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November 2 - December 8, 2019
“physical resurrection”: something utterly remarkable did happen to the corpse of Jesus, namely, it was transformed into “a new mode of physicality.”
resurrection does not mean resumption of previous existence but entry into a new kind of existence.
In a sense, it is beyond the categories of life and death, for a resurrected person will not die again.
resuscitation intrinsically involves something happening to a corpse; resurrection need not.
Indeed, the discovery of Jesus’ skeletal remains would not be a problem. It doesn’t matter, because Easter is about resurrection, not resuscitation.
In the Bible, the verb appeared is often (though not always) used in connection with “apparitions,”
That Paul thinks of the resurrection appearances as apparitions is further suggested by his inclusion of himself in the list of people to whom the risen Christ appeared:
Importantly, I think visions and apparitions can be true, by which I mean truthful disclosures of the way things are.
There Paul addresses the question of what the resurrection body is like: “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”8 It is, of course, our question: how physically are we to think of the resurrection?
The physical body is to the resurrection body as a seed is to a full-grown plant. Continuity: the seed becomes the plant. Discontinuity: a full-grown plant looks radically different from the seed.
the Greek phrase behind “physical body” means literally “a body animated by soul,” and the second phrase means “a body animated by spirit.”
Thus Paul affirms a bodily resurrection, even as he radically distinguishes the resurrection body from a flesh-and-blood (that is, physical) body. The two bodies are as different as a plant is from a seed.
Perhaps we need to take seriously that Paul thought there are spiritual bodies that are not physical.
But the verse is found in a chapter that strongly suggests that the resurrection body is not a physical body.11
How much of the content of this story could we have captured on a videotape? Would we have been able to record the risen Christ joining them, walking with them, conversing with them, and finally vanishing from the room as they received bread from him? For me, one has only to ask these questions in order to begin to wonder, “Maybe it’s not that kind of story.” Rather, the story looks to me to be a metaphorical narrative with rich resonances of meaning. Most centrally, the story makes the claim that the risen Christ journeys with us, whether we know that or not, realize that or not, even as it
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Their truth, and the truth of Easter itself, does not depend upon their being literally and historically factual. It does not depend upon the tomb being empty or on something happening to the corpse of Jesus.
For me, the historical ground of Easter is very simple: the followers of Jesus, both then and now, continued to experience Jesus as a living reality after his death.
“Jesus is still here, but in a radically new way.” Continuity and discontinuity are both affirmed.
New Testament: Jesus is Lord.
Already in the New Testament itself, prayers and hymns were addressed to Jesus as if to God.
lifetime. The other ingredient was their experience of him after his death as having the qualities of God: like God, he was a spiritual reality; like God, he could be experienced anywhere. Hence, “Jesus is Lord.”
Jesus not only lives but is Lord. The right hand of God is a position of honor, authority, and participation in the power and being of God. To say “Jesus has been raised to God’s right hand” and “Jesus is Lord” is to say the same thing: Jesus has become one with God and functions as Lord in the lives of his followers.
If Jesus is Lord, then all the would-be lords of our lives are not.
understand the historical events or ground behind this affirmation differently. My position is that experiences of the risen Christ as a continuing presence generated the claim that “Jesus lives and is Lord” and that the statement “God raised Jesus from the dead” and the story of the empty tomb may well have been generated by those experiences.
Tom’s position is that the fact of the empty tomb and the appearances generated the claim “Jesus lives and is Lord.” But we both affirm the claim. This is who Jesus is for us as Christians.
Good Friday and Easter as the climax of Jesus’ life and as the center of the Christian community’s life.
The resurrection of Jesus is God’s vindication of Jesus. It is a simple no-yes pattern: Jesus’ death was the domination system’s no to what he was doing; Jesus’ resurrection was God’s yes to Jesus. It is therefore also God’s no to the rulers of this world.
Emphasizing that Jesus is Lord, it often uses the language of “raised (or exalted) to God’s right hand.” Its central meaning is both religious and political: the lords of this world crucified Jesus, but Jesus is Lord, and they aren’t.
It is the continuation and climax of the conflict between the lordship of God and the lordship of Pharaoh.
here they signify the defeat of “the powers.”
the powers that rule this age.
The Lordship of Christ is the path of personal and existential liberation from the lords of this world.
of the way or path of transformation to new life.
internal spiritual process that lies at the heart of the Christian path.
The result of that internal death is a new identity: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
Good Friday and Easter embody the path that Jesus taught: the path of dying to an old way of being and being born into a new way of being.
“Jesus is the way”—and the way that Jesus is is the path of death and resurrection.
which Jesus is seen as God’s only and beloved son.
Sacrifice as a way of dealing with sin was central to the world of Jesus.
The metaphor thus radically subverted the role of the temple. In effect, to say “Jesus is the sacrifice” means “You don’t need the temple; you have access to God apart from the temple.” It is thus an antitemple statement.
radical grace of God and of our unconditional acceptance.
God has already taken care of whatever it is that we think separates us from God.
makes us feel unacceptable by God, then we simply have not understood that God has already taken care of
As Paul put it, “Christ is the end of the law,” meaning the end of the system of requirements and failing to measure up.26 Of course, if we don’t see this, nothing in our life changes. But if we do see this, then our sens...
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Proclaiming his death as the once for all sacrifice for sin makes the same affirmation: God is accessible apart from institutional mediation.
Seen this way, it becomes a doctrinal requirement: we are made right with God by believing that Jesus is the sacrifice. The system of requirements remains, and believing in Jesus is the new requirement.
Domination systems and Jesus are antithetical to each other.
God is in love with us.
In the Jerusalem Bible, the first kind of body “embodies soul,” the second kind “embodies spirit.”
Easter faith easily becomes believing in the factuality of a past event, rather than living within a present relationship, and the truth of Christianity becomes grounded in the “happenedness” of this past event rather than in the continuing experience of the risen Christ.
