Thoughts On The Resurrection

"Faith is never easy, and the appropriation of belief is always difficult. But the Church has been it's strongest when it has proclaimed the death of Jesus, relived and recapitulated in the believer's own life. The Church today finds itself once again confronting this ultimate truth. No longer can the Church be exclusive, either in race or denomination. We are all brothers, one of another. The Church cannot be an instrument of the status quo. It must always point above and beyond the values of contemporary life. It must point, ultimately, to the Cross of Christ."

"In our own lives, as in his, there can be no Easter Day without a Good Friday. There can be no life without death. There can be no resurrection without a crucifixion. There can be no benefits of the Passion without sacrifice, dedication, and commitment, even when they contradict the things which are labeled by the world as success, popularity, prestige, and entertainment."

----Beverly Madison Currin, If Man Is To Live: A Rediscovery Of The Meaning Of The Atonement, Backcover.


Dr. Currin is probably one of my relatives as he was originally a native of North Carolina---which is pretty cool.

The Cross And The Resurrection

James McGrath has this quote in his recent post from Marcus Borg via John Shuck:

Sunday, April 5, 2009
Quote of the Day (John Shuck)
"The way of cross is more than the way of resisting social, economic, and political injustices. But...the way of the cross is not less than that. "

-- John Shuck, "The Executed God: A Sermon"
Posted by James F. McGrath at 5:23 PM
Labels: cross, economic, injustice, John Dominic Crossan, John Shuck, Marcus Borg, Palm Sunday, political, resistance, sermon, social, theology

See: Exploring Our Matrix: Quote of the Day (John Shuck) and Shuck and Jive: The Executed God: A Sermon. Another good quote from John Shuck's post is:

To quote James Baldwin (The Fire Next Time, quoted in The Executed God, pg. 1):

If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of him.

Anyways I believe Borg's quote ties the crucifixion and resurrection neatly together. Here is another quote from Borg on the Way Of The Cross from Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary:

"To take Jesus seriously is to follow him. To follow him is to participate in his passion. And his passion was God and the kingdom of God. The way of the cross leads to a life in God and participation in the passion of God known in Jesus."

It is easy to see that the crucifixion and the Resurrection event are two sides of the same coin or as The Seeking Disciple over at Arminian Today: The Resurrection Matters observes:

Each year around this time we in the Church of Jesus Christ turn our hearts toward the wonderful reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus is vital to our faith and, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:14, our faith depends on the fact of the resurrection. If Christ is not risen from the dead and His body is still in the tomb in Israel then our faith is in vain. We are believing a lie.

But if Christ is truly risen from the dead then our faith is not just faith in the teachings of Jesus but our faith is based on an actual, historical event taking place in our time-space in order to bring the truth of God to us. If Jesus is risen from the dead, everything changes. Missions matters. Worship matters. Prayer matters. Faith matters. Apologetics matters. Discipleship matters. Teaching my children the truths of Scripture matters.

But only if Jesus is risen from the dead does this make a difference.

The early Church stood on the resurrection of Christ. They were not delusional in their understanding of the living Jesus. In fact, the Gospels paint a picture not of willing Jews wanting their Master to rise from the dead but scared Jewish men and women who honestly believed that Jesus was dead (Luke 24:20-21). Take Thomas in John 20:24. Thomas stands in line with many others who would come after him who doubted that Jesus was risen from the dead but Jesus appeared to him and convinced him that Jesus was not a ghost or a vision but was in fact the risen Messiah (John 20:26-29). Peter himself said that the gospel was not words or visions or prophecies but was in fact based on two things: their eye witness accounts and the Scriptures (2 Peter 1:16-21). Paul the Apostle, in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, did two things at once. First most commentators believe that Paul was quoting an early Christian hymn or creed (vv.3-4) and then Paul gives eye witnesses to Jesus' resurrection (vv.4-8) that he says are alive (though some had died since Christ had risen) for the Corinthians to investigate. If Paul did not believe that Jesus was alive and that he had seen the risen Messiah, he would not have included living eye witnesses for the Corinthians to follow up with.
....
The resurrection matters. Does it matter in your life?

