1 Corinthians 15:9-22 | Göttinger Predigten im Internet

Choose life

Someone paid to erect a billboard that announced a joke often found in cartoons: “Jesus is coming—and, boy, is he mad!” It’s an interesting response to all the problems that humans have created in God’s world, everything from slavery to rape of the environment to war or to air pollution. Of course, the theological meaning of such a thought has to do with a final judgement, but it applies equally to Jesus’ resurrection appearance after the crucifixion.

There were those who wanted to silence Jesus’ words that called for mutual care and peaceful coexistence with all people. His voice troubled those who followed a judgemental and legalistic approach that excluded more people than it embraced. Feeling attacked and undermined, the spiritual leaders of the day actually found a way to silence him, to “do him in,” as the saying goes, using the most violent punishment available, crucifixion. When talk about resurrection began to surface, there were those who were really afraid. They could easily have worried that Jesus might be back and considered the possibility that he would be really mad. The great expressionist artist, Ernst Barlach, fashioned a sculpture of Thomas being reunited with Jesus after the resurrection. On the one hand Thomas looks up into the face to see if it’s really Jesus. On the other hand, Thomas searches the face to determine its expression. If this is Jesus, and the disciples were complicit in his betrayal leading to a crucifixion, is he red-hot angry?

One can take this a step farther and place Jesus within the context of his Jewish heritage. Jews for centuries before him had been subjected to violence, persecution and prejudice at the hands of the Romans, Egyptians, Greeks and Babylonians. Jesus could have absorbed the resentment that belonged to the Jews and be seriously troubled by their attempt to suppress one of their own. We can understand the concern in the face of Thomas.

However, it’s important for us to look at the post-resurrection face of Jesus as well. In it we will discover the meaning of Easter for us today. What Thomas saw (and we can only wonder at) was the face of the man who once said “love your enemies and be kind to them” (Luke 6:35). Thomas saw a countenance in a man who said “Shalom” to him. Surprise. No revenge. Just acceptance and peace. And implicit in that resurrected face was what we have come to know as forgiveness and love. Can we really understand what this means?

I ask the question because we daily look at atrocities on our TV screens that encourage all-too-human reactions. Admittedly, over the past decades wars have taken place in many countries of the world. Wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Chechen, Bosnia and Congo have raged on real terrain as well as across our television screens, but none to the degree of the current war between Russia and Ukraine. According to the British Market Research poll called YouGov, sixty percent of the people in the U.S. hate the Russians. What would we like to do with that hate? Remember, this is Easter.

The only countries with a greater dislike for Russia are geographically closer to it than the U.S. The assumption is that the intensity of U.S. hate for the Russians is largely the result of non-stop media coverage of atrocities in Ukraine. There is no counterpart throughout the world to America’s hate against Russia. While this is an interesting socio-political problem, the question Christians need to be asking themselves in the light of Easter is: “How are we supposed to deal with people who represent evil, destruction and death?” It is a serious question with which Christians should be wrestling. If we confront atrocities with retaliation and revenge, Jesus might ask, “Are you not committed to a cycle of non-stop death?” And if we ask Jesus why he chose to respond to atrocities with forgiveness, do we think he was crazy or can we believe that he had a greater understanding of and commitment to the fuller meaning of life than we do?

When Jesus returned from death to life, and perhaps this is the meaning of Easter for us, he asked us to choose life rather than death. He asked us to look death—and all the human systems that lead to death—in the face and say “Death is done!” He asked people in our world who destroy and murder to say “You don’t ever have to do this again!” Death, once and for all, happened at the cross when evil people said, “We want to settle life’s controversies our way. We want to deal a death blow where we think it counts!” “We want to wage a war to end all wars!” (Have we heard that before?) But Jesus said, “It is finished!” Choose life rather than death. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even if they die, shall live.” (Lk. 11:25) Jesus said that he would redirect us from ways of dying to explore ways of living. Of course, there is a physical death, but in our baptisms we have come to understand with Paul (Rom. 6: 3-11) that we have drowned our death and now we are raised to a life in Christ that will possess eternal future

This is the meaning of Easter for us. We now know that because we live in Christ and Christ lives in us, death and its power to destroy all that is good is done. If we were really to believe that today, what would it mean for you and me to contemplate a real future, to have confidence that the door to an eternal tomorrow is always open? On Palm Sunday, my wife and I attended the Milwaukee Symphony’s performance of Mozart’s Concerto No. 25 in C Major for piano and orchestra. The director was the Dutch, white-haired, Edo de Waart in his 80s and his fellow-countryman, the aging white-haired pianist, Ronald Brautigam. Mastery is the best word for both men who spent a lifetime perfecting their art. In front of me, we later learned from his mother, was a six-year-old boy who sat on a box so he could see. He was a piano student and watched Brautigam’s flurries on the keyboard with fascination. I reflected on the short span of life lying before the performers and the open future for the young potential prodigy. What a privilege and blessing it is to say “yes” to tomorrow, to all that God has in store for us, to everything that we who accept the promise of the resurrection will yet enjoy. What a privilege for Easter people—to be eternally young!

Eugene O’Neill wrote a great play about the meaning of ongoing future in the face of despair called “Lazarus Laughed”. After Lazarus had been resuscitated and restored to full life, he couldn’t stop laughing, much to the annoyance of all his friends. Finally, they put the question to him, “What do you know, Lazarus that we do not know?” Lazarus answered, “I know that there is no death. There is only life. There is only God. There is only incredible joy.” There is something extremely affirming about a faith that allows such belief. Let that be our Easter confidence as well– that because Jesus died and rose again, we too shall live with him forever. Our challenge this Easter is to reflect on how we can choose life instead of death. It is to trust that seeking life can replace revenge and retaliation. It is to remember that Jesus has come—and boy, are we glad!

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David Zersen, D.Min., Ed.D., FRHistS

President Emeritus, Concordia University Texas

djzersen@gmail.com