Eucatastrophic Resurrection

Edited and reposted from Resurrection Sunday, 2013.

You know when you’re reading a story, especially a thriller or a mystery and there’s a lovely little (or big) twist at the end that is completely unexpected? It’s not where you thought the story was headed, not how you thought it would end, but it works. The ending or surprising climactic scene is something you never would have predicted, and at the same time it’s just what the story needed to tie or untie all the plot knots and make everything come out just right. The story, factually, and in mood and quality, succeeds.

Well, Jesus’s resurrection is sort of like that unforeseen but perfect ending. If I were the Author (thank God I’m not) of the story of creation, sin and redemption, I wouldn’t have been able to dream up the resurrection, not in a million years. My story, if I had been creative enough to write one at all, would have ended with the crucifixion. Jesus, a good man, lived and taught and died—an innocent sacrifice to the cruelty and blindness of both the Romans and the Jews. It’s a sad story, a tragedy, but perhaps one with a moral to it: we humans are hopelessly lost, and we have a tendency to kill those who tell the truth and demonstrate radical love and self-sacrifice.

Maybe we’ll do better next time, having learned the lesson of Jesus. Probably not.

Jesus is dead at the end of my story. He’s really, truly dead, by the way; this isn’t the sort of story where the hero was only mostly dead but turns out to be revivable. A Roman spear was thrust into his side. His body was sealed in a tomb with a big rock across the entrance, a seal of some kind over the rock, and Roman guards posted outside so that no one could steal the body and pretend to resuscitate it. Jesus’s followers were scattered, demoralized, and discouraged.

And then—the surprise hits me in the face, if I haven’t become inured to the shock from having heard the story so many times. On Sunday some women go to visit Jesus’s tomb, and they meet an angel who tells them that Jesus is not dead. He’s alive!

Whoa, whoa, whoa—wait! You mean the story is that he didn’t really die; he just got badly injured, but he was able to recover and make his way out of the tomb. Or he was a magician with a magic protection coat that made spears and nails seem to pierce him but not really hurt him at all. You mean he became a ghost and appeared to people in a spirit form. Or he was just asleep and looked dead.

Nope, Jesus was dead, and now he’s alive again. Resurrected, as Christians term it.

Could you have predicted that the Author of the human story would have inserted himself into history, allowed himself to suffer and to be killed at the hands of his own creatures, and then . . . come alive again? JRR Tolkien invented the term “eucastrophe”, meaning “a dire situation which is nevertheless salvaged through some unforeseeable turn of events.” (Wikipedia, Eucatastrophe) A resurrection is a really unforeseeable turn of events.

But, and here’s the kicker, the resurrection makes the story work. Without the resurrection, we have a weak, powerless, probably dead god who maybe had good intentions? Without the resurrection of Jesus there is no resurrection, no life after death, for any of us either. Paul said in I Corinthians 5:17, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” If Jesus is not alive, we have no hope of knowing God or having friendship with Him or making any kind of connection. He’s either dead or so distant that we can never get there from here. Without the resurrection, the whole story of human history, including the story of that “good man” Jesus, is essentially meaningless.

When I say story, I mean a True Story. If we are real, actual entities living in a real, fallen world full of real evil, we need a Real, Resurrected Savior who physically not only died but rose from the dead to reign over all things eternally.

And lo and behold, eucatastrophe!(I like that word), in a three-day turn of events I could never have scripted or invented or predicted, Jesus not only died and was buried, but he also rose from the dead and lives eternally. “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” (Hebrews 7:25)

We serve a living, creative God of eucatastrophic artistry and imagination. And we have a Risen Savior because of the story-making ability and sacrifice of that same God.

Hallelujah! Eucatastrophe! (Thanks, Tolkien, and with some intellectual indebtedness to my pastor’s sermon this morning.)

Saturday Review of Books: Easter Weekend

Mar26

Sorry, folks, I meant to leave an explanatory post telling one and all that The Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon is on hiatus this Saturday in honor of the Resurrection holiday. I’ve posted some Easter reviews and lists and other thoughts for any visitors to peruse, and you’re all invited back next Saturday to participate in the Saturday Review, back on schedule.

In the Marketplace by Sandol Stoddard

Mar26

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. Matthew 27:51-53

This is the day when we do without Christ.
There seems, at first, to be little difference.
Only yesterday the ancient veil was rent,
And the earth shuddered and the dark grew vast;
But today, nothing happens, nothing at all.
TV sets flicker idly in empty rooms,
Showing again and again the same cartoons.
People circle aimlessly in the Mall
Where the Easter bunny struts his stuff before
Disinterested kids, ands cellophane grass
And plastic eggs are bought same as last year
Indeed, there is no news to tell but this:
The graves all are opened, and the living dead
Now walk among us—- or, so it is said.
By Sandol Stoddard

Funny Eggs

Mar26

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. I John 3:2

If Easter Eggs Would Hatch by Douglas Malloch

I wish that Easter eggs would do
Like eggs of other seasons;
I wish that they hatched something too.
For—well, for lots of reasons.
The eggs you get the usual way
Are always brown and white ones
The eggs you find on Easter Day
Are always gay and bright ones.

