{"id":23123,"date":"2014-04-19T09:55:44","date_gmt":"2014-04-19T13:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=23123"},"modified":"2014-04-19T09:55:44","modified_gmt":"2014-04-19T13:55:44","slug":"happily-easter-after","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/04\/happily-easter-after.html","title":{"rendered":"Happily Easter After"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It is Easter, and I celebrate and proclaim resurrection.<\/p>\n

\"\"I am not referring to a peculiar event which some claim happened in history roughly 2,000 years ago, in which a human (or, according to some, a just barely human divine entity) was raised to life in a body he didn\u2019t need, before being exalted to heaven where such a body is out of place, to be seated at the right hand of a God who most would say is everywhere and has no literal left or right.<\/p>\n

Too many focus on this story, typically ignoring just how truly puzzling (not to mention seemingly\u00a0unbelievable<\/a>) its details are, and insist on its literal truthfulness. Indeed, faith is defined by many as lowering one\u2019s standards sufficiently to allow assent to be given despite the difficulties, or as ignoring those difficulties altogether. Those are very dubious and dangerous definitions of \u201cfaith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet I understand why some want to do that. Easter Sunday is the \u201chappily ever after\u201d of the Jesus story.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, as a liberal follower of Jesus, I have to acknowledge that many of those who have followed on the path of Jesus have been killed for their stance. I think in particular of the Martin Luther King.<\/p>\n

He was not rescued from death through a bodily resurrection. But his spirit lives on in the impact that he had and continues to have.<\/p>\n

If Jesus is worth following, it is because of the life he lived \u2013 a life that classic creeds<\/a> have happily ignored, jumping from a miraculous birth to his death, as though miracles were the only things that really matter.<\/p>\n

A liberal Christian perspective considers that it matters how Jesus lived, and that it matters how we live \u2013 and that our lives can have an impact not because we are miraculously saved from death, but because we have lived in such a way that those famous words become true: \u201cif you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transcending death not merely by living forever, but by really dying, and yet still living on through the power of how we lived in the intensity of our limited years \u2013 that can be resurrection, immortality, eternal life, in an even more powerful sense than the more popular meaning of simply \u201cnot dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

A faith that allows for hope that even death can be transcended, and not merely survived<\/em>, has the power to transform lives. Far from being a disappointment compared with the hope that one\u2019s ego will never be extinguished, I believe it offers an even more powerful message, one that is worth proclaiming. It is not the self-centered \u201cbelieve\/do this to acquire immortality\u201d but rather the call to self-sacrifice, \u201ctake up your cross and follow me\u201d \u2013 being willing not merely to die believing that death doesn\u2019t matter, but precisely because death does matter, but need not be the end in any sort of absolute sense, making one\u2019s self-sacrificial life matter all the more.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere around the blogosphere, on matters of Jesus, Easter, resurrection, Christology and the like, the following posts are worth noting:<\/p>\n

Roger Wolsey<\/a> reflected on the insurrection of the resurrection.<\/p>\n

Kate Cooper<\/a> blogged about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and Glastonbury.<\/p>\n

Anthony Le Donne<\/a> shared a link to an interview with him in <\/a>Macleans<\/a>, <\/em>on whether Jesus was married.<\/p>\n

Otagosh has a post with the title \u201cBad Boy Bart vs. the Barbarians<\/a>.\u201d Nijay Gupta<\/a> has begun reviewing Ehrman\u2019s book, while Daniel Kirk<\/a> has finished his review series.<\/p>\n

And finally, please, please don\u2019t think that adding the word \u201cquantum\u201d<\/a> to the Easter story is helpful.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is Easter, and I celebrate and proclaim resurrection. I am not referring to a peculiar event which some claim happened in history roughly 2,000 years ago, in which a human (or, according to some, a just barely human divine entity) was raised to life in a body he didn\u2019t need, before being exalted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":23133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[1846,2522,2936,3158,5677,6527,6561,7062,10276],"class_list":["post-23123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-progressive-christianity-religion","tag-christianity-religion","tag-death","tag-easter","tag-eternal-life","tag-jesus","tag-liberal","tag-life","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-resurrection"],"yoast_head":"\nHappily Easter After<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It is Easter, and I celebrate and proclaim resurrection. 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