“Easter Eggs” – 3 of 6

Subtitle: Seeds, kernels of theological refection about the meaning of Easter

Note: The following is the revised text of a theological reflection I shared with my parish community, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Spartanburg, South Carolina, during tonight’s livestream of An Order for Compline from the Book of Common Prayer.

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Continuing tonight with another, what I call, “Easter Egg”; a seed or kernel of a theological refection about the meaning of Easter.

“Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!”

On Sunday night, I said that many, perhaps, most people view Easter as miraculous. Jesus was crucified and died, and then came back to life.

Last night, I said that others view Easter as fiction. Jesus died and his body returned to dust. Thus, the stories of his resurrection were made-up tales to justify his disciples’ subsequent claims of his divinity.

Tonight, I say that for still others, Easter is not a fictional story, but one with mythic elements.

(By “myth,” I don’t mean a falsehood, but rather something not historical, which, nevertheless, points to a truth. For example, the Genesis creation stories, as I interpret them, are beautiful Hebrew poetic narratives, thus, not historical accounts of how all things came to be, but express the truth of the belief that God created all things.)

So, from this viewpoint, Jesus, metaphorically speaking, was raised up to a continuing life in the body of his followers. A following two millennia-long and running embodied in that community called the Church.

This is a fair point of view. I understand how someone can think this, believe this.

But this doesn’t explain some of the very real historical experiences of some very real and rational people who, through the centuries, have testified to having encountered the living presence of Jesus.

To be continued…