Dave Brisbin 4.5.26

There’s not a single tenet of Christian doctrine that’s not contested. Even within Christianity. The Resurrection is no exception. Christians agree that Jesus lives, but not how…physically, spiritually, collectively, some way we can’t imagine? Ultimately, it’s a matter of faith shaped by how literally we read scripture, but where can we go for guidance to meaning?

Of course, the gospels show us just where to look.

We focus on the supernatural miracle, debating veracity and mechanics, but the gospels focus on the effect of the miracle, not the event itself. The Resurrection happens offstage, no details, the story picking up afterward. The question the gospels are implying is not whether we believe the Resurrection, but what difference it makes that we believe. And that difference is not realized in mental assent to an offstage event, but a process that stretches from Easter Sunday to Pentecost.

A fascinating detail the gospels do preserve is that no one recognizes the risen Jesus. We wonder whether he looked different, but that misses the gospels’ point: that seeing the risen Jesus is a process of becoming ready to see the impossible, a process grounded in intimacy. Mary hears her name called in tones she’d heard a thousand times; Clopas sees Jesus break bread as he had a thousand more; for Peter, he’s cooking breakfast. The gospels show the process of re-experiencing intimacy—always the proof of identity for any human. The meaning of Resurrection is not out there in history or doctrine, but within us, in every intimate detail of our lives.

Gospels ask: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Life is motion. No motion, no life. Set beliefs are static, dead. If we look for the risen Jesus in books and beliefs, he is not there, any more than he was in the tomb. The gospels are showing us where to look—in the heart of every day life. If we can’t find Jesus in the moving miracle of life herenow, we’ve missed the meaning of Resurrection.

Jesus saw his Father in every intimate detail of his life. His friends couldn’t see he had risen until they saw him in every detail of theirs. And neither will we.