I’d love to see a purple hen,
A rooster like a bluebird,
For that would make an old bird then
Look really like a new bird.
If Easter eggs hatched like the rest,
The robin and the swallow
Would peek inside a chicken’s nest
To see what styles to follow.

The rooster now is pretty proud,
But wouldn’t he be merry
If roosters only were allowed
To dress like some canary!
And wouldn’t it be fun to catch
A little silver bunny!
If Easter eggs would only hatch,
My, wouldn’t that be funny!

Not to project too fine a point onto a simple imaginative poem, but how do we know what we might become when we are someday “hatched” into new resurrected bodies? We will be like Him, and we will be the continuing and eternal creation of a very creative God.

My, won’t that be funny!

Hymn to Christ

Mar26

Edited and reposted from Easter, 2013.

“Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:6-11

Christian songwriter and artist Michael Card writes in his book (co-written with his wife, Susan), The Homeschool Journey: Windows into the Heart of a Learning Family:

“In Philippians 2:6-11 we find a wonderful passage of Scripture that was a hymn used in the worship services of the early church. Known as the “Carmen Christi” or “hymn to Christ” it is a song that first-century spies overheard the Christians singing at a time when the church was meeting in secret. It was a hymn which undoubtedly afforded them a measure of comfort in their trials because it offered a vision of Christ was and what he had accomplished.

In this hymn, Jesus’ incarnation is highlighted by its three central characteristics: servanthood, humility, and radical obedience. It is from this simple, ancient song that Susan and I derive our vision of who Jesus is and what he means to us. It is the vision that shapes our individual lives, our marriage, our family life, and even the way we choose to educate our children.”

Are we serving one another with humility and in obedience to Jesus Christ who gave himself for us? Are we waiting patiently on the Lord of all things in heaven and on earth, making ourselves like Him in our actions here on earth so that we can be with Him in heaven?

Now that’s an Easter goal that embodies the Christ-like

Easter’s Coming by Aileen Fisher

Mar26

Through the sunshine,
through the shadow,
down the hillside,
down the meadow,
little streams
run bright and merry,
bursting with the news
they carry,
singing, shouting,
laughing, humming,
“Easter’s coming,
Easter’s coming!”
By Aileen Fisher

It is coming. Hang on.

Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy

Mar26

Resurrection, Tolstoy’s last novel, is the story of the nobleman, Nekludof and the prostitute, Katusha. Katusha is condemned to hard labor in Siberia for murder, but Nekludof, a member of her jury, recognizes her as the girl that he seduced and ruined as a youth. He feels responsible for her fate, and he works to redeem her, and then, eventually, recognizing his own sin and degradation, to redeem himself.

Quotations:

“Men are like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man bears in himself the germs of every human quality; but sometimes one quality manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man.”

“To understand the whole of the Master’s will is not in my power. But to do His will that is written in my conscience is in my power.”

“The interest of her whole life lay in searching for opportunities to serve others just as the sportsman searches for game. And the sport had become the habit, the business, of her life, and she did it so naturally that those who knew her were no longer grateful, but simply expected it of her.”

The last quote describes Engineer Husband in some ways; not me, however much I might wish to be a joyful and habitual servant.

Easter Eggs

Mar26

What about Easter eggs?

Do you have an Easter egg hunt at your house? What do you tell your urchins about Easter eggs? Who hides the eggs? What do you put inside? Or do they come already basketed to your front door? What do Easter eggs have to do with the celebration of Easter? Have you ever had an egg tree? What else do any of my readers have to suggest about Easter eggs?

Here’s a post on what we usually do with Easter eggs in Semicolon-land.

The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock

Mar25

It was Easter, two years after Father Peregrine had come to be their abbott. Easter, the greatest feast of the Christian year, and all the local people had come up to the abbey, and the guest house was full of pilgrims come to celebrate the feast of the Resurrection. So many people, so many processions, so much music! So many preparations to be made by the singers, the readers, those who served at the altar and those served in the guest house, not to mention those who worked in the kitchens and the stables. The abbey was bursting with guests, neighbors, relatives, and strangers.

The Easter Vigil was mysterious and beautiful, with the imagery of fire and water and the Paschal candle lit in the great, vaulted dimness of the abbey church. Brother Gilbert the precentor’s voice mounted joyfully in the triumphant beauty of the Exultet; all the bells rang out for the risen Lord, and the voices of the choirboys from the abbey school soared with heart-breaking loveliness in the music declaring the risen life of Jesus. Easter Day itself was radiant with sunshine for once, as well as celebration. Oh, the joyful splendor of a church crammed full of people, a thundering of voices singing, ‘Credo –I believe.’

