Restoration and Resurrection

It may be outside our everyday experience, but, the restoration of life to the dead is not all that uncommon a biblical event.  This week’s gospel reading about the son of the widow of Nain (Lk. 7:11-15) is one example.  There are others.  There is the daughter of Jairus (Lk. 8:41-42, 49-56).  Most famous of all, probably, is Lazarus (Jn. 11). 

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 is this week’s Old Testament reading (1 Kg. 17:17-24). 

These events are described in various ways.  Jesus described raising Lazarus as an “awakening.”  Elijah prayed that “life would come again.”  Acts says that Peter “showed her to be alive.”  In not one of these, though, is the word for resurrection used.  They are resuscitations, maybe even revivals, certainly restorations, but they are not described as resurrections.  Resurrection is a far different thing than restoration.  

Here’s the big difference.  A common theme of the resurrection is that the resurrected life is completely different from life as it has been.  In fact, it is not recognizable in the old way at all.  Take the story from John about Mary Magdalene at the tomb (Jn. 20:11-18).  She had been one of Jesus’ closest followers.  Still, in the resurrection, she mistook him for the gardener. 

It is the same in Luke.  There two disciples were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the first Easter Sunday.  Jesus walked with them.  They walked the whole way together with him teaching them about Scripture, and still they did not recognize him until they had settled into an inn and were at supper that evening.  And no sooner did they recognize them than he disappeared from them.  (Lk. 24:13-35).

Matthew tells a story with a similar theme.  “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.”  (Mt. 28:16-17)  There they were looking at him dead on, and they did not believe it was he. 

What I have come to wonder is if the disciples were all essentially looking for the wrong thing, that which was not really there, so that they were unable to see what really was.  Of course, the same wonderment applies to us.

They were looking for Jesus as they had known him.  The Jesus they had known, however, was not there.  It is no accident, I think, that the resurrection is proclaimed only by the announcement that “he is not here,” or in effect, “you are looking in the wrong place.  The women at the tomb, and later the male disciples who went to see for themselves, were looking with eyes that could not see this fundamental truth.  What had been was no longer, and a new reality, the reality of the resurrection, had replaced it.   

Far too often we think of the resurrection as a continuation of life as we have known it in the past.  We may catch glimpses of phantoms in that, but we will not catch sight of the risen Jesus.  In the risen Jesus, life is new, not merely continued; life is whole, not merely interminably long; life is completely different, not merely more of the same. 

It is probably not too surprising that that may be a little bit more than we are prepared to see.

Peace,
+Stacy