Resurrection of Brokenness

There's no doubt -- pun intended -- that what Thomas encounters in the second of Jesus' upper room appearances after the cross is Jesus.  All the proof we need that the peripatetic teacher from Nazareth whom Thomas followed all those months and all those miles is Jesus is found in the scars.  

Thomas's view is confirmation of the unity or continuity for which we all hope when we are raised.  We all want to keep on being us in heaven, just better.  I'd like to have my achilles tendons and eyesight fixed.  

But we're here now and not in heaven.  How does death and resurrection work for us who have yet to die, sacrificially or otherwise?  What about us changes?

I'm thinking that Thomas' reaction "My Lord and my God!" is a important insight into how resurrection changes things.  That is to say that death and resurrection are more than or at least the fulfillment of God's incarnation.  

Thomas exclaims in confirmation and revelation! When he says "My Lord" he confirms that the same Jesus who died is present, real.  He is everything he ever was before, and more.  And Thomas continues, "and my God!"  

We need to be careful and not oversimplify this moment.  Thomas is likely not saying that Jesus is now God.  Nothing else, including the earlier dialogues between Jesus and Thomas supports that interpretation.  Moreover, only one verse after Thomas’ confession John concludes his gospel by writing, “Many other signs therefore Jesus also performed … but these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20.30-31).

When we oversimplify this moment we set ourselves up to worship the "God parts" but not continue to follow the "human parts."  That's what the earlier dialogue between Thomas and Jesus was about:  "Thomas said to Him, 'Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?' Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.'"

It is by way of incarnation especially after death and resurrection that God makes God's self present.  And Thomas recognizes that.  Jesus doesn't become God.  God makes God's self present in him.  The Way is God's towards us! 

So could it be that resurrection, especially for those of us who have yet to die, has something to do with making God present and less about "self-improvement?"  More about brokenness and less about perfection?  

I feel like I'm asking a question about communion now and about how Christ is present with us in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup.  We call it "real presence."  We don't presume to enjoy a perfectly restored loaf.  

The bread stays broken.  The scars persist and in them my God is present!

"l'etat ce moi" x 3

Years ago I blogged this:



time to add this:

Resurrection has no Off-Season

I asked Google for some help.  I was thinking to include a pic of the famous Orthodox Christian icon of Jesus breaking open the gates of Hell with Adam and Eve in his ascending grasp.  So I typed, "Easter Icon."  

Oh dear sweet Google, I know you meant well but your algorithms are showing.  I had to scroll to the next page to find a depiction of Jesus.  It was of him wearing the Good Friday "crown of thorns."

No wonder so much of our culture treats Easter as a "one-off" holiday that only deserves hype and no follow up.

I didn't always understand how distinctive our practices of seasonal observance were.  My early life of faith in the Baptist world of the South in the 60's had little if any seasonality to it.  

The "twelve days of Christmas" were for last minute shopping.   Lent was a strange dark space between Mardi Gras and Easter.  That was it!  Christmas was a DAY.  Easter a DAY.  Advent was not on anybody's radar.  

Every sport has a season.  Some sports have their own holidays.  Schools use seasons for all kinds of scheduling.  Legislative sessions are like seasons. (Sine die!)

We should be better at this.  We could at least understand the value of practicing the principles of Easter for a season.  Especially those that hope to inform our year round attentions to Sunday worship, outreach, individual spiritual formation and fitness.

So, back to the picture I was really looking for.  Google did a fine job when instead I asked for "resurrection icon."   Most of what was indexed had Jesus breaking open the doors of Hell and lifting Adam and Eve out of their tombs.  

The particular "practice of resurrection" this helps me to identify is of my own being rescued by love and spiritually waking up and adjusting my eyes to the light that I have not seen in my one-off appreciations of what God is always doing.  

Perhaps for us "seasoned Christians," this Easter of resurrection might better be understood as a "spring-training" or "scrimmage."  Where we train and practice with Jesus holding our hands for those tomb opening or at least eye opening habits of faith we'll need for the rest of the year. 

Resurrection Takes Practice

Easter is a big deal and coupled with Christmas is the "must see TV" of the Christian calendar.  There are nicknames for those folks who make sure to attend on those Sundays without nearly as much attention being paid to all the others.  One is "chreasters."

I don't pick on those people who show up only on those two occasions nearly as much as I used to.  Mainly because I'm just glad to see them whenever they attend.  As well, I know the value of other sometimes deeper ways to sustain and grow in one's spiritual life.  I had to get myself away from some old ways of doing church to learn what my years as a competitive distance runner taught me: how to pray without saying a word.   To live in a constant prayerfulness instead of that typical once a day or once a crisis laundry list appeal to God.

Part of how that lesson about prayer came to me was through the day after day after day patterning of rising early, stretching, jogging -- to meet up with others sometimes -- stretching a little more and then clicking my watch in earnest as I hit the road or trail.  Sometimes it was in the heat of the California afternoon.  Sometimes for 5 miles and more than once for more than 20.

My prayers were mostly just breathing in a regular rhythmic cadence that coordinated with the companion rhythm of my footsteps.  Inhale in 3 steps, exhale in 3 steps, repeat.  Or when the pace was quicker or the incline steeper: inhale in 2 steps, exhale in 2 steps, repeat.

The way many of us live our lives in church is just like that: Sunday in, Sunday out, Sunday in, Sunday out.  For some others their inspiration comes from moments or places that are more like races or special events than training.  And there are others who don't "draw a line" between church and world, sacred or secular.  And still others who seem never to be more than one breath away from bliss. Some need their church to be more like sabbath rest, than focused interval training or a long run.  TBTG! It takes all kinds.

But resurrection, no matter your spiritual method takes practice.  Yes it deserves the race day like highlighted attention of Easter Sunday itself.  For some that highlighting demands preparation and Lent and Holy Week take on that requirement.  But the practice I'm talking about is just as much for the sake of maintaining one's appreciation after Easter. 

I used to warn my athletes that the the demand of the race begins before the gun goes off and extends beyond the finish line.

The same is true for Easter and similarly for Christmas.  Resurrection takes practice: not to maintain the high of Sunday's drama, liturgy and alleluias.  Not everyday can be race day.  But to deepen one's capacity to see, hear, touch, taste and feel the gift of God's raising Jesus from the dead in the day to day.  Resurrection takes practice and perhaps especially after Easter.

Resurrection is Love Set Free

It's all about love.  That's what Lent led us into.  It was love turning into love, especially as we followed the story through Holy Week.  The Triduum, those three days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, is a love story.

Jesus' love washes the disciples' feet.  Jesus' love breaks the bread and shares the cup.  His love forgives those who crucified him and reminds us still that they did not know what they were doing.  Mary's love embraces His body.  God's love -- of love itself -- sustains the world against the silence of the tomb.

Nothing else explains the resurrection better.  "For God so loved the world . . ."  Just like the love shared between lovers, it sets us free.  Love is the highest expression of freedom.  You can't have one without the other.  No wonder the tomb was empty.  Love. 

Love can teach us so much!  But we have to let it teach us.  We forget so quickly and our listening is constrained by something less than love itself.  We listen to respond.  We listen without breathing.  We listen as if we could save our own lives.  We listen to beguiling serpents and think ourselves freed by power. 

Listening in love allows the good news to take root, fills our emptiness.  We are set free by God's love and no longer need to defend, to hunt, to hide.  We can surrender to love.

Thanks be to God!  Love has the last say.  What will we do with this new freedom?