Resurrection is a Reality
Every year at this time, one hears the old saw that Easter is about springtime, the renewal of nature, and the promise of the summer to come. Well, I bore of that. The only affirmation at Easter that moves me is the bone-jarring, intellect-offending, and mind-blowing assertion that a dead man arose from his grave as he said he would in the days before his death. That's the only kind of Easter worth singing about; it's the only kind of Easter that would inspire me to go to worship. Anything less than that is lame. Or to put it in Flannery O'Connor's words taken from a slightly different religious context, "If it's just a symbol, then the hell with it!" Easter is at the very least about the physical rising of Jesus Christ from death, but certainly nothing less than that. Happy Easter!
John Updike's (yes, that John Updike!) poem , "Seven Stanzas at Easter," says it all.
John Updike's (yes, that John Updike!) poem , "Seven Stanzas at Easter," says it all.
Make no mistake: if He rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.
It was as His body;
If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.
The same valved heart
That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.
And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.
Comments
The poem Seven Stanzas at Easter says it all.