[Dialogue] (no subject)

[kroegerd@aol.com]

May 17, 2006
Easter Imagined and Recreated 


As I mentioned last week my lifetime study of the five Easter narratives in the New Testament (I Corinthians 15:1-58, Mark 16:1-8, Matthew 28, Luke 24 and John 20, 21, listed in their historical time order) has led me to establish four clues through which I measure the authenticity of each resurrection account. I repeat them again because they are essential to my proposed reconstruction of the way Easter dawned at the birth of Christianity. 
The clues are as follows: (1) Galilee, not Jerusalem, is the setting in which Easter was first experienced; (2) Simon Peter is the person who stands in the center of that experience; (3) Easter’s power dawned well outside the liturgical time frame of three days, and (4) The interpretative context in which people entered the meaning of Easter was related somehow to the Last Supper. 
Armed with those four clues and an imagination born out of years of study of the gospels, I wrote my book: Resurrection: Myth or Reality: A Bishop’s Search for the Origins of Christianity. I use them now to create a speculative reconstruction of the moment when whatever Easter was broke into human history, but one that I believe is based on documentable clues. 
Jesus was crucified. The disciples forsook him and fled when he was arrested. Perhaps Simon did hang around the edges of this scene until he was identified as a suspicious fellow Galilean. The early church actually justified this apostolic behavior by quoting Zechariah to suggest that this desertion was in fact divinely programmed. No one seeks scriptural justification for something that did not happen. Jesus died alone. There were no witnesses to his death or burial. That is why the first story of the crucifixion, written by Mark, is not based on eyewitness accounts but has been crafted out of Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. 
After the arrest, the disciples scattered. It was every man for himself. I suspect that they traveled in small groups so as not to arouse suspicion. Peter alone, or perhaps in the company of Andrew, his brother, made his way out of Jerusalem. I would bet that he had vacated the city even before the inevitable moment of death came to Jesus on the cross. Where did he go? Well, we know that during the week prior to the crucifixion, the disciples made their headquarters in Bethany at the home of Mary and Martha. My guess is that Peter made for that destination since it was but a few miles east of Jerusalem, arriving late on that Friday before the start of the Sabbath at sunset. The mood of that household was one of intense grief, for Mary and Martha were disciples too. Indeed that Mary may also be the same Mary, whose nickname was Magdalene, although that cannot be proved. Magdalene, we now know, has nothing to do with the village of Magdala, for no record of the existence of such a village can be found. Magdalene, rather, appears to be connected with the Hebrew word ‘migdal,’ which originally meant a large tower but came to be a title given to this Mary that would be best translated “the large or great Mary.” John said it was this Mary who washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair in that same house in Bethany before the crucifixion. Every gospel portrays Mary, called Magdalene, as a mourner at Jesus’ tomb. The Fourth Gospel says she was the only mourner. She was clearly related to Jesus in some powerful way. 
The common elements of guilt and anger were present in their grief; guilt on the part of those who had abandoned him or denied him and anger toward those whose behavior might have contributed to his death. Traumatic grief is not pleasant. Blame is plentiful. I don’t believe that evening was a pleasant one for Peter, but he was trapped. He had no place else to go and the Sabbath was about to begin at sundown. Jewish law forbade the faithful from traveling on the Sabbath day more than 3/5 of a mile. When the Sabbath ended at sunset the next day I am confident that Peter and anyone traveling with him left immediately. One could walk between sundown and the utter darkness of night for a couple of hours before being driven to seek a spot to sleep probably in the fields beside the trail. However, at the first crack of dawn, well before sunrise, they would be off again and might get in five or six hours of travel before the heat of midday drove them to shelter where they would rest, picking up their journey again as the sun began to set. The walk from Jerusalem to Galilee was normally 7-10 days in duration. Peter was surely eager to put distance between the Jerusalem authorities and himself. 
My guess is that the disciples of Jesus straggled back to Galilee in small groups over a period of two or three weeks. Still traumatized and grief stricken, I doubt they did little more than deal with their pain for a period of days. During that time they inevitably talked about Jesus because that is what grieving people always do. Their lives had rotated around Jesus so completely that the absence they felt must have been intense. They had placed their hopes in him, but now he was dead. The religious authorities of the land had cooperated in his death. That death meant that the disciples were wrong, he was not the Messiah. They had no category called “dead Messiah” in which to hide or hope. So they endured their pain, lived into the loss and hoped that time would soon end the ache in their hearts. 
Days, weeks, perhaps even months passed before they began to emerge from this darkness. Finally, the combination of personal well-being and economic necessity compelled them to go back to work. They had been fishermen so perhaps Simon and his brother Andrew and the Zebedee boys, James and John, rented a boat and began to ply their trade. 
Fishing was a dull profession. The boats would go into the Sea of Galilee around midnight. The best catches were before dawn. The night’s catch would be sold in the markets by the early morning hours. Refrigeration did not exist. Life was a day-to-day activity. 
They filled the long hours of the night with conversation that focused inevitably on Jesus. Why not? That lake had been very familiar to Jesus. For them his message and his life could not be reconciled with his fate. He had so deeply opened them to God, to one another and to themselves. He had so lovingly called them to a new humanity not bound by tribe, prejudice, or even religion. He had taught them to love their enemies, to value each person whether that person be a leper, a woman taken in the act of adultery, a Samaritan, the rich young ruler, or the woman with the chronic menstrual discharge. How could God say ‘no’ to what Jesus was and still be God? But Jesus had died, they even believed, forsaken by the God he served. They could neither abandon the struggle nor make sense out of these apparent contradictions. 
