"If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins". 1 Corinthians 15:17
MYTHOS
As Holy Communion is central to Christian Worship, the resurrection of Jesus is what the Christian religion is centered on. Writing about something that is so central to the beliefs of close to two billion people as a myth may seem blasphemous, but bear with me in considering it as such. As I have mentioned before, I do not consider myths lies but rather stories that seek to expose truths that are not otherwise explainable. In theology and philosophy one should not equate truths with facts as one might in science or history. The simple reason for this is that truth in science and history is equated with fact because an event can be replicated or if theoretical can offer consistent results when applied.
The resurrection and ascension of Jesus is not a replicable factual event and there is no hypothetical, much less, a theoretical scientific basis for its occurrence. One cannot create an experiment by which to replicate it and one must remember that resurrection is not resuscitation. It's not about bringing a physical body back to life but rather there is an ethereal spiritual aspect to the resurrection and ascension story of Jesus.
What we have in the Gospels are stories in which people are said to experience seeing Jesus alive three days after he was crucified and these stories vary from one Gospel to another. In fact, the quote above from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians is evidence of it not being a verifiable fact but rather, at best (to put it in scientific terms), a hypothesis cast in relatively negative terms. "If Christ be not raised" is a statement that admits a lack of verifiability. One's faith or belief that it is a fact does not make it a fact. Nevertheless, Paul is on to something that comes closer to the philosophical idea of truth as intuitive reasoning.
The story of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus is what one might describe as a fact-based myth; in that, it is based on a likely historical event, Jesus' crucifixion. Crucifixions in the Roman Empire was a consistent form of execution of those who were not Roman citizens and were convicted of being insurrectionists. In order to get to the mythos of Jesus' resurrection and ascension, one must begin with that historical fact. If it wasn't for Jesus' crucifixion there would be no story of his resurrection and ascension. For the authors of the Gospels there appears to have been a need to seek verification of such a major premise in the scriptures of the Old Testament. There are two references found in the Old Testament frequently used to support both Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.
With regard to the crucifixion there is the Isaiah 53, a prophecy about the Suffering Servant which gave meaning to Jesus' crucifixion, but that prophesy does not mention the servant being resurrected. To find a reference to the resurrection one has Psalm 16:10, "For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." While that verse does not mention resurrection directly, the implication of a resurrection was drawn from that this verse.
In the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus is accused at his trial before Caiaphas of saying that if the Temple was destroyed, he (Jesus) could rebuild it in three days. In John 2:19-22, Jesus is quoted as indeed saying what he was only accused of saying in Matthew and Mark with the added editorial note that Jesus was referring to his body, thus predicting his own resurrection.
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The basic mythos of Jesus' resurrection begins with the empty tomb. The empty tomb may, in fact, be a fact; as well as, women coming early on a Sunday morning to perform the customary practices of Jewish burial and finding the tomb empty. That is were any factual side of this story ends and where it becomes mythologized.
None of the Gospels totally agree on specific details or the stories associated with Jesus' resurrection beyond that point, with the one exception that Mary Magdalene is noted as one of the women who found the tomb empty in all four of the canonical Gospels. In Matthew 28, it is Mary Magdalene and "the other" Mary who go to the tomb. In Mark 16, it is Mary Magdalene, Salome, and Mary the mother of James. In Luke 24, it is Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others. In John 20 it is only Mary Magdalene who comes to the tomb. Mary Magdalene is the one witness that all four Gospels agree on. Where one starts seeing a divergence in presentation in the resurrection story is what these women experience once they discover the tomb is empty.
Not only is there a divergence in regarding details in each of the Gospel presentations, there is also an evolution regarding the number of details that are added to the story as time passes. To illustrate this, I will start with the earliest Gospel account and proceed to the later Gospels accounts. I base my chronology of earliest to latest Gospels based on their evolving content. As such, my sense of chronology of the Gospels begins with Mark, then Luke, then Matthew, and finally John. Historians may disagree with this chronology, but it seems Mark and Luke are likely written by people whose names were Mark and Luke, whereas Matthew and John contain material and editing that suggests they were not written by Jesus' disciples with those names but by others who ascribed their work to Jesus' disciples.
