April 2007

From the Pastor

Dear Co-laborers with Christ,

There is an old story that says that the British playwright, critic, and avowed skeptic, George Bernard Shaw, once sent a telegram to his friend the Archbishop of Canterbury during the season of Lent. The communication read: “Cancel Easter. Body found.” The joke has been making the rounds of college and university campuses ever since, and one can imagine the Archbishop himself even having a chuckle over it.

It was funny at the time, but few practicing Christians ever took it seriously. After all, the raising of Jesus from death, the fundamental belief on which the Christian religion is based, has always been taken for granted.

So the latest announcement from James Cameron (the Canadian director of the film Titanic) and his colleague Simcha Jacobovici, that 10 stone coffins unearthed by archeologists in a Jerusalem suburb once held the bones of Jesus, his parents, Mary and Joseph, his wife, Mary of Magdala, and their son, Judah, has aroused near-hysteria among some Christians, but has been greeted with polite indifference by modern liberal thinkers.

In any case, the resurrection has always been a matter of faith, not of proof. The resurrection accounts in the four gospels were not written by eyewitnesses, and none of the writers claims that anyone actually saw Jesus coming out of the tomb. There have been hundreds of scholarly dissertations trying to explain the nature of such an unnatural event, and the idea was first brought to popular notice in 1906 by Albert Schweitzer, in his book The Quest of the Historical Jesus.

Dem bones, dem bones, did they really rise again? And if they didn't, did the coffins unearthed in Talpiyot in 1980 once contain the remains of the family from Nazareth? And should we take Cameron's documentary, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, seriously, or dismiss it as being as fanciful as The Da Vinci Code?

And the greatest question of all: Does it matter one way or the other?

If the risen Jesus was seen first by Mary of Magdala, then later by many of his other disciples, in what form did he appear? Obviously not in his pre-crucifixion body for, according to the Luke and John gospels, the resurrected Jesus could appear and disappear at will, even morphing through locked doors, but at the same time he allowed Thomas to touch the wound in his side, and cooked and ate fish on the shores of Galilee.

Hundreds of people vowed they saw Jesus in the flesh after the crucifixion, and who are we to argue with them? People often see what they want to see, and one modern way of explaining these apparitions is that Jesus had such a powerful personality that many people felt his presence even after he was dead, just as there are people today who swear that their deceased loved ones come and talk to them. Who is to say that any of these people are wrong? We have no proof, either for or against, that would satisfy modern scientific research.

There is a great difference between the Jesus of history and the Christ of theology. We can be pretty sure that a man called Yeshua or Jesus was born, probably in Bethlehem, about 5BC. A devout Jewish peasant, an itinerant preacher and healer, he was crucified by the Roman government about AD30. That much can be established by sources outside the four gospels as well as the gospels themselves, and this man is the Jesus of history.

On the other hand there is the Christ of faith, a figure created by the Pauline movement, the divine Son of God who was raised from death and later took his resurrected body up into the heavens, where he reigns forever as part of the Trinity. Paul describes his life-changing encounter with the risen Lord in dramatic detail, but never mentions the empty tomb. For Paul, the importance of the resurrection is found in the life of faith that Christians live day to day, and hope for a promise that is foreshadowed by the “first fruits” of Christ’s resurrection that will be fulfilled in God’s future. There is no historical or scientific proof for this version of Jesus, which is purely a concept of faith.

But it doesn't mean that people can't believe in his importance and that of the movement that was created in his name, or that they shouldn't try to live by the values he espoused.

And after more than 2000 years, what is more important: The bones (or lack of them), or the teachings of Jesus and the resurrection hope that has been proclaimed from the very beginning.

For people of the faith, the resurrection is a once and future event. It is far more than a question about a resuscitated corpse (a claim which scripture never makes – Jesus’ resurrection body is clearly a different kind of material, a foretaste of the new creation). It is the assurance that God does not abandon his beloved creation even in the face of death. It is the fountain of hope that sustains and refreshes us even when we pass through the valley of shadow and live with grief. The resurrection is not primarily about history (though it is attested to in history), or about the future (though that is where the promise is fulfilled by God’s grace). It is about the present hope that gets us through the day, that gives purpose to our lives, and assures us that God never leaves our side, no matter what.

See you in church!

Faithfully, your pastor,

B. Penrose Hoover

From the Associate Pastor

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

            Christ is risen!  CHRIST IS RISEN!  CHRIST IS RISEN!  To which some may reply, “Yeah, yeah.
So he is risen.  What does that mean for my life?  What does that mean for the world?”  The proper
response, of course, to that phrase, “Christ is risen,” is “HE IS RISEN INDEED!”  But it is one thing to
respond mechanically, saying, “He is risen indeed.”  It is another thing to wholly believe it in our heart.

            The other day I watched the movie Contact again on television.  In that movie there is a scene
Where Tom Skerritt’s character is explaining to Jodie Foster’s character that the world is just not a fair
place and that she had better learn to accept it, for that is just the way the world is.  She responds,
“Funny, I always believed the world is what we make of it.”  The world is what we make of it.

            Sure, it can appear that the world is unjust and that life is unfair.  To that, God raises His Son from the dead, and says, “Life is what you make of it, and I, God, make it ‘new’ and full of hope and love.”  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

             The world is what we make of it.  As baptized people, followers of Jesus Christ, we are the hands and feet of God, and we are about making the world a hopeful and loving place.  Through us, the world is what God is making of it…through us…through us.  In the same process of giving the world a makeover, God is making us over into the image of His resurrected Son.

             Christ is risen!  He is risen for each of us, and through us the new life of Christ is revealed, and the world is full of hope and love.  We see the world made over “new” in the Silent Auction event to take place here at Grace on April 21^st.  Thanks be to God for the Lutheran churches from within the West Shore Conference working together to sponsor this event in order to continue to support Grace Lutheran in New Orleans.  We see the world made over “new” in the youth trip to Washington, D.C. on April 27^th-28^th.  There in D.C. our youth will serve in a soup kitchen to bring hope and love to people in need.  We see the world made over “new” in the observance of Earth Day on April 22^nd.  Hopefully, each us will take at least a moment to reflect upon our calling to be good stewards of this creation.

             These are just a few of the ways this month we see how the world is made over “new” by the power of God at work in us.  How will we respond when we hear the words, “Christ is risen!”

                                                                                                In Christ,

                                                                                                Pastor Joel

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