ON THE ROAD TO CHATTANOOGA -- THE MEANING OF THE RESURRECTION

ON THE ROAD TO CHATTANOOGA – THE MEANING OF THE RESURRECTION

            In one of Luke’s stories about the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the risen Jesus walks several miles on the road to Emmaus with some of his followers.  During this journey, where they walk and talk together, they do not recognize the risen Jesus – the followers assume that he is just another sojourner.  Only when they offer him hospitality in their home and supply him supper, only then do they recognize him.

            I had a similar experience on the road to Chattanooga in 1975.  Caroline and I were driving up to visit her parents in Chattanooga, and I was studying for my Presbytery exam to be ordained.  This was back when the southern Presbyterian Church still existed, and there were extensive examinations on the floor of the Presbytery meeting.  Caroline and I had just accepted a call to be co-pastors at St. Columba Presbyterian Church in Norfolk – we would be the first official clergy couple to serve in a local church in the PCUS.  Caroline had already been ordained to be a pastor by Atlanta Presbytery in 1973 to be a campus minister at Georgia Tech.  I was going over various doctrines to prepare for the Norfolk Presbytery exam. 

            Since Caroline has been my primary theologian for many decades, I felt hopeful when I asked her on that trip on I-75 about a doctrine that was giving me trouble.  “What do you think that the meaning of the Resurrection is?  I’m having trouble figuring that one out.”  At that point, I was not sure that I believed in life after death, and if I didn’t accept that, what could I say about the Resurrection during my Presbytery examination?

            Caroline answered:  “I don’t know what it means for life after death.  I’ll leave that part up to God.  But I see the Resurrection as a way of understanding our lives now.  It has more to do with our lives than our deaths.  In the Resurrection of Jesus, God is calling us into new life now, in this life.”  I knew then that I had met the risen Jesus, that my eyes had been opened, and I now could recognize the risen Jesus.  It was an answer that changed the way I looked at the Resurrection and at the Bible itself.  I came to see that the purpose of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not to get individuals into heaven, as I had been taught to believe by the heritage of the slaveholders. The purpose of Jesus Christ is to enable us to live in the presence of God now.  Just as God rolled away the stone from the tomb of Jesus on that Easter morning, so God continues to roll away the stone from the tomb of our hearts, so that we may be released from the power of death.  Strange to say, but I came to recognize the risen Jesus on the road to Chattanooga.

            We should note that this difficulty of recognizing the risen Jesus is a theme in the Resurrection stories in the Gospels.  As I mentioned earlier, the followers on the road to Emmaus have trouble recognizing Jesus.  In John’s Gospel, one of the primary disciples, Mary Magdalene, cannot recognize the risen Jesus, even though she is seeing him and talking with him.  He’s not a ghost – she thinks that he is the caretaker of the cemetery.   In Mark’s account, the women who come to the tomb of Jesus are so stunned by the news of the Resurrection that they don’t say anything to anybody. 

            In our reflections on Easter and the Resurrection, we should use this entry point, not as a sign that we are unfaithful but as a sign of the depth of our captivity.  We are so captured by the powers of the world, that like those first disciples, we have trouble recognizing the risen Jesus standing right in front of us.  The power of the Cross reminds us of our captivity, and the power of the Resurrection reminds us that death does not rule – not only when we die, but even more especially when we live.  The risen Jesus is out in front of us, calling us out of the tombs of death so that we, too, can have our hearts and our eyes opened to see the power of God in this life, right now.  Let us listen for those witnesses who are pointing us to the risen Jesus, so that we may find that same power that enabled those first disciples to stand up to the Roman Empire and to change the world.