How many of you believe that Jesus was bodily resurrected, just like it says in the gospels? Don't answer that . . . I don't want to embarrass anyone, or make anyone fib . . . The fact remains that the resurrection is consistently one of the major stumbling blocks to belief--notice I didn't say faith--in Christianity. It's one of the hardest things to wrap our minds around, which is why some scholars have recommended--and indeed, practiced their own selves--coming to Jesus through his teachings. Understand his life and what he did, they say, and that will prepare you to believe that he came back from the dead. Or . . . not. Many of these folks never make it beyond the “it's a wonderful life” phase, and value Jesus as a great teacher, and only that.
That is view of participants in the several "quests for the historical Jesus," a term coined by Albert Schweitzer, who besides being a medical doctor, was a pretty fair New Testament theologian. Modern historical Jesus questers include Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, who, modernist that they are, downplay--or downright dispute--the miracles, including and especially the resurrection.
John Shelby Spong, an Episcopal bishop who wrote some books popularizing these ideas, and who a seminary buddy of mine calls Spronngggg, feels that in this modern day and age, belief in the miracles--again including the resurrection--is an embarrassment to Christians, and should be jettisoned, or at least that's the theme of every one of his books. He catalog various ideas about how the resurrection “really” happened, ranging from “his disciples came and carried him off” to “wild dogs ate him” to “it was just a vision and/or a dream.” Ironically, the theory about the disciples stealing him away is the one the scribes and Pharisees put out to discredit the first Christians, according to Matthew.
This difficulty of believing in the resurrection isn't a just a modern thing . . . It was just as hard for the ancients to believe . . . Even the disciples, who had been TOLD that he was going to rise again, had trouble. There's the famous “doubting Thomas,” of course, but each gospel account tells of others who at first disbelieve. In Mark, after Mary Magdalene sees Jesus, she goes and tells “those who had been with him,” i.e., the disciples, but they don’t believe her. In Matthew, although the eleven remaining disciples come to worship at the risen Christ’s feet, some of them doubt, though doubt what we’re not told. In Luke, the Marys and Joanna and “other women” see the empty tomb, run back to the disciples, and tell them; but they aren’t believed, because it seems to be an “idle tale,” which may be 1st century code for one told by women.
Finally, in our passage, Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, race one another to the tomb, after Mary had told them the stone had been rolled away. When they get there, the other disciple gets there first, looks in and sees the empty linens, but doesn’t go inside. When Peter—good old, full-tilt Peter—gets there, he goes inside, sees the linens as well, but also the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head, neatly rolled up and placed aside, away from the other linens in a place all by itself. Finally, the disciple that Jesus loved comes into the tomb, sees and believes.
But here’s the thing . . . just what does the other disciple believe? It can’t be that Jesus was resurrected, because in the very next line we’re told “for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.” And note the beginning of that line “for,” as in “because as yet they did not understand . . . that he must rise from the dead.” The clause about how the other disciple believed is predicated upon the succeeding clause, the one beginning with “for.” It some way or another, the information about not getting that Jesus must be raised again explains or leads to his belief . . . and so I ask again: what was it that he believed?
Well, the most obvious thing is that Jesus is not there . . . that’s the proximate thing, but if that was all it is, why the stuff about not understanding that Jesus must be raised? Well, it could be any number of things, as Bishop Spong has pointed out . . . he could believe that bandits have come and carried him away, for their own nefarious reasons. That wild animals have dragged him off for equally nefarious, but different, reasons. Or, he could believe the Pharisees—and Spong’s—version, that others of his disciples had come along and stolen the body, but surely a disciple as prominent as the one Jesus loved would have heard about it.
Here’s a thought: what if we are misreading John when he uses the verb “to believe?” What if we are taking it in a purely intellectual sense, as in I believe something to occur, when John meant it to be something more? After all, the Greek word for “to believe” and “to-have-faith” are one and the same, and how we translate it—to believe or to have faith—depends on the context, on the words and situation that it is meaning to describe. And almost everywhere you see that word, especially in John, it has something of both meanings in it . . . for John, intellectual belief and faith are inextricably intertwined.
And really, isn’t it that way for us? Except perhaps in the most mundane of situations, perhaps . . . maybe if you’re staring at a piece of clothing someone has on, and you say “I believe that’s green,” but really . . . though we say that, sometimes, what we really mean is certainty . . . I know that it’s green, and there’s a different word in both English and Greek for that . . . but unless it’s right in front of you, isn’t all knowledge contingent? Isn’t all belief the same way? If a person says they believe, say in the Easter Bunny, isn’t there at least a dollop of faith in there? I mean, I presume that they’ve never seen the Easter Bunny . . . and if someone says I believe Aunt Matilda’s coming in at eight, doesn’t that have a large measure of faith about it? After all, her arrival time depends on a whole lot of variables, doesn’t it? Plane schedules, train schedules, traffic . . . Aunt Matilda’s driving ability, perhaps. But how can one say one “knows” something absolutely? Especially if one has never seen or touched or experienced it?
