Resurrection is Not More of the Same

Resurrection is a hard concept to get.  It is not the same thing as resuscitation.  

There is the son of the widow of Nain (Lk. 7:11-15).  There is the daughter of Jairus (Lk. 8:41-42, 49-56).  Most famous of all, probably, is Lazarus (Jn. 11).  Jesus refers to his own action regarding Lazarus as awakening him, not resurrecting him.  In not one instance is the word resurrection used.

There are other instances, including outside the New Testament and including actors other than Jesus.  Elijah restored the life of the son of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kg. 17:17-24).  He himself prayed, “Let this child’s life come into him again” (v. 21), and the text says that the child was “revived” (v. 22).  Peter restored life to a disciple named Tabitha in Joppa (Acts 9:36-41).  Acts says that “he showed her to be alive” (v. 41).  There is no mention of resurrection.  

Indeed, whatever happened on that first Easter morning, it was not resuscitation or the revival of Jesus’ dead body.  Whatever it was, it was something different with Jesus. It was something different than what had been before with him.  Mary Magdalene, the first of his disciples to see him, did not recognize him (Jn. 20:15).  The life of Jesus was not the same as it had been before.  Two of his closest disciples walked all the way from Jerusalem to Emmaus with him and did not know who he was (Lk. 24:13 ff.).  The life of Jesus was not the same as it had been before.  As instructed, the eleven, Jesus’ most intimate friends, gathered to meet him on a mountain in Galilee to which they had been directed.  Even then, not all recognized him (Mt. 28:17).  The life of Jesus was not the same as it had been before.  

The life of the resurrection as made known in Jesus is not the same as a continuation of life as it has been.  Resurrection is not the same as resuscitation or even revival.  Those, miraculous as they may be, are just a continuation of what has been.  Resurrection is not.  It is something entirely new.  It has no biblical parallel.  And it has no parallel, at least exactly, in our experience of life this side of the kingdom of God.

The fact that it is so completely new, life so completely changed, is what it makes it so hard to accept.  Human beings, I think, are innately conservative.  Better stated, it is really more that we are innately cautious, indeed fearful.  That could be, I think, because we are the only creatures innately aware of our impending deaths.  But for whatever reason, the life of the resurrection is difficult for us to accept precisely because it is not the same old thing, not a continuation of what we have always known, not more of the same.  That is why it takes courage.  And courage, even for those of us who have it, is more than a little difficult to access.  

Still, our message is that we are being called not into continued being but into new being; not into the same old thing, but into newness of life; not something we already know, but something completely without precedent, except in Jesus; not into resuscitated life, but into resurrected life.

The adventure we set out on after Easter is to find out if we’re up to it.  Courage, friends!  And remember.  Jesus has gone on before.

Peace,
+Stacy