Mark's Gospel is perhaps the most interesting; in that, the earliest manuscripts stop at Mark16:8. It is clear that verses 9 through 20 were later additions. In Mark, as the women approach the tomb, they are trying to figure out who will roll the stone away from the tomb, only to find that when they reach the tomb the stone already has been rolled away. As they enter the tomb they see a young man dressed in white who tells them Jesus has risen and instructs them to tell the disciples. Verse 8 is where this account ends with, "Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid." (NIV)
The Gospel of Luke follows Mark's storyline, but instead of finding a young man dressed in white, they find two who were dressed in glowing clothes like lightening standing next to them. They tell the women, "Why are you seeking the living among the dead," and instruct them to tell the disciples. When the women tell the disciples what they had experience, the disciples don't believe them, but Peter takes it upon himself to check their story out and enters the empty tomb and sees the linen strips lying were Jesus had been laid and leaves "confused."
The Gospel of Matthew elaborates with details not found in either Mark or Luke. Beginning on the afternoon of Jesus' crucifixion the "Chief Priests" and the "Pharisees" come to Pilate to request that he assigns guards to Jesus' tomb to ensure that no one is able to steal Jesus' body in order to claim that Jesus had resurrected. This detail is an imaginative leap, since at his trial Jesus was accused of saying he would destroy the Temple and in three days rebuild it, but there was no interpretation in Matthew prior to this concern of Jesus was referencing his crucifixion and then his resurrection. At the point of his trial before the Caiaphas, there was no assurance that Jesus was going to be crucified since that fate rested in the hands of Pilate; much less, that the allegation that he could rebuild the Temple in three days was Jesus prophesying his resurrection.
The Gospel of Matthew says that Pilate agreed to post guards at the tomb with his seal on the tomb. Who witnessed this is not known or where this account came from. It appears to be a creation of the author of Matthew's Gospel to assure the Christians he was addressing that the claim of Jesus being being stolen was a conspiracy theory promoted by the Pharisees. According to Matthew, at some point early on Easter Sunday, there was a great earthquake and an angel came and rolled the stone away. There is no reference to the an earthquake in the other Gospels. The assigned guards were petrified with fear, but some later ran to the city and reported to the chief priests what they experienced. When the women arrived they encounter the angel who told them not be afraid and to go tell the disciples that Jesus is risen. On their way, the women encounter Jesus and the fall down to worship him, grabbing his feet. Jesus then tells the women to tell his disciple to go to Galilee where they will see him.
The Gospel of John has only Mary Magdalene approach the tomb on that Easter Sunday morning. She sees that the stone has been rolled away and apparently peeked inside only to find that the tomb was empty. She immediately runs to tell Peter and presumably John that someone had removed Jesus' body. Peter and John run to see the tomb for themselves and peeking in, Peter sees the strips of linen where Jesus was laid and the cloth that covered his face folded up.
Mary is left standing by the tomb crying when someone she assumes to be a gardener asks why she is crying. She tells him about Jesus' body missing and asks where it has been taken. Then the supposed gardener calls her by name and Mary immediately recognizes Jesus. When she bows down and reaches for his feet, Jesus says that she is not to touch him because his has not ascended to his Father, a warning not said to the women in Matthew's Gospel. Jesus instructs Mary to go tell his disciples that he is ascending to his Father and their Father, to his God and their God which Mary does.
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There are several mythic stories associated with the basic mythos of Jesus being resurrected. In all four of the canonical Gospels Jesus literally appears to the disciples behind closed doors and then disappears. In Luke, we have the story of "The road to Emmaus" where two of Jesus' followers are talking about Jesus' crucifixion and reports of his being raised from the dead when they encounter a stranger who explains the meaning of Jesus' crucifixion and how he must be raised from the dead. They invite the supposed stranger to dine with them and when the stranger blessed the bread and give it to them they immediately recognize Jesus at which point Jesus immediately disappears. A similar incident then occurs with the eleven remaining disciples. They are afraid at his appearing behind closed doors and they offer him fish and bread to eat, and when he eats, they know it is Jesus is truly alive who then explains the meaning of his death and resurrection to them
The author(s) of the Gospel of Matthew is forced to deal with the quandary created by the presence of the guards at the tomb. If the guards deserted their post and some ran to the chief priests with the story that Jesus had been raised from the dead, this would spell trouble for the guards. For one thing Matthew's author or authors had to come up with plausible reason why Roman guards would have gone to the Chief priests to report their experience. The reason suggested is that going to Pilate would have resulted in a charge of deserting their post and severe punishment, if not death. So Matthew says the guards were paid off and the priest provided a cover story for them. It would have been interesting to know what that cover story entailed.
