For anyone with a brain, belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is too much to ask. It simply defies all we know about how the world works. All our lives we are encouraged, praised, and rewarded for using our brains. Why then would we not apply our reason the greatest claim of the Christian faith?
The moment we check our brain at the door, faith becomes a system of belief we either accept or don’t accept. Henceforth, our irrational willingness to uphold and defend unbelievable religious claims proves to the world we are people of faith.
By not surrendering our brains, we remain at liberty to be curious, to ask questions, to find enjoyment, even radical insights, as we wonder about all the things that stretch the limits of our reason, such as Jesus rising from the dead and munching on a piece of broiled fish as his friends looked on in fear and astonishment.
Being a spokesperson, as it were, for the Christian faith, every Easter morning asks me to provide a convincing affirmation of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, while not asking too much of the gathered faithful. Most clergy achieve this objective by directing attention to the annual celebration of spring — as in flower beds thought dead magically bursting forth with new life.
This year I think I found a way to make sense of the bodily resurrection while still using my brain. This reasonable way forward supports an understanding of Christianity as a way of life open to all, rather than as a system of belief open to all who agreeably accept what they are told and thus counted among the sheep within the everlasting fold, forever safe, yet strongly encouraged not to wander, nor to question.
Consider this: Some say it’s possible to slow down the aging process. Try it and see. Here’s how: At the very core of who we are lies a drop of eternity ever available to us by turning our full attention to the here and now. Call it an easily overlooked portal that exists apart from all memories of the past and from all imagined scenarios of the future. Here in this present moment, and only here, can we taste a dimension of experience not subject to space and time — call it a single, potent drop of eternity.
Imagine that single drop of water held within a hard, dried-up sponge. Now return to that drop within you with desire and regularity. That would be like placing that dried up sponge under a faucet, allowing a gentle, steady stream of water to flow upon the sponge. The drop of eternity to which we have access within us, begins to grow, thoroughly infusing the sponge with ever-increasing life and vitality. The absorbent sponge, unable to hold any more water, now becomes fully immersed within the water, subject to the ways and means of water, behaving as much like water as like a sponge.
I dare say, it is quite reasonable of us to wonder, ponder, consider a way of life that begins by tasting that drop of eternal life found within us, then becoming so infused over time by our constant sipping that one day we find our bodies completely saturated and immersed within the sea of the eternal, enabled by this new way of being to eat broiled fish with gusto after having died and risen bodily from the dead.
The Rev. Bradford Clark is the rector at Ascension Memorial Church in Ipswich.