August Letter 2007

It is difficult to come to terms with this my last letter to you. Eleven months have moved by so quickly. I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your kindness, gentleness, encouragement, involvement, and support in my development and learning process as your pastor. I came with no credentials, but I leave with lasting memories, important lessons, and a true family of faith. I love you all and hope the best for you as individuals and as a community of faith. I firmly believe that God can move in tremendous and transformative ways in Perryville, Kentucky. May God's Kingdom be made real here with you.

I want to spend my last lines of ink on a provocative question that I heard posed a year and a half ago and which resurfaced in the past few weeks: “If Jesus' bones were found, would Christianity cease to to be true?” This question is only hypothetical, but it asks us to traverse troubling waters of possibility and to exercise our minds and hearts in a way unfamiliar to many of us. Would the bones of Jesus nullify the claims of Christianity?

For some, avoidance is the best defense. Outright dismissal of the question allows us to safely live in the “reality” of our Faith: Jesus Christ has risen indeed! But the question posed to us asks us to explain what such a “reality” means. Namely, what did, does, and could “resurrection” mean. The issue of Jesus' bodily resurrection has been a central tenant of Christian faith for centuries, but is this necessary? I don't want to dismiss the faith of those who believe in a bodily resurrection, rather I want to challenge that such a faith must be grounded in a bodily resurrection.

Paul had to explore the issue of bodily resurrection in his letters found in the New Testament. When asked about the type of body resurrected believers might have, he responded in a very careful way. The Greek word for flesh (sarx) was not used to describe the resurrected body. The Greek word for spirit (pneuma) was not used to describe the resurrected body. Instead Paul referred to a heavenly body (soma), which appears to be both physical and spiritual, and which appears to give continuity with this life while liberating us to the heavenly realm.

To be honest, Paul's description of the heavenly body is vaguely understandable at best. However, we can recognize that there is something distinctively different about the resurrected body. It is not identical with our flesh and bones. Yet it has a physical relation to the reality we recognize and experience.

How does this apply to Jesus? Well, much like Paul's description of the heavenly body, the description of the risen Christ is a strange combination of physical and non-physical properties. Christ walks through walls, disappears, and ascends to heaven. Yet, Christ is touchable, just ask Thomas. Christ looks real, just ask (if only we could) the traveling duo who didn't even realize they were speaking with the risen Christ. The gospel accounts of the resurrection are very comparable to Paul's writings about heavenly bodies. So, what do we make of this?

I want to suggest that the physical bones of Jesus do not have any necessary cancellation powers over our Faith. The message of Christ's resurrection is not a matter of resuscitation. We do not worship the resuscitated Jesus, but the Risen Christ! The rising of Christ into God's presence is a powerful truth; one that is not invalidated by bones or a filled tomb. Resurrection is not limited to a purely physical revival. Instead it is different. Christ can be resurrected and the bones of Jesus available for archaeological discovery.

So what, then, does “resurrection” mean? Well, it could mean many different things to many different people. For me, resurrection speaks to the triumphant message of Jesus' cause: the forces of evil, the power of domination, the threat of exploitation, and the grip of death do not bind us; they do not hold us. Suffering, malice, and destruction are powerless in the reality of God's Love and Christ's Redemption. We can have victory over evil because for us God made Jesus' death the beginning and not the end. This is a truth we can all come to embrace as Christians, no matter our doctrinal divisions or orthodox suspicions. God Resurrected Christ to a purposeful presence which might saturate our world one day. And in that day I find hope. For that day I pray.

May the Peace of God be upon you as you live out God's Love, Grace, and Mercy.