John 20

Monday, March 4, 2013

John 20

This is the simplest telling of the resurrection story that I remember reading.  Perhaps I'm just more used to conflated versions.

We start with Mary Magdalene telling the boys that the body is gone (no angels rebuking them for even looking) then them coming to see for themselves and going away even more downhearted.  And then Mary Magdalene, who is still suffering, who must have depended on Jesus in ways that the boys (who never had seven demons in them) cannot really imagine, just stays there crying until Jesus appears to her.

And I wonder if that was part of the official plan or if Jesus took pity on her.  I wonder if this was a moment that lets us know that even the resurrected Jesus is still very human.  Capable of the closest thing to improvisation an omniscient God can ever reach.  Who saw his friend suffering and appeared early.

After all, why does He tell Mary not to touch Him when, later in the same chapter, Thomas is permitted to check his nail marks?

Doubting Thomas, I've always felt, gets rather a bad rap.  I always felt for him.  Of course he thinks they've all gone a bit mad!

But then I remembered all the wonders they have seen.  How Jesus has brought at least two separate people back from the dead.  Even with all that they went through in the last few days, even with the sudden change in what they thought Jesus was here to do, surely Thomas should have at least heard them out.  But perhaps no one had ever said to him, in plain terms, just what he was being asked to believe before.

I notice that's a Fundamentalist Atheist tactic - saying your sacred story back to you in reductive, simplistic terms.  It's a weapon that's never worked very well on me because I kind of love that about religion - that it is the absurd made holy, that it is the thing that is true despite sense and reason and all the things that are supposed to govern our lives.  It is the thing that is other and More than all those things, so of course it seems ridiculous when you try to explain using the words for things that aren't More.

Or was it more about a more ordinary and less evangelical kind of skepticism?  Less "that grilled cheese looks like Jesus" and more "but if this is real guys, why isn't He here now?  Doesn't it sound odd that He's only here when only you guys are here?  When only you, who have been cooped up alone together in this room and not eating well and scared out of your minds, are the only ones here?  That Mary Magdalene only saw Him when she was having a major breakdown?  None of those things raise a red flag?"  It's at least more honest and fair.  It's the kind of skepticism that is happy to accept the nail holes in Jesus's hands when they stand before Thomas.  It's the kind of skepticism that just doesn't want to pour energy down the wrong well.

But how much more glorious is it to believe.  How much more productive is it to believe and build rather than find reasons not to believe?  I think that's what Jesus means by blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.  Blessed are those who don't need to examine every possible miracle.  How much more full of wonder are those who don't feel the need to make CERTAIN before letting religion or miracles or even simple pure motivations for good works enrich their lives.

Skeptics...I feel for skeptics, as I understand their language about many more mundane things.  But how blessed are those who can hear of wonders and just...believe.  Not look for reasons why the world is not that wonderful and fantastic.  Just believe.