Where I Am with Resurrection and John 20

by Fred Rose

One of the ways I get at this passage is in considering some of those I have lost. 
I have a friend who died several years ago. If he were to appear in a dream and call my name, 
I would know his voice and the way he said it. My father died over twelve years ago. 
He used to have a nickname he would call me. Occasionally, in the middle of a worship service, 
I remember his voice and I will smile not because of some truth ingested or a sound or phrase 
that touches my soul.  I  smile for just being grateful for my father having been my father to me. 

My mother died over two years ago. Though she had no nicknames for me, she spoke my name 
in a certain way. To remember her voice and the times she and I shared the last years of life is precious. 
She was always my mother and my friend. I miss her. When I read in this John 20 account of Jesus calling Mary 
by name, I know what my name sounds like when it is said by certain people...even people in my past. 
I look forward to the day and believe there will be a day when I will again give my parents a hug 
and walk with my friend, David.

What is the resurrection? It is the best of life coming from the worst of life. It is Jesus being raised 
from the worst human beings do to encourage us with the best God has for us. It is the hope of God. 
It is hope that this life, this reality, these things that keep attaching themselves to me, 
this is not all there is. It is hope that good will triumph over wrong. It is the hope of eternity, 
the hope of God’s promises. It is the hope that God will set things right and I will not be devastated by it. 
It is the joy of life regained, renewed, revivified, reclaimed, reconstructed, rebuilt. 
It is the peace of God which passes our understanding. If we can believe or if we are able to believe 
God raised Jesus from the dead and somehow really consider it a reality, its fact offers a certain peace 
against all the confusion and corruption and noise of this life. It is an unimaginable act of the love of God 
who shows us what is truly important. It is not a way of life recovered; it is a person, a relationship, 
a friendship. It is God’s recreating the life of his Son so that in our believing in this Son 
and in the events of his life, we are recreated too. Resurrected too?
 
I met a poet several years ago, Judith Deem Dupree, who gave me a collection of her poems entitled 
living with what remains.  (Quiddity Press, Pine Valley, CA, 2004) In her poem, “A Story,” 
she tells creation’s tale and at the end says this:

Well, here we are.
Finally, us---out of nothing!
Much more than nothing, I would say.
But one day He will suck His breath back in, 
perhaps, perhaps.
Will He swallow all our lies?
Will He choke on us? Spit us out?

Yes, we will return without our toys,
because our souls are meant to rise unfettered
by all the small stuff---our fortunes and fatuities---
to find that Hole in the Gate that He left for us.

He named it, I understand, The Eye of the Needle.
And this is the end of the story.
 
Or the real beginning.
I believe it.   (Dupree,47)                           
 
I  include another of her poems here. For me, Easter  can only sometimes be addressed 
with another medium like music and poetry. Surely the Easter story is narrative, 
but it is an other wordly kind of narrative.Here is another of her poems that Easter calls to my attention: 

“The One True Thing”

Believe in what you always knew.
It has not forgotten you.
Call it back to you: it will come out of hiding.
Coax it patiently.
Like a wild thing caught in a snare,
it will observe you guardedly---
examine you for the scent of guile.

Behold it—this sudden stranger
to your patterned thought,
this outcast waiting quietly at the fringe.

Do not measure it.
Open your arms and
receive the weight of it in your narrow grasp.
Hold steady---it will grow feather-light in time.
Let it tell you everything it knows.
Everything. Listen.
 
Live with it, perhaps uncomfortably,
until you are conformed,
until your face in the mirror crinkles
with a shaft of delight
and speaks back to you in a beautiful new tongue---
and you know at last who you are and why.
 
Now you are ready to brave the world.
Now you are ready to save it.          (Dupree, 87)
 
What if we cannot believe this resurrection story? What if we do not have a resurrection faith...
whatever that is? What if it seems too far-fetched? Too much to swallow? Too good to be true? 
Too much fairy tale and not enough reality? What if we cannot somehow simply accept the basis 
of all this Easter celebration? Can’t we simply remain with the church? Cannot we not find a way 
to hang around and check out this Easter faith in the lives of those who claim to believe it? 
Or can we not come occasionally and check out  these people who believe? 
Or is there something else we need to check out? Can we not join somebody in  ministry 
or study and ask our questions and do something new? What difference does it really make to us, 
to me, to my family, to the world if we believe in Easter…if we believe Jesus was in truth raised from the dead?
 
Or is it our very  best approach to life to set aside worship and organized Christianity 
for another eight months until December comes around? We can drag ourselves back
into this strange company another time. Is this our best idea? Is this about being honest with ourselves? 
Is this what “being honest” means? Is there any other reality than our own effort at being honest?

(from www.goodpreacher.com/blog/)