April 24, 2011
Background Scripture: Matthew 18:1-17
Devotional Reading: 1 Chronicles 16:8-15

Without Easter, there would likely not be a Christianity. There is one basic reason why it came into being and persists today: Satan’s loudest “No” was not able to drown out God’s quiet “Yes.”

Humans had done their worst, but in raising Jesus from the bands of death, God’s best prevailed. His truth was buried with Jesus, but the grave could not hold him nor mute that truth. That’s why it is truly the Resurrection faith.
Loss and separation cause the greatest grief. That is what Jesus’ disciples must have experienced. As long as he was with them, they could observe and question him. But how could they continue if he was gone?
Easter’s answer is that there would be no separation. Jesus was still with them, but now in a different way.

Almost all Christians would agree on what I have written above. But the most positive experience in human history too often becomes the occasion for bickering and argument. The problem is not the Resurrection itself, but the way we try to understand it and reduce it to human dimensions – something we really cannot do. If we can explain the Resurrection, it is not really the Resurrection we are explaining.

One event; many accounts

Even the writers of the four gospels gave accounts that differed in details, none of them ultimately important. Only Matthew records the earthquake and descending angel who rolled away the stone (Mt. 28:2,3). Matthew (28:7) and Mark (16:7) record the instructions to go and meet Jesus in Galilee, while Luke records their first encounter of the risen Christ in Jerusalem (24:33-49).
Luke alone tells us of the important encounter of the risen Christ in Emmaus (24:13-33). John quotes Jesus telling Mary Magdalene, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father” (20:17) and he then appears suddenly to the disciples in Jerusalem, inviting Thomas to “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side” (20:27).

In Luke he suddenly appears to two disciples (who do not recognize him) and just as quickly disappears (24:16,31). John also tells us, “On the evening of that day … the doors being shut where the disciples were … Jesus came and stood among them …” (20:19).

He also records a sudden appearance with his disciples by the sea of Tiberias, Jesus joining them for a breakfast of freshly-caught fish. Matthew tells of an encounter in Galilee: “And when they saw him they worshipped him; but some doubted” (28:17).

“Some doubted?”

This is exactly the way the Resurrection should be recorded: a life-changing encounter that is understood and recounted by different people in different ways. That “some doubted” tells us that the experience is subjective, not objective, a matter of faith, not scientific measurement or historical chronicling. That does not make it less real

Utilitarian tests

The truth of the Resurrection is not in the human details, but in the divine effect it has upon us. The 1956 Easter issue of Life magazine editorialized: “The Resurrection cannot be tamed or tethered by any utilitarian test. It is a vast watershed in history, or it is nothing. It cannot be tested for truth; it is the test of lesser truths. No light can be thrown upon it; its own light blinds the investigator. It does not compel belief; it resists it.

“But once accepted as fact, it tells more about the universe, about history and about man’s state and fate than all the mountains of other facts in the human accumulation.”

This morning I was shocked as I saw myself in the bathroom mirror. The man looking back at me did not look very much like the self-image I hold in my mind. Then, I sat down to my customary pre-breakfast devotions and read a Lenten piece by Walter Wangerin.*

He speaks of the crucified Christ as a kind of mirror in which he saw his own death: “My rightful punishment. My sin and its just consequence. Me. And precisely because it is so accurate, the sight is nearly impossible.”
But the image in the mirror was not all judgment: “It shows a new me behind the shadow of the sinner. For when I gaze at his crucifixion, I see my death indeed – but my death done! His death is the death of the selfish one, whom I called ugly and hasted to look upon. And resurrection is another me.”
The Easter faith is not just about the Jesus whom the grave was not able to contain, but, by the grace of God, it is also about this man, this woman, you, me, who because of Christ’s victory, too can proclaim: “And resurrection is another me!”

*In Mirrors, Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter, Walter Wangerin, Orbis Press, Maryknoll, N.Y.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.