As the weeks passed into months, the time for the great fall festival called Sukkoth drew near. This festival had to be celebrated in Jerusalem. The part of the Hebrew Scriptures associated with Sukkoth was II Zechariah 9-14. Jews were familiar with those words for they were read every year at the celebration. Inevitably the disciples heard Zechariah’s words in the context of their Jesus memories: “Behold your king comes lowly and riding on a donkey.” That was what Jesus acted out a week before his crucifixion. Zechariah went on to describe how those who bought and sold animals in the Temple had betrayed the shepherd king of Israel for thirty pieces of silver and how the city of Jerusalem had looked on him whom they pierced and mourned for him as one mourns for an only son. Peter turned these familiar words over and over in his mind as he fished night after night. He also began to contemplate a possible return to Jerusalem for the festival. Perhaps, he thought, enough time had passed so that it would be safe for him to go. 
One night on the lake, the disciples had no luck. On a hunch they tossed the nets on the other side of the boat and to their amazement hauled in a strikingly large catch. Pulling the nets ashore, they took the loaf of bread they carried on board with them, cleaned a few fish, and put them on a fire left on the shore and they prepared to break the fast with a hearty meal. 
As the senior member of this group, Peter took the bread and said the ceremonial blessing. Recalling Jesus’ words from his final meal with them at which he had likened the bread to his own body, Peter then broke the bread. In a flash of insight his mind opened to new possibilities. Perhaps, he thought, the death of Jesus was not God’s ‘no’ to all that Jesus meant. Perhaps it did not mean that God had abandoned him. Perhaps the complete giving of himself in death was, rather, the way Jesus lived out the meaning of God’s love. It dawned on Peter that the cross was not the end of Jesus, but was the only means through which he could reveal the reality of the God within him. That was why he said ‘do this in memory of me.’ Do what? Take this bread, bless it, break it and in that symbol see my body broken for you. Peter’s eyes were startled open and he saw visions that human eyes seldom see. He saw in Jesus a love that could not be quenched, a life that could not be destroyed, and a God presence that death could not disturb. Jesus became his doorway into all that God meant. For Peter it was an awakening. It was as if the veil in the Temple, separating the people of God from the Holy of Holies where God alone was thought to dwell, was split from top to bottom and Peter could look at Jesus and see into the heart of what God means. God and the life of Jesus were not separable. That was the resurrection moment. It happened in Galilee. It dawned in Peter. It was months after the crucifixion. It occurred inside the liturgical reenactment of the common meal. Peter shared his vision and the eyes of the others were opened. “When you are converted, Peter, strengthen your brethren.” Death cannot contain him, they shouted. We have seen the Lord, they exclaimed. And see him they did, for God is real and Jesus opened their eyes to see what God is and what God means. They lived in the power of this vision. Easter invites us to do the same. 
John Shelby Spong 
Note from the Editor: Bishop Spong's new book is available now at bookstores everywhere and by clicking here! 
Question and Answer
With John Shelby Spong
Norrie May-Welby, via the Internet, writes: 
In one of your recent Questions & Answers a woman asked about her friend saying “Go to God” for the ethics on homosexuality and you interpreted this as “go to the Bible.” You asked her to question the Old Testament principles that, as you point out, include not only homicidal homophobia but also ruthless misogyny and regulated slavery. Fair enough, but one can also point to God’s promise that no one who seeks him is excluded and his refutation of the use of laws to oppress humans. But on the point of “Go to God,” may I share that as a gay teenage Christian (thirty years ago), I had questions arising from the condemnation others put on my own romantic attraction. I didn’t go the Bible for answers. I went to God in my heart. I then knew deeply that my Creator neither hates me nor made me to be hateful nor hated and that my profound romantic love for a certain guy at school, a homosexual love if you like, was a divine gift. It may be that for many people if we “go to God” in our own hearts, we may have some feelings indicating whether we should buy into hateful divisive prejudices or find it in ourselves to love our neighbors as ourselves. 
Dear Norrie, 
Thanks for your beautiful letter and for sharing your personal story. When a fundamentalist condemning homosexuality says, “Go to God and you will find that my condemnation is also God’s condemnation, I am sure they mean read the Book of Leviticus! I go to the Bible daily and I find there Jesus quoted as saying, “Come unto me all ye,” not “Some of ye.” I find the God of Israel commanding that the people care for the stranger and embrace the outcast. I find Jesus stating that his purpose is to give life and give it abundantly. 
Whenever we diminish life in the name of God, which is what every prejudice does, we are violating the deepest purpose that we claim for the worship of God. 
Religious systems are not divinely created. They are intensely human, bearing all the marks of our survival-oriented self at the center of world humanity. Yet as you have experienced it, it has transcendent moments that change hearts and expand life. God is not bound by human religious systems. God is not a Christian; God is not a Jew, a Moslem, a Hindu or a Buddhist. Yet every system can lead its adherents beyond religion and into all that God means. Our hope for humanity lies in that path. We need to honor the pathways to God that millions walk in this world. If they lead us to a deeper humanity, they are all of God. If they result in our attempt to dominate, control, persecute or kill in the service of our religion, they are all destructive and evil. 
The Christian faith has produced its share of horror in 2000 years – The Crusades, the Holocaust, religious wars, the Inquisition, various persecutions, the diminishment of human life through slavery, the abuse of women, children and gay and lesbian people just to name a few. Christianity has also, however, produced lives of such transcendent beauty that they stand out from the rest of humanity in clear relief. I do wish that we would concentrate on producing more of the latter and less of the former. Your story will help by inspiring others to love their neighbors as themselves. 
John Shelby Spong 
 
 
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