Easter – more than a spiritual thought
Easter means that Jesus is the victor over death, which came as a result of the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden. Jesus is not only spiritually, ideally resurrected, but physically, materially. Accordingly, his offered redemption is not only for the human soul, but also for the body, indeed for the whole of creation. This is the very good Gospel, which is the answer to the very good creation.
A fortnight ago we moved into our new home. We have heard that the people of Seon have commented that they are amazed at what this house has become. Before the renovation, it was a 35-year-old house. It’s clear that the ravages of age have taken their toll. Today it is much brighter, more modern and more spacious. If you look a little closer, however, you will discover old traces. For example, on the ceiling you can see the course of the old wall between the kitchen and the living room. These traces tell us the history of the house. Something similar happened to Jesus» body at the resurrection. He too bore traces of the previous life.
There are no eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus, but there are hundreds of people who saw the risen Christ, touched him or ate with him. From the beginning, the message was that Jesus had risen bodily. But from the beginning there were also doubts about the resurrection. Even today it is unimaginable and strange for many people that Jesus actually came back from the dead with his body.
Sooner rather than later
The Apostles» Creed states «Risen from the dead on the third day.» In John’s narrative, we learn a more precise determination of time: «Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found the stone rolled away from the entrance»(John 20:1 NLB; cf. Mark 16:2). The resurrection of Jesus happened early at the beginning of this third day. Jesus does not let death hold him back any longer than absolutely necessary. As early as possible, he comes back to life. Because of the prophecies he is guided by, the resurrection could not be before the third day. Moreover, this was a realistic period of time that no man could claim that Jesus was not dead at all. For Jesus, life is so precious that he does not want to give away a moment of it.
The resurrection of Jesus brings forth this very quality of life that man lost at the fall in Genesis 3. It is the imperishable, eternal life, reconciled with God, with oneself, with fellow human beings, with the other sex, with creation, etc. It is the abundant life that Hebrews describes with the word Shalom paraphrase.
Easter means that Jesus is the victor over death, which came as a consequence in the fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden. «[…] Death was swallowed up by victory. Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?» (1Corinthians 15:54f NLB). Whoever accepts this resurrection life of Jesus receives shalom immediately and later also an imperishable, heavenly body (v.54a). Whoever trusts Jesus Christ has eternal life! Where Christ is not with his life, neither is life in eternity.
With skin and hair
Some people believe that it is not important whether Jesus was physically resurrected. They argue that Jesus» body decomposed in the tomb and only his personal core was raptured into the presence of God. It is highly relevant that Jesus is bodily resurrected. «But if Christ is not risen, then your faith is useless and you are still imprisoned in your sins.» (1 Corinthians 15:17 NLB).
After his resurrection, Jesus appears completely unexpectedly in the circle of his friends. Jesus, as the victor over death, pushes it back into life concretely and very quickly because there are people who need his closeness and encouragement in a special way. His disciples were namely full of doubt, panic and hopelessness. They had run their lives into the ground. To make matters worse, they had not covered themselves with glory in the past history, but had completely let their teacher down. You felt guilty.
In such a predicament, a person needs the bodily comfort, encouragement and forgiveness of the person who is the fulcrum of the whole situation. Merely a spiritual idea is not enough! The physical encounter with Jesus Christ turns into the group of fearful and hopeless disciples who shortly afterwards stand up and preach the crucified and risen Christ against all resistance. For this message they are ready to lay down their lives.
When we are in hopeless, desperate and panic-stricken situations, Christ also wants to meet us in the flesh as the Risen One and not just in the imagination, not simply metaphysically unimaginable, but very concretely.
In doing so, Jesus pronounces four memorable words: «Peace be with you» (John 20:19 NLB). A week later He confirms these words (v.26). Jesus did not bring peace in a general and diffuse way, but in a very tangible, very concrete, physically tangible and comprehensible way. In original sound: Shalom alechem! Shalom – there it is again, this concept from Eden. Through his resurrection, Jesus puts the Shalom from the story of creation. «Through him (Jesus) he (God) reconciled all things to himself. Through his blood on the cross, he made peace with all that is in heaven and on earth. In this you are also included, although you used to be so far from God.»(Colossians 1:20f NLB). Many Christians believe that Jesus reconciled people with God through his death and resurrection. That’s right, we are also included. The effect of the resurrection, however, is much more gigantic! Nothing less than the shalom of all creation shall be restored. All destroyed levels of relationship can become new. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: «In the resurrection we recognise that God has not abandoned the earth but has reclaimed it.»
