(Reposted and updated a bit from last year)

Ruth Gledhill asked Did Jesus really rise from the dead?.

It sparked a whole line of thought in my head and, what with (WR) Easter coming up in a couple of Sundays and (ER) Lent just getting off the ground, it seems like a logical time to ask the question.

What do we mean when we ask it (long, long before answering it)? Do any of us know?

Starting with the text:

tmatt asks, in his famous “tmatt trio“:

Are the biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus accurate? Did this event really happen?

This is, of course, a trick question: there are no biblical accounts of the resurrection. None. There are only written tales of various events – visions, angelic visitations, appearances, suppers, breakfasts, second and third hand accounts, etc – of events that happened after the death of Jesus and the discovery of his empty tomb.

What happened sometime after midnight that Saturday evening or Sunday Morning? The Gospels do not tell us. The hymns of the church tell us that, according to the Church’s understanding, there were no witnesses. Even the Roman guards were prevented from witnessing the mystery – so that it might be revealed only to those who believe.

So, ok: what do we mean when we ask “Did Jesus really rise from the dead?”

Do we mean “His spirit returned to his body and his flesh reanimated?”

No.

Clearly that is not what the Church teaches on this topic: Jesus could appear and disappear at will. He could walk through walls. So, no: his flesh didn’t simply reanimate.

We do have several recorded cases of zombification in the Gospels: the Son of the Widow of Nain, Jarius’ Daughter come to mind. They were dead, now they are not. We also have a more-extreme case: Lazarus, the four-days-dead. He must have been putrefying – so we have a raising as well as a healing here. There are not recorded tales of these folks walking through walls or disappearing at will. Lazarus died later, as the hagiography records.

Easter is not a tale of Palestinian Rabbinical Zombies of the 1st Century.

Do we mean Jesus was a Ghost like Nearly-Headless Nick in the Harry Potter series?

Nope. Not that either. The stories of Jesus involve touching him. The stories of Jesus involve him eating. The stories of Jesus involve more than a gaseous apparition. The Bible is full of ghosts – but this isn’t one of them.

And clearly, as early as the Gospel of Mark, the Church had no freaking clue what happened on that first Easter morning.

Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

Do you know what you mean by that?

Nope.

We do mean something happened. One of the clear things that Orthodoxy taught me is not to define something and to leave it in the language of Mystery. The Mystery of Easter, the Paschal Mystery – this is our faith. But we have no idea what it means. The Church clearly says “He rose”. But she doesn’t tell us what she means. It is neither Zombie nor Ghost; neither simply a story nor a parable. It is something new.

The most important Paschal icon in the Church’s tradition shows Jesus in Hell not walking around on earth. He’s rescuing Adam and Eve from their graves. The Church teaches that Jesus was the first Son of Adam to have restored to him a spiritual body such as our first parents had before the expulsion from Eden. Leaving aside the darwinian questions for a moment, the church then admits she has no idea what those bodies were like. It must have something to do with the two NT Greek words rendered in English as “Life” – psyche and zoe. It has something to do with our body giving up the psyche and being fused with zoe, something to do with undoing the fall. But…

But I don’t think any literalist Inquisitors General would be happy with that response, huh? “Well, ya see, something happened back then. For all the little that we know about what actually happened, I’m comfortable saying it was and wasn’t spiritual. It was and wasn’t physical: it was something so far beyond our understandings and myths that we have no word for it. But we don’t know what happened at all and, in light of our not-knowing, we call it ‘resurrection’ cuz, well, the tomb is still empty.” That would piss off most fundies. I’m sure Terry and Ruth would be just a little too high-class to get pissed off, or at least to say it.

Christ is Risen. Ha Moshiach Kam!

What does it mean?

We don’t know – or, rather, we are trying to live it out. By his grace.