Thursday, April 8, 2021
David Meikle
Resurrection
I hesitated when Rob asked me to write a reflection on resurrection. It’s been a long time since I could sincerely say, “I believe in … the resurrection of the body….” I imagine this is not an uncommon experience. Like many church-going kids, I believed in Christ’s physical resurrection from hell and the tomb – until I didn’t. At my most cynical I saw the Easter story as a reassuring fable – belief in Christ’s resurrection would assure one’s own salvation and eternal life – an easy mental bargain if you didn’t want to think. But’s its easier to talk like a cynic than it is to live as one, so I still looked for meaning in Jesus’ resurrection. Through 2000 years of history and culture it had become a powerful retelling of the myth of death and rebirth and everything that resonates with that – the rhythm of the seasons, the passing of the generations, the feeling of salvation after overcoming illness or adversity. Contemplating this gave me comfort.
Wait a minute – Christ’s passion becomes simply one more reassurance that daffodils will come up, that there will be light at the end of the longest tunnel, that there will be a dawn no matter how dark the preceding hour? No, something much greater than myth has sustained the church and its congregation for 2000 years. The Easter message is indeed the promise of rebirth – at any number of levels. But like so much of the Bible, it’s not so much what we get out of it as what we put into it.
Of the four Evangelists, Matthew gives us the shortest account of Christ’s actions after his resurrection – something very easy to focus on. Jesus does just two things. He meets some unspecified number of disciples and tells them (Matthew 28:10), “Be not afraid: go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me.” Then, when the eleven do meet him in Galilee, he says (Matthew 28:16-20), “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
And what did he command, just a few days earlier? “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
Resurrection is not simply a promise to us, it requires our own participation. God doesn’t happen to us, God happens through us. I experienced this when I returned to church after 50 years and began attending St. Johns. I found great comfort singing the songs and participating in the meaning of the myths (It was Christmas, even better than Easter.). But when I went through some of the darkest times of my life, just a few months later, I experienced the closest I may ever come to resurrection, in the love of a community that tries to observe the two commandments of the risen Christ. And if we all try to do that, he will be with us unto the end of the world.