“Why the Resurrection Matters”
Easter Sunday
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Jeremiah 31: 1-6
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24\
Colossians 3:1-4
Matthew 28:1-10
On behalf of the elders and the members of St.
Andrew’s Church community, I would like to wish all of you a very blessed and
happy Easter.
It is good to be together today. Today, we celebrate the most important event
in the Christian faith -- the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
It is good to remind ourselves of the importance of
the resurrection to our understanding of faith.
After all, we live in a time when we are constantly
confronted with diverse and competing claims about truth, about meaning – and
even about the nature and existence of God.
At such a time as this, we are often presented with
the idea that one’s understanding of truth is really of no significant
consequence. We are constantly told that it does not really matter what we
believe – and that anyone who seeks to speak of truth must, by consequence, be
an intolerant, prejudiced, and narrow-minded person.
But are such assumptions necessarily true? Is it true that it does not matter what we
believe? And, if we do seek to speak about truth, is it possible to do so
without descending into arrogance or narrow minded exclusivism?
This morning, I would invite us to consider a
number of different ways to understand reality; and, insofar as we are able in
this short time of reflection, to remind ourselves what is at stake in our
claim that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the defining reality of
the Christian faith.
As a way of approaching this question, I would
invite us to consider some of the other claims about truth and about reality
that we encounter these days, namely – nihilism, humanism, agnosticism, and
faith.
So, first, to nihilism. Nihilism is
the claim that, ultimately, there is nothing -- nothing of any real
significance; and, for that reason, the quest for meaning, value and truth in
this life is a pointless pursuit.
Although this school of thought is most often associated with Friedrich
Nietzsche, it is probably more accurate to suggest that Nietzsche did not so
much promote nihilism as he welcomed its arrival since he thought that it would
hasten the eventual demise of the idea that morality could be discerned on the
basis of an appeal to some higher power, some God. For Nietzsche, the God of the faithful and of
the religious moralists, was dead.
It is important to realize that, in its purest
form, nihilism – the belief that there is nothing -- leaves us, as human
beings, in an empty and meaningless existence. There is no meaning in this
life; at the end of this existence, there is only annihilation; so there is
nothing better for us to do than to seek whatever passing pleasures that we
can, without any regard for the constraints of moral responsibility or
compassionate concern for others.
Every one of us, at one point or another, has
likely pondered the possibility that there is nothing – no God, no true purpose
to this existence, no hope that goodness will prevail in this world, nor any hope of a life beyond this one. Perhaps we are just the result of mere
random chance in a meaningless and chaotic universe.
Most of us have had such moments; and it is safe to
assume that most of us will have those moments again. What usually brings me back from such moments
of emptiness, of pointlessness, and of nothingness is the experience of beauty
and of wonder. I, for one, find it
impossible to hear the joyful laughter of a child, or look into the eyes of
loved one, or see the sunlight glint off of a melting snowpile,
or contemplate the majesty of a starry summer night sky, or be moved to tears
by some stirring passage of music, or sit in awe at the concept of human
consciousness – and then casually dismiss all such beauty and complexity as the
product of meaningless, pointless, random chance. For me, it takes a greater leap of faith to
believe that there is nothing than that there may be something – or someone –
behind it all.
In those moments when we suspect that there is
something ‘other’ than complete nothingness, we move beyond nihilism into the
realm of mystery, but also into the realm of faith. For some, that faith is in humanity itself;
for others, it is in a being that is greater than humanity – a power that we
usually refer to as ‘God’.
But first, to faith in humanity – to humanism. Although we
have not yet worked out all of the implications, it is safe to suggest that we
are coming to the end of an era in which faith in humanity has been the
defining assumption of our culture. For
a number of centuries, we have lived with a remarkable confidence in the
inevitable progress and, ultimately, the perfectability,
of the human species. For the enlightenment philosophers, the ‘thinking’ human
was the ideal. We thought, therefore, we
were. For Darwinian philosophers and scientists, the human species was viewed
as the pinnacle of the evolution of life on this planet. For the proponents of the Industrial
Revolution, humanity’s mastery of technology and the means of production were
seen to be the pathway to paradise. For
Marxists and communists, revolutions which would eradicate the opiate of
religion and the naïve belief in God would create perfect societies in which humans,
collectively, would create the conditions for their own salvation.
Sadly, that dream of human progress and perfectability ended in the fires of Aushwitz
and the vapourized streets of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. After centuries of humanistic
philosophy, scientific progress and political revolution, the ‘final solutions’
for problems and conflicts in our world were deemed to be genocide, holocaust,
and atomic annihilation. It is
interesting to realize that, since the Second World War, the global balances of
power have been maintained by the insanity of mutually assured nuclear
destruction rather than by respect, trust and rational dialogue rooted in a
confidence in the humanity of the other.
Since the end of the Cold War, we have increasingly realized that our
disastrous abuse of the environment may bring an end to humanity as we know
it. Far from assuming the inevitable
progress of humanity, we are now seriously pondering whether human life will
completely disappear from existence. We
are no longer confident that we, as humans, can even save ourselves.
If we move beyond nihilism and humanism, however,
we come to a third popular perspective on reality – that of the agnostic. Agnosticism is actually an ancient religious
perspective. The word itself is based on
the Greek verb ‘gnosis’, which means ‘to know’.
In the earliest centuries of the Christian faith, there was a popular
form of spirituality which was referred to as ‘gnosticism’,
in which it was suggested that there were certain practices and insights which
would lead a person beyond the need for faith into the realm of knowledge. Salvation would be achieved by coming to a
state of gnosis, of knowing.
In Greek, the addition of the prefix ‘a’ in front
of a word renders it in a negative sense.
