"For Paul, the Resurrection was no metaphor; it was the power of God. And when he spoke of Jesus as raised from the dead, he meant Jesus alive and at large in the world not as some shimmering ideal of human goodness or the achieving power of hopeful thought but as the very power of life itself." (F. Buechner "Listening to Your Life" p. 100)
One of the most "yeah that's right moments" in the movie "The last Temptation of Christ" for me was the scene where Jesus encounters Paul preaching the resurrection. He tells Paul that he didn't die. Paul looks at him and says who are they going to believe?
This week that I'm in, "Holy Week" is sort of the runaway train week heading to Easter. Everything moves fast, crashes and then ends in a wow. Happens every year. The feeling never changes for me, not even as a priest. There's so much too it and I've always soaked it up like a sponge.
I do wonder what I mean by Resurrection. Is it more than just beautifying the church, large crowds, and singing great songs? Of course. But what do I understand it to mean outside of the day itself. Is there real power behind it? Do I believe as the hymn puts it that Christ is alive no longer bound to distant years in Palestine. And that he comes to claim the hear and now? Yes I do.
How that is, I'm hard pressed to describe. I have seen it ways that aren't verifiable. It is what makes faith so frustratingly hard to describe. But I do know that for me, it is more than a nice story, more than an ideal or thought. What it is precisely for me, words fail me.
Blessings,
Ed
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