"There is no middle ground between dead and alive. If Jesus is dead, then his story is completed. If he is alive, then his story continues."
-from Living Jesus by Luke Timothy Johnston
Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.
And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.
-Seven Stanzas at Easter by John Updike
Resurrection as metaphor doesn't work for me; "In the beginning was the Word and the Word became flesh and the flesh became metaphor". My problems are real flesh and blood problems. My sin is real flesh and blood sin. The brokenness of creation is stronger than metaphor and the Christ that redeems it must also be. All that's wrong with the world is as real as a punch in the face, a knife in the gut, and an atomic bomb. And so all that is right must be as real as a crucified Christ and a risen Lord and a new creation.
Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.
And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.
-Seven Stanzas at Easter by John Updike
Resurrection as metaphor doesn't work for me; "In the beginning was the Word and the Word became flesh and the flesh became metaphor". My problems are real flesh and blood problems. My sin is real flesh and blood sin. The brokenness of creation is stronger than metaphor and the Christ that redeems it must also be. All that's wrong with the world is as real as a punch in the face, a knife in the gut, and an atomic bomb. And so all that is right must be as real as a crucified Christ and a risen Lord and a new creation.
1 comment:
Kester this is an interesting piece. I think it portrays the cliché way of saying " no really let's think about this FOR REAL", in a different and more pressing way. Thanks for the post, my head is going in circles trying to figure out how to place my thoughts on Easter; not sure what those are yet but I was glad I read this.
( BTW: this is Dallas' sister in law- ryan's wife)
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