meditatio at the water's edge

I was asked to share a few reflections on "What the resurrection means to me", so I thought I'd share it with both of you.

I will once again betray the infulence of a certain British scholar-preacher, but so what? He's one of my teachers right now, and I'm not greater than my teacher. And in further defense (as if anyone cares...), I am taking some intellectual ownership of the things I'm studying from that certain British scholar-preacher. It's not just parroting anymore--I am really thinking that way now, for better or worse. I think it's for the better. (O man, I'm in one of these annoyingly introspective ruts...)


What does the resurrection mean to me? I grew up being fed the line that truth comes in the form of sterile proposition. Truth could be typed out on a computer and run through a printer. You could print truth on little pieces of paper, staple them together, and pass them out to strangers. Then they would have the truth in their hands. "Information Evangelism!" Truth was an irreducible logical set of propositions. You could take truth and present it in debates, which of course you would always win. And if you don't win the debate, you could walk away feeling good about yourself because, hey, "Some people won't listen to the truth."

The problem was that I started chasing after all the ‘right answers’. I wanted to get the ‘truth textbook’ and get a handle on the truth so I could use it to win arguments and get people to think like I do. Truth became a weapon (though a benevolent one, I assumed), and a weapon that could be mastered and weilded for conquest.

So I read books that concerned themselves with making a case for truth; presenting evidence that demanded a decision. I armed myself with propositions and proofs and all the words I needed to make a water-tight case for the truth. Okay, I tried, but what I found was that it always seemed to be one proposition away. I was never able to bring my information to bear on people and convince them.

It became clear to me that my problem was not that I didn’t have a long enough list of propositional statements. I had plenty of ‘reasons’. My problem was that I was missing the point. Gradually, I learned that truth isn’t a proposition, it’s a Person and a people who are indwelt by that Person.

The resurrection is not a matter of propositions and proofs. There are enough good reasons to put together a plausible case for it—and that is important—but proofs and propositions just don’t cut it for most people. Everybody has proofs and propositions, and they think theirs are the right ones.

For me, the resurrection means that truth has come in a Person: Jesus. He was vindicated as the Messiah when God raised him from the dead on the first day of the week so long ago. It wasn’t a proposition that spoke to Mary in the garden. It wasn’t a proposition that walked with the couple on their way home to Emmaus. It wasn’t a proposition that let Thomas see and touch the wounds. It wasn’t a proposition that forgave Peter for his denial. Easter means that truth has come in a person.

And that means that in our lives, we must bring truth as a people who are indwelt with that Person. The truth we present cannot come stapled together in a neat little booklet. It must come in the messy, yet beautiful lives we live: in the things we do and in the ways we relate to each other and to the hurting world around us.

As we experience the reality of having lives that have been crucified with Christ, and therefore raised to new life with him (i.e., not I but Christ that lives within me), people will recognize the verity of what we say. The resurrection is a call for us to move truth from idea to reality, from words to acts, from proposition to person.

And we can do this insofar as we have the Spirit of the Resurrected Master present and active in our lives—insofar as we live, not us, but Christ living within and among us.