Years ago I took a theology class to an Eastern Orthodox Easter divine liturgy. The cathedral was packed, but I had called ahead and my friend, the dean of the cathedral, had reserved seats for us in the back (as requested). I had told my undergraduate theology students not to go forward for the eucharist but to wait and go forward for the bread of fellowship after the service or at the end of it. A kind usher came to us and instructed us to stand and join the whole congregation in moving forward to the front. I had forgotten to tell the students what to say when the priest, in this case the dean, offered the bread and said \u201cChrist is risen!\u201d The people in front of us were quiet as they whispered \u201cHe is risen indeed,\u201d so the young student from California who led our procession didn\u2019t hear the response. I saw her step in front of Father Wojcik as he handed her the bread of fellowship and said \u201cHe is risen indeed.\u201d She took the bread, looked at him and said \u201cHe sure is!\u201d<\/p>\n
Father Wojcik got a good laugh out of that. Later, during the question and answer time, he made clear to us that her response was entirely appropriate and he enjoyed it because it was unexpected and unusual\u2013out of the routine.<\/p>\n
I have many good memories of Easter but many of them include snow and darkness. You see, I grew up in the Upper Midwest and often Easter was during winter\u2013and I mean winter as in weather: cold, limited sunlight, wind, snow.\u00a0 More often than not our (my brother\u2019s and my) \u201cEaster egg hunt\u201d had to be held indoors. Our church always held an \u201cEaster Sunrise Service\u201d early on Easter Sunday morning. After that we retired to a large room with a kitchen attached in the nearby \u201cSettlement House\u201d for breakfast. (That room served as our church\u2019s fellowship hall.) Then came Sunday school and worship.<\/p>\n
One year, when I was a child and Easter came later than usual, when it was really and truly finally spring, our Easter Sunrise Service was held outdoors\u2013in a cemetery. The pastor, my father, obtained permission from the cemetery. The sun began to rise as we stood there singing \u201cLow in the grave he lay\u201d and then \u201cUp from the grave he arose!\u201d The focus of the service that Easter was on the dead all around us being raised to new life\u2013just like Jesus.\u00a0 (My mother\u2019s grave was near where we stood, so that made it especially meaningful and memorable.)<\/p>\n
This past week, during \u201cHoly Week,\u201d I heard one of the best sermons on the resurrection, our resurrection (because of Jesus\u2019 resurrection), that I have ever heard. The preacher was my colleague Joel Gregory, a true pulpit master. Not many preachers can move the congregation to tears one moment, laughter the next, and deep thought the next. Joel\u2019s focus was 1 Corinthians 15:44 and 2 Corinthians 5:1. His sermon sparkled with intriguing illustrations and stories from his own ministry but also with references to theologians such as Oscar Cullmann (famous for rejecting the \u201cimmortality of the soul\u201d as a Greek doctrine in favor of the \u201cresurrection of the body\u201d).<\/p>\n
I especially appreciated that Joel emphasized that Jesus\u2019 resurrection body was and ours will be \u201cspiritual bodies,\u201d not \u201cphysical bodies.\u201d Paul\u2019s phrase is \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd and he contrasts it with \u201cphysical body.\u201d Resurrection is not resuscitation of a corpse\u2013even to everlasting corporeal existence (unless \u201ccorporeal\u201d means simply \u201cbodily\u201d). Not long ago I preached at a church whose statement of faith, printed in the bulletin, included belief in a \u201cphysical resurrection.\u201d I find that many conservative Christians think the resurrection body will be material. Joel made clear he wasn\u2019t talking about us becoming \u201cghosts\u201d or phantoms. But neither will we (nor was Jesus) revived corpses. What we will be is a mystery; we can\u2019t really understand it except to say there will be continuity and discontinuity between our present bodies and our resurrection bodies.<\/p>\n
Just hours after hearing that chapel sermon I led my students in discussion of the theology of Paul Tillich. (I wrote the chapter on Tillich in Stan Grenz\u2019s and my 20th Century Theology book [IVP 1992] and have recently rewritten it for the forthcoming The Journey of Modern Theology.) Although Tillich had many great ideas, he was most to be pitied because he did not believe in a resurrection of the dead. When he died he probably believed in reincarnation, but it\u2019s impossible to know for sure. (According to his wife she \u201cread him over\u201d using The Tibetan Book of the Dead at his request.) Tillich agreed with Bultmann that the resurrection of Jesus was a \u201crestitution of faith\u201d in the lives of the disciples. We look forward to no bodily resurrection (according to him).<\/p>\n
One of the strangest Easters in my life was when I was a Ph.D. student at Rice University in Houston. The chairman of the Religion Department, my mentor Niels Nielsen, was preparing me to go to Germany to study for a year with Wolfhart Pannenberg who was the subject of my dissertation project. I had to raise some of the money myself, but he set up appointments with several wealthy women who had contributed to such fellowships for Rice students in the past. On Easter Sunday afternoon, 1981, I drove into an estate owned by one of the wealthiest women in the world. The estate was in Houston\u2013hidden in one of the most luxurious neighborhoods of the city. The mansion was so decrepit that I wasn\u2019t sure it was where she lived. Eventually she came to the door and bid me enter. She had been cutting white lilies from her garden and had some in her hand. After our strange conversation she handed one to me and said \u201cThis is to remember the resurrection of the spirit, not the body.\u201d During our conversation I found out that she had been a close friend of Tillich\u2019s and he was even buried on property she owned in Indiana. She had a special \u201croofless chapel\u201d built for his burial site. She was a leader of Houston\u2019s Jung Society (dedicated to the study of Carl Jung\u2019s philosophy). She was one of the strangest people I have ever met, but she gave me some money to go study with Pannenberg, so I\u2019m grateful to her.<\/p>\n