Maybe one can describe the concept of belief/faith as a continuum . . . knowledge on one end, blind faith on the other . . . and perhaps John is telling us that—in spite of not understanding that Jesus was to be raised from the dead—that the disciple that Jesus loved gained at that instant a measure of faith that he didn’t have before, maybe in spite of not understanding the scriptures that said Jesus would be raised again, despite not understanding when Jesus told him—three times!—that he would be killed and raised on the third day, perhaps he gained belief—perhaps way to the right, on the knowledge-faith continuum, far toward the end of faith..
In John’s gospel, Jesus insists, over and over, and in many ways, that belief comes from above, from God, not from anything we see . . . and what we have here is another demonstration of that fact . . . the disciple that Jesus loved does not believe because of that empty tomb, he doesn’t even believe because he saw the linens and the head-cloth, all neatly folded. He believes because God wills it, and what he believes—even though it might not be in the resurrection—was in the person and name of Christ.
And I have no idea why John doesn’t say the same thing about Peter, except that perhaps—just perhaps—it’s a demonstration of exactly what I’ve been talking about . . . Peter sees the same exact thing as the disciple whom Jesus loved, and yet we don’t hear that he suddenly believes . . . and as I said, I have no idea why, except that our God is a mysterious God, whose ways are not our own. Perhaps Peter already had been brought to that level of belief/faith, perhaps God was waiting for some other time, who knows? But the fact that Peter isn’t portrayed as having believed, and it shores up John’s contention that it is not anything that anybody sees—after all, Peter sees the same thing that the beloved disciple sees, but does not come to belief.
Well. The two men scamper back off to their homes, where they have been presumably mourning in private—and away from prying, religious-authority eyes—leaving Mary Magdalene alone, just as she had been that morning when she discovered the stone had been rolled away. And she bends down to look into the tomb, and Lo! There are two men in white sitting in there, and they hadn’t been there before . . . they hadn’t been there when the men were there, and does Mary wonder at that? Does she wonder why the two . . . whatever they were, we’re told they’re angels . . . didn’t appear to the men? After all, men were the religious elite . . . weren’t they? They ran the show, they made the rules. Men were allowed into parts of the temple that women couldn’t go, and only men could be priests or teachers . . . does Mary wonder why these messengers from God appear to her and not to the men?
If she does, she doesn’t have much time to dwell on it, because the angels ask her a question: “Woman,” they say “Why are you weeping?” And she replies: they’ve taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they’ve laid him.” And note well: she isn’t weeping because they had killed him, but because she doesn’t know where he is, she can’t go visit the grave, she doesn’t have a place to locate her grief. She doesn’t have a place she can go on Memorial Day to bring flowers and have a good cry, she doesn’t have a place to go talk to him as if he were still there, as if he were with her.
Because it’s important to know where our dead are, isn’t it? It’s important to have a place to go, a place to be with them, even if you’re a Christian even if, ostensibly, at least, you believe that the person is not there. The multi-billion dollar funeral industry counts on that . . . their funerary parks, their cemeteries of the dead, cater to that desire to know where our dead are . . . because just like Mary, we want to know where they have been laid.
And this brings us back to belief in the resurrection. Christian doctrine is that no matter what happens to us just after we die, we will be resurrected on the final day when, the just Kingdom of God is established on earth. And why is that Christian doctrine, why is it Christian belief? Well, as Paul puts it, Christ’s is the first fruits of the resurrection, the forerunner of us all, who are children of God through Christ. It is our Christian hope, again as Paul says, that we will be raised up just as was Christ.
Notice the word “hope:” Swiss theologian Karl Barth writes that what draws people to worship is an unspoken question, and that question is simply this: “Is it true?” Is it true that God lives and gives us life? Is it true that God established a routine, that we call the laws of nature, and that God broke the routine and somehow raised Jesus from the dead? Is it true that something so extraordinary happened on that morning that we can only rebuild our lives on its foundation?
Friends, this is why it’s called belief, this is why it’s called faith: and why it’s not called knowledge: With the resurrection, God gave us a demonstration of love and forgiveness that was so powerful, so compelling, that it is worthy of faith, and thus doubt. What we proclaim at Easter is too mighty to be encompassed by certainty, too wonderful to be found only within our imaginations’ border. So we continue to question, we continue to doubt, we continue to dig deeper and deeper into our faith, which was born on this day nineteen hundred and eighty four years ago, when we believe and proclaim that Christ the Lord has been raised from the dead. Hallelujah! Amen.
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