Amoral, atypical, asymmetrical are only a few such examples. In a similar way, just as an
a – theist is one who does not believe that there is a God; so too an a-gnostic, or an agnostic, is one who lives with a profound
uncertainty about the nature of any higher power.
There are many, in this modern
age, who claim to be agnostic.
They are not comfortable in asserting the claims of faith, but neither are they willing to dispense with the idea of God
altogether. I assume, in fact, that
there may be some of you, here today, who would consider yourself to be
agnostic – and I want to assure you that you are still welcome here!
I would encourage you to remember, however, that
there are two very different forms of agnosticism. On the one hand, there is a common form of
agnosticism which might best be described as a lazy, or indifferent,
agnosticism. Such is the agnostic who
acknowledges that there are things that they do not know about God, but who
never seeks to plunge any deeper, never takes the time to explore any further,
never seeks to ask any questions but are quick to dismiss the insights of those
who have walked a longer journey into the realm of the spirit. “I’m an agnostic;” they say, “I don’t know
what God is like; I assume that no one knows; I will categorically dismiss the
claims of anyone who has explored any further; so let’s just go watch
television.” To me, such lazy agnostics
are analogous to a person who is told that there is a wonderful feast on the
other side of a door – but who are not sure whether there is, so they never
bother to open the door, and thereby either confirm their doubts, or overcome
their uncertainty. Either way, they miss
the feast.
On the other hand, however, there is a form of
responsible, perhaps even engaged, agnosticism.
Such ‘engaged’ agnostics celebrate what they do not know as
opportunities to plunge further into the mystery, to ask more questions – and
perhaps even to discover answers to the questions that perplex them.
Those of us who seek to live by faith are wise to
embrace a level of engaged agnosticism in our faith. It is, after all, both terribly boring – and
potentially dangerous -- to think that we ‘know it all’. Any faith which claims absolute certainty
about every facet of God is a faith to be avoided. Rather, it is important to admit that there
are things that we do not know. As the
wonderful old statement reminds us -- ‘in the vast ocean of existence, as the
island of knowledge grows, so too does the coastland of mystery.’
But, in spite of these expanding coastlands of
mystery, we press on. And, at certain
moments in that journey, we have insights which lead us from nihilism, through
atheism and agnosticism, into the realm of faith in God. We have those moments which we cannot always
understand, let alone articulate or explain to others, but which confirm,
within us, that there is some ‘being’, some ‘power’, whose presence is
mysteriously affecting – and even guiding -- our lives.
And, in such moments, we open ourselves to God.
There are different understandings of God, and of
faith – and, in this pluralistic age, it is good to remind ourselves that a
diversity of beliefs need not be the cause of conflict. A recently embraced statement of faith, in
the Presbyterian Church in Canada, states this quite wonderfully:
Some whom we encounter belong to other religions and already
have a faith.
Their lives often give evidence of devotion and reverence for
life.
We recognize that truth and goodness in them
are the work of God's Spirit, the author of all
truth.
We should not address others in a spirit of arrogance
implying that we are better than they.
But rather, in the spirit of humility,
as beggars telling others where food is to be
found, we point to life in Christ.
But, for those of us -- hungry beggars though we
might be -- whose understanding of God is revealed in the life of Jesus of
Nazareth, there is an added claim to that of simple faith. And that added claim is our belief in the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
It is safe to say, in fact, that the resurrection actually hovers
over every other aspect of the Christian faith.
Without the resurrection, the Christian faith makes no sense. If the story ended at the cross, Jesus’ ideas
-- and the substance of our hope -- would have been buried in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb.
Death would be the end.
But the resurrection invites us
to realize that the cross was not the end of the story. Brutality, injustice, suffering, humiliation,
betrayal, and violence did not have the final word.
What the resurrection declares
is that, in spite of the seeming finality of the cross, and in spite of the
seemingly ultimate power of hatred, God chose love. In the face of death, God chose life.
And this is not only a claim
about the way that we face death; nor is it only a claim about some life beyond
this one. Rather, as Christians, we dare
to claim that because Jesus’ resurrection happened in this world, resurrection
is not just some fantasy about the future.
Resurrection occurs now.
And it is for that very reason
that Christians plunge into the midst of pain and suffering, because we live
with the strange confidence that the pain and suffering of this world will not
have the final word. When we see
injustice, hatred, violence, oppression and hopelessness, we persevere – rooted
in our faith in the good news of the inevitable triumph of comfort, wholeness,
restoration, reconciliation, and eternal life.
The Church of Jesus Christ, in
fact, is that body of people who will stand as a continuing witness throughout
human history to the reality and the power of resurrection as God’s chosen way
of working in this world.
Why, then, in an age of
contrasting and competing understandings of the truth, does the resurrection
matter?
It matters because it is the way
that we see the world; it influences the decisions that we make about how we
comprehend and interpret reality; it renews our hope in the face of despair; it
challenges our complacency in the face of injustice; it gives us the lens
through which we view the events of human history.
But, ultimately, we do not believe in the
resurrection simply because it is a good philosophical idea, among many, in
this diverse pluralistic age. Nor do we
believe in the resurrection simply because it inspires us to confront
injustice, hatred, poverty, cruelty and death in this world.
Rather, we believe in the power of resurrection
because of something that happened early one morning almost two thousand years
ago.
And what happened was this.
Some women set out towards the tomb of a beloved
friend who had been brutally and viciously executed. With them, they carried some spices that they
intended to use to finish the preparations for his burial. They thought that he
was dead. They thought that the story
was over. But when they arrived at his
tomb, they were shocked to discover that their friend was not there. Stunned, they went and told their friend’s
disciples – and then the rest of the world -- the good news.
And what was that good news?
It was this.
Death has been conquered. Hatred will not prevail. Injustice will be overcome. Love will triumph.
Christ has risen.
He has risen indeed.
Hallelujah.