Week 16—Wednesday John 20:24-29
Week 16—WEDNESDAY
WAS THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS
A SPIRITUAL RESURRECTION?
If there is a cross in God, is there also a resurrection in God? Bultmann says that “at the cross Jesus came to peace with Himself in His self-surrender to death. In the Resurrection He came to triumph in Himself.” But this is too much “in Himself.” At the cross there is the sense of a cosmic struggle. Jesus could not die in a room confined to four walls—only the open canopy of heaven with the blue sky for a dome would be befitting for such a death, for it affected the universe. The earth smote its breast in a vast shudder, like to an earthquake; nature felt it—the veil of the temple was rent in twain; religion felt it—the centurion smote his breast, pagan though he was, and cried, “Truly this was the Son of God!”; the Roman Empire felt it—the sky drew a dark veil over the tragedy; heaven felt it; God felt it, for it was God’s own heart wrapped in flesh and blood that was breaking on a cross.
Jesus was the cosmic God incarnate—the cosmic God being offering for the cosmos. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself” (1 Cor.5:19)—note, “the world,” not just coming to peace with God and not just redeeming us, but reconciling the whole creation unto God. If Jesus at the cross bears our sins in his own body and we are crucified with his crucifixion, then if he arises from the dead, we arise with him. We and the whole cosmos come up with him. We are alive in his resurrected Life—provided we identify ourselves with him.
But did Jesus just arise from the dead spiritually? If so, then only the spiritual is redeemed—the physical is left out of redemption, for it is left out of resurrection. If the Word became flesh is the center of the Christian faith, is the flesh left out of the final victory? Then the material world is left out of redemption—a part of incarnation but not of resurrection.
Dear Lord and Savior, did you leave out the material as too hard a proposition in rising from the dead? The material was in the Alpha, but not in the Omega. We cannot believe it. For having created the material you are redeeming it, too. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: In my flesh I shall see God, for I have seen God incarnate in flesh.