In The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock, an English mother tells her daughters, especially her fifteen-going-on-grown-up daughter Melissa, stories about their long ago ancestor, the abbot of a Benedictine abbey, and the monks under his care. The stories are deceptively simple and quotidian: stories of forgiveness asked and given, monks who are injured and need healing, others who don’t fit into the abbey life and must learn to do so. However, these are the same issues that Melissa, her mother and sisters must deal with in daily family life, and they’re the same things we try to iron out and work through here at Semicolon House.

In the other two books in the trilogy, the brothers of St. Alcuin monastery continue to work together and grow in community. They also grow older and must confront the difficulties that old age brings in its train. In fact, the third book in the series is about death and dying and living with serious impairments —all to the glory of God. It’s quite timely in these days of “death with diginity” and compassion redefined as hurrying the dying into death, but it may be a bit too much for children. Again, I think the entire family will enjoy at least the first two books in the trilogy.

A few more excerpts:

“Theodore saw his hopes of a new beginning turn to ashes in the miserable discovery that even men who had given their whole lives to follow Christ could be irritable, sharp-tongued, and hasty.” How many new Christians upon becoming involved in a church have stumbled over that particular realization? Monasteries, and churches, are simply places for imperfect people to come and begin to learn to serve and show kindness and love, not places where the already perfected live in flawless harmony.

Fifteen year old Melissa to her teacher in English class: “Mother says, that love is only true love when it shows itself in fidelity, —ummmm, faithfulness. She says if a person has the feeling of love, but no faithfulness, his love is just self-indulgent sentimentality. And that’s what Shelley was like, isn’t it? He wrote fine peoms to his wife and his lovers, but he wasn’t a faithful man. So how can his poetry about love be worth anything if his love in real life wasn’t worth anything?” From the mouths of babes, can an untrue person write truly? Can he write true poetry that he hasn’t lived in some fashion, however imperfectly?

“Mother said these stories were true, and I never knew her tell a lie . . . but then you could never be quite sure what she meant by “truth”; fact didn’t always come into it.”

I assure you that the stories in Ms. Wilcock’s Hawk and the Dove trilogy are quite true —as fiction sometimes is.

Movies for Resurrection Weekend

Mar25

I thought I’d suggest a few of my favorite movies that seem particularly appropriate for watching this week:

Ben Hur. Directed by William Wyler. Adapted from the book by General Lew Wallace. Starring Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, and Haya Harareet.

Lilies of the Field (1963). I love the nuns and Sidney Poitier as their hired man. This is a wonderful movie about faith and determination and the meeting of three cultures—Black American, German Catholic, and Mexican American. They all manage to somehow, by the grace of God, build something wonderful in the middle of the desert. Another redemptive and inspiring film.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972). Director Franco Zefferelli tells the story of St. Francis re-imagined as a 60’s flower child. It’s set in the late Middle Ages, but it’s veryvery sixties. Still, I loved it when I first saw it, and I watched again a couple of years ago and still found it beautiful. Mileage will vary according to your tolerance for hippie historical.

Prince of Egypt (1998). In spite of the vague “spirituallty” and a few distortions of fact, I thought this movie was very well done. The chariot race at the beginning is a nice nod to Ben Hur, and for the most part, the film was both reverent and dramatically compelling. Not just for kids.

The Hiding Place (1975). Jeanette Clift George is the director of AD Players here in Houston, and she stars in this movie as Corrie Ten Boom, a middle-aged Dutch Christian who is caught hiding Jews in her home during the Nazi occupation of Holland. It’s an inspirational movie from a Christian worldview about sin and suffering and redemption.

Life Is Beautiful(La vita e bella, 1979). This film is in Italian with subtitles; it’s about a Jewish man and his son and his wife being placed into a concentration camp during World War II. However, it’s sort of a comedy or maybe a tragicomedy. Anyway, it’s very moving and bittersweet. Not for children.

Fiddler on the Roof (1971). Tevye the Jewish milkman talks to God and tries to understand his wife Golde and looks for husbands for his six daughters. Unfortunately, the world is changing, and the dependable things in Tevye’s life are becoming few and far between. Nothing to do with Passover or the Resurrection, but it just feels right for Passover week.

The Ten Commandments (1956). Biblical epic directed by Cecil B. DeMille. I prefer Prince of Egypt, but no one should miss Charlton Moses.

The Robe (1953).I prefer the book, but the movie is vintage 1950’s Hollywood with Richard Burton and Victor Mature.

Jesus, aka The Jesus film (1979). This movie is the most watched film of all time; missionaries show it to rapt audiences all over the world. Based on the gospel of Luke, it’s Biblically accurate and well made. Resurrection week (before or after Easter Sunday) seems like a good time to review —or find out for the first time —who Jesus really was and what he really said and did. After the movie, read The Book.