Celebrating Easter in 2019

Easter is the key to understanding the Christian Faith. In my journey as a devout Christian, I have concluded that Christianity always points us forward. We put aside what lies behind and press on to the high calling of God in Christ. Abundant grace makes the past with its failures, judgements, condemnations, and debilitating guilt, quite irrelevant. Grace brings the believer to the dawn of a new day. Jesus from Nazareth was the teacher and proclaimer of a universal jubilee when we all cash in our yesterdays and launch into a new day. In doing this he challenged the social practices of his day, the economics of his day, and the religious practices of his own day. He challenged the seemingly invincible Roman Empire. Of course, the local puppets of the Roman Empire killed him.

I am fascinated with language and the use of words. I have concluded that words do not have meaning; they have only uses. As a boy I was taught that English has eight “parts of speech.” One part of speech was especially interesting. There is a part of speech called “conjunctions.” They are used in English to join words, phrases or sentences.

The conjunction that fascinates me is “but.” It has no particular meaning, but its use is overwhelmingly powerful. When used as a connector of sentences, BUT almost always cancels the significance of the first sentence in favor of the second sentence. My contention is that the resurrection of Jesus is the great BUT of history. The importance of the resurrection of Jesus cannot be over stated. The Roman puppets thought they had rid the world of this upstart from Nazareth, BUT, according to the New Testament witness, God raised him from the dead.

Paul was the first writing witness to the resurrection. In his confrontation with Jesus on the Damascus road, Paul did not see a body. He saw a blinding light and heard a voice. Other written witnesses to the resurrection were penned much later, corrupted by time and a lack of written material. Paul had contacts with the disciples of Jesus, at the Jerusalem conference in particular. I cannot imagine the resurrection not being a topic of conversation. The disciples were not lettered men. Paul was very bright and highly educated. We are driven to the conclusion that Paul is a more credible witness than were the unlettered disciples.

And Paul was a writer.

In chapters 14 and 15 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, he writes extensively about the resurrection of Jesus and his followers. For Paul, death did not have the final word for the followers of Jesus.

Key to what Paul says is the distinction that he makes between the physical body and the spiritual body. For Paul, when we die, the physical body dies; when we are raised we are raised a spiritual body. The concept of a spiritual body for many people is an oxymoron. An oxymoron is the combining of two seemingly contradictory words. A spiritual body is such a combination. It is an expression of an age- old argument. It is an argument that centers on goodness, beauty and truth. Does this trinity of virtues ever become one with the physical world? Paul was the Christian Church’s first great theologian. His emphatic answer was “yes, indeed!”

We justifiably are pleased to live in an age of the triumph of science. All well and good! I am impressed with the science of our age. However, I am also impressed with the expressions of beauty and goodness that constantly appear before our eyes. Is beauty only in the eye of the beholder? Is truth more than simple fact? Is goodness more than an expression of the moment? I would argue that truth, beauty and goodness are objective parts of the reality of the finest life ever lived, and that scientific triumph without truth, beauty and goodness is barren and terminally ill.

I love the Easter celebration. It is clearly my favorite of the celebration events of Christian churches. Christianity got side-tracked when their leaders got theologically hung up on the cross and on the death of Jesus as a sacrifice for sin. When the Romans killed Jesus, the charge against him was insurrection. While there is a rationale for Jesus dying for others, his death in not a reasonable way to understand his death as a sacrifice for the sins of the world to fulfill a misdirected requirement of God. Long ago I stopped wearing a cross as an ID of being a follower of Jesus. Feeding someone who is hungry or giving shelter to a homeless person are better symbols of Christian belief and practice.

An empty tomb is a much better symbol of Christian faith than a cross. I choose to live my life before an empty tomb rather than at the foot of the cross.

Most of the details of the death and resurrection of Jesus are difficult to discover and even more difficult to report. The gospel writers, when faced with the task of reporting the resurrection, resorted to mythology. When read critically, it reads poorly. Paul wrote as a theologian/philosopher. In 2019, I like reading Paul. Jesus, our Christ, has risen.

The End

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. He is pastor emeritus of Church of the Covenant. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.