The Resurrection: So what?

When I was a teenager, the big issue among my Christian peers was how to argue that the resurrection really happened.  We became amateur archaeologists; we read books and argued endlessly about which evidence was more reliable, and which was more believable.  Our purpose was to be able to argue our non-Christian friends into faith, and the evidence was pretty convincing. 

Except, our friends didn’t seem terribly interested in our proofs.  It was, to them, an academic exercise, and whether you won or lost didn’t really matter.  I had the same feeling myself after I read Frank J. Tipler’s book, The Physics of Immortality. Using theories of quantum cosmology, Tipler argues that the consequence of Omega Point Theory is the resurrection of all human beings. His arguments are (at least to this quantum-cosmology-ignoramus) quite convincing, but at the end of it all, I found myself asking, “So what?”

Archaeology and quantum cosmology have their uses, but they can only answer the question, “Did it (or can it) happen?” That is only the first question of faith; the second is, “What difference does it make?” Or to use the language of the New Testament, Jesus doesn’t simply say, “Do you believe me?”  He says, “Follow me.”  

The bible and the creeds are clear Jesus was resurrected and we will be too. And what that means, is that the life giving force of God is let loose to work among us. Death is not the end: it is not the most powerful thing in this world.  God is, and God gives us life.  And that life, once let loose, can never be conquered; that life can never be bound.  Death no longer has the power to control us; the tables have been turned. The powerful are brought down, and the lowly lifted up. The hungry are filled with good things, and the rich sent away empty.

Yet the only way to this resurrection life is the way of death. The death of Jesus on the cross, and our death with him. In baptism, we are buried with Christ.  It is a serious matter, and a costly one. In baptism we turn from sin, we turn from envy and greed and bitterness. We sign our own death warrants.

But in baptism we take hold of the promise of Easter. Just as we died with Christ, so too are we raised with Christ. We may sign our death warrants, but God signs us into resurrected life. And while we will not know the fullness of that resurrection until after our physical deaths, we taste it now.  We know the life of God let loose in us, we know the love of God engulfing us. It means we have forgiveness, it means we have hope, it gives us new life.

What does that look like?  The best example of resurrected life here and now that I know is a seminary friend of mine, whose cancer recurred.  No amount of chemotherapy helped. As the cancer spread, as her bones began to crumble, as she lost the ability to breathe alone, she finished seminary and was ordained. She spent her final two months as chaplain in a nursing home, working alongside those who like her, were dying. And fourteen years ago, on Easter morning, she died, her final words, “Christ is risen indeed.”