The philosophers of antiquity separated reality into the lower material and the higher spiritual. For Plato, salvation meant leaving the physical behind and living entirely in the spirit. For him, the world of spiritual ideas is the real thing, the body only the prison to be overcome. This matter-is-doof worldview still shapes Christian thinking today. It became the breeding ground of an unhealthy spirituality of passage. One no longer expects a new creation, but focuses on the Rapture as a redemptive liberation from everything corporeal-earthly. Those who believe this way do not care about the future of creation. «Leave it. The faster the earth passes, the better!«Christian hope for the future is not a spiritual elimination. Quite the opposite: Christians hope and pray that God’s Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus» redemption is not a dissolution of the body into a spiritual metaphysics, but a return of the material into the reconciled reality of God. This is the basis for thinking about the environment and justice in this world in the Just People course.
Old becomes new
After his resurrection, Jesus can walk through walls with his body. Suddenly he was standing there. Just as suddenly, he disappeared. As Mary Magdalene weeps and looks at the empty tomb, she turns away and sees a figure. It is Jesus, but she thinks it is the gardener (John 20:15). Another time, Jesus joins two disciples on their way to Emmaus. They do not realise that it is Jesus. Only when He breaks bread in Emmaus do they recognise Him. But then He is already gone again. He is not quite recognisable and yet he is the same.
When Jesus promised shalom to his people, it says: «And after these words he showed them his hands and his side. Joy filled the disciples when they saw their Lord»(John 20:20 NLB). Jesus also bears the wounds of the crucifixion on his resurrection body. Thomas makes touching the wounds a condition for believing in the risen Christ. Because of this touch, he falls down before Him and cries out: «My Lord and my God!»(John 20:28 NLB).
The new resurrection life is not the breaking off of what has gone before, but has a reference back to and a continuation of very important elements of what had happened before. The old is transformed into the new – like our house on Mostereiweg. For Jesus, his earthly body was not a costume that he put on for the time on earth and was then happy when he could finally get rid of it. With this, Jesus, as the resurrected one, affirms his previous physicality. Not only our soul, but also our body is important. Early theologians said: «What has not been accepted will not be redeemed.» Whoever rejects his physicality as a human being cannot expect that the whole human being with his body can also be redeemed.
It is like our house; although it is new, it still bears the traces of the past. Some Christians refer to 2 Corinthians 5:17: «If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; old things have passed away, behold, new things have come into being»(LUT). And then they think that for people who really believe in Jesus, sickness, bad thoughts, depression or poverty no longer matter. We live in the new life and everything is new. Christ proves by his own body that this is not true. There are the stigmata, but they no longer cause pain, but are the signs of his victory.
Perhaps we too carry wounds that are still there. Yet they have lost their oppressive and crushing power in life. They are signs of victory because we refer to the bodily resurrection. Cross and resurrection, the transient and the imperishable belong together for us. Just as Jesus in his new body was equally heavenly-renewed and visibly marked by scars, so too is the new creation of the world to be thought of: renewed with the inclusion of all that has come before. This knowledge places us in a great responsibility towards God’s creation.
Finally, I pass on the same tip that Paul gave to his offspring Timothy: «Think of Jesus Christ, who as a man came from the lineage of David and rose from the dead. This is the message I preach»(2 Timothy 2:8 NLB). Christ is risen bodily, he is truly risen!
Questions for the small groups
Read the Bible text: John 20:1–29
- What is the difference whether Jesus was resurrected bodily or only immaterially in spirit?
- Why did he rise early in the morning?
- What does the reconciliation created by Jesus» death and resurrection encompass?
- What belongs to the sphere of responsibility of us humans in the new creation?
- Jesus was equally heavenly renewed in his new body and visibly marked by scars. What might this mean for ourselves and for the new creation?