I agree as faith in the unseen Risen Lord is the hope which drives us even if we see but through a glass darkly. Also part of the change the resurrection bestows upon us is to practice the Way Of The Cross.

Good Stuff From Peter Rollins

Here is a good quote from Peter Rollins an Irish Emergent leader:

At one point in the proceedings someone asked if my theoretical position led me to denying the Resurrection of Christ. This question allowed me the opportunity to communicate clearly and concisely my thoughts on the subject, which I repeat here.

Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think…

I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.

However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.

Another good post from Peter Rollins:

Fundamentalism isn’t too violent, it isn’t violent enough

The title for this post comes from the title of one of the talks I have been giving on the ‘Lessons’ tour. The main gist of the argument lies in exploring how the fundamentalism we witness at work today is, at its core, a movement that conserves and preserves the status quo. Its violence at the subjective level (e.g. defending the evils of misogyny, homophobia, unjust conflicts and self-interested foreign policy) is the direct outworking of its ultimate impotence when it comes to instigating real change.

Take the example of so many wars today. Amidst all their violence they are more often than not fought in order to preserve the way things are, to protect people in power, or to accumulate more resources. Thus their horrific violence at the subjective level hides the fact that they preserve the deeper objective violence of the system itself. The bloodshed thus helps to maintain the injustice that currently exists, ensuring that structures of oppression remain unchallenged.

In the same way fundamentalism, while violent at a surface level (at the level of everyday life) is simply a mask that hides the fact that it does not rock the very foundations of worldly power. Its frantic posturing and aggression is ultimately in the service of those with power, money, and voice. In this way their various highly funded projects designed to change society actually ensure that nothing of any significance really changes (those who are oppressed continue to be oppressed, the rich continue to get richer, the poor continue to get poorer).

Let us not then attack such a position for being too violent (apart from anything else, this is what such a movement thrives on; seeing itself as the church militant), rather we must pull back the curtain and show the impotent wizard for who it really is.

In contrast to fundamentalism it is people like Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King who, in their pacifism, are truly violent (who are the true church militant). In their non-participation and uncompromising actions they lived out an alternative vision of how the world could work, directly challenging the foundations of worldy power. In their seductive vision of an alternative world and their unrelenting quest to pursue it they ruptured the systems of power that surrounded them and thus expressed the true violence of Christianity. A violence that shifts the underground by allowing the outsider to be heard.

Thus, the next time we hear of some blustering speaker attempt to bolster their support by making themselves sound like the follower of a cage-fighting, bodybuilding Jesus, we should avoid the trap of arguing that their image of Jesus is too violent and instead show how it isn’t nearly violent enough. Drawing out how, amidst all their seeming machismo they are little more than a timid sheep in wolves clothing.

Tags: Fundamentalism, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Peter Rollins, violence, Zizek

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 7:03 pm and is filed under Reflection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Looking At Resurrection With Faith And Theology

Faith and Theology: Resurrection as God's self-determination: a note on Adam Eitel, Bruce McCormack and Rowan Williams

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The best section is:

Here’s what Williams has to say:

“Jesus’ life is historical, describable…. But there is a sense in which the raising of Jesus … does not and cannot belong to history: it is not an event, with a before and after, occupying a bit of time between Friday and Sunday. God’s act in uniting Jesus’ life with his eludes us: we can speak of it only as the necessary condition for our living as we live. And as a divine act it cannot be tied to place and time in any simple way. It is, indeed, an ‘eternal’ act: it is an aspect of the eternal will by which God determines how he shall be, his will to be the Father of the Son…. The event of resurrection, then, cannot but be hidden in God’s eternal act, his eternal ‘being himself’; however early we run to the tomb, God has been there ahead of us” (pp. 89-90).

The resurrection is an eternal act in which God determines the kind of God he will be. It is an act in which the trinitarian persons are differentiated: Father, Son and Spirit relate to one another in this event. The resurrection is God’s determination to be the triune God – so that God’s decision about his own being is fulfilled not in the abyss of eternity, but in this unique occurrence within human history.

---which is an allusion to Karl Barth's Christocentric Election.

Indeed Christ is both our Elector and the Elected One of God---Electing Messiah and Messiah Elect.