. If this treaty fails, it will empower and embolden Iran’s hard political right who opposed the negotiations from the beginning. They want a nuclear-armed and militarily prepared Iran. It will also embolden our own hard political right, who seems to think that war is the ultimate solution to all major differences. That proposed treaty does, however, give us the first hint that rationality may finally be getting a hearing in that region of the world, but the fact that we in America must vote on this treaty during a presidential primary season gives me little confidence that politicians can put the good of the world above their own ambitions. I hope I will be surprised. Thanks for your concern.
John Shelby Spong
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