resurrection

If Mark’s ending creates discomfort and uncertainty, it is partly due to our knowledge of how the Easter story is told in the other Gospels.

While Christians confess the resurrection of the body, most have a spiritual body in mind.

I once lived in a village in Germany that lay at the foot of a mountain covered in deep forest. A narrow farm separated the houses from the forest, and a cemetery occupied a piece of land part way up the mountain. Sometimes on my daily walks I stopped at the cemetery. It was the busiest place in town.

How far had Lazarus traveled along the way of clarity, truth, and reality in those four days?

I would just as soon skip the first part of this Gospel reading. The Sadducees are trying to trick Jesus by getting him to respond to an impossible question about the resurrection. According to the law, if one of two brothers dies before his wife has children, then his brother marries her. But what if there are seven brothers, and each marries the woman in turn? To whom will she belong at the resurrection?

Luke 24:1-12

By Luke 5 Jesus is master not only of the word of God, but also of fish.

After 9/11, an incredible respect for life wove together the disparate humanity that worked the edges of the New York abyss. Iron workers, rescue teams, volunteers, chaplains, tourists, stricken loved ones—all were woven together in the solidarity of citizenship of those regarded by God as “for a little while lower than the angels.”

Is this any way to run a resurrection? Is this enough to persuade, to stir new life in the followers of Jesus?