It is almost as an aside that Matthew reports that Jesus appeared to the eleven disciples with some doubting that Jesus had been risen and there were Jews who believed that Jesus' body was in fact stolen. It is an odd ending to this Gospel's presentation of the resurrection mythos. The Gospel of Matthew ends with Jesus' ascension in to heaven with Jesus telling his disciples to spread the Gospel and baptize people in his name (the original ending of Matthew according to the early church historian Eusebius which was later changed to baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).
The Gospel of John has two stories associated with Jesus appearing to his disciples. The story of Thomas who, for some reason, was not with the other ten disciples when Jesus first appears behind locked doors and breathes on them saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained." Thomas misses out on all of that and when he shows up a week later, he has doubts about Jesus appearing and says that unless he can touch Jesus' nail prints and thrust his hand into Jesus' side, he will not believe. Almost on cue, Jesus appears and invites Thomas to do just that. Thomas then believes.
The last story in John is Jesus going to Galilee and meets with a few of his disciple on the shore of its sea where Jesus is cooking fish. This story involves Peter and Jesus having a private conversation in which Jesus restores Peter to the faithful disciple he was prior to his denying Jesus three time to those gathered outside of Jesus' trial. Jesus tells Peter three times, "If you love me, feed my sheep." Being asked so many times, makes Peter break down and commit to what Jesus is asking.
As mentioned above, the Gospel of Mark originally ends with the women being too afraid to say anything to anybody. In the latter additions made to Mark, Jesus first appears to Mary Magdalene who then tells the disciples, but they do not believe her. Then Jesus appears to two followers of Jesus and when they went back to tell the disciples, they would believe them either. Finally Jesus appears to the eleven who gives them the same commission as he did in Matthew. In short, Mark ends with snippets found in the other Gospels regarding the appearance of Jesus.
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The three synoptic Gospels end with scant mention of Jesus' ascension into the heaven. All three of them have a version of Jesus commissioning them to be his witnesses. John does not contain a story of Jesus ascending into heaven. Only in Matthew do we have Jesus mentioning baptizing people. The place where the story of Jesus' ascension offers any detail is in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.
After teaching them things about the Kingdom of God to which the readers of Acts are not privy, Jesus, as he is teaching, starts to ascend into the heavens until he is covered by a cloud. Two men dressed in white robes suddenly appear and ask the disciples why they keep looking up into the heavens. They tell those gathered there, Jesus will return in the same way he was taken up.
MEANING
Starting with the story of Jesus' ascension into heaven, one can look at this myth in two ways. In Luke, and in the edited version of Mark the resurrection and ascension could have taken place on the same day. The Gospel of Matthew says that the eleven disciples were directed by Jesus to go to Galilee to a certain mountain. This would have taken more than a day for the disciples to make such a journey. It is the book of Acts that gives us a definite timeline of forty days following Jesus' resurrection.
It would seem that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels had to find a suitable way for Jesus to exit the earth and explains why he no longer was around The question of why Jesus did not stick around and remain on earth after his resurrection presents a quandary as it seems very few people (despite Paul's claim that more than five hundred people saw Jesus at the same time in 1Corinthians15:6). Had Jesus done so, it is likely the world as we know it wouldn't be the same. Honestly speaking, this is a perplexing problem for a literal interpretations of these stories.
Both the meaning of Jesus resurrection and ascension is not handled very well in the Synoptic Gospel as there appears to be a concerted effort to treat it as a factual event, which it is not. There is a sense of overkill when it comes to making claims that Jesus ate fish and broke bread as proof of his body was physically resurrected. HOW CAN I SAY SUCH A THING?
I can say that because Paul also says it and Paul's account of the resurrection predates the Gospels In Paul's discussion of the Jesus' resurrection, Jesus is spiritually resurrected:
"So also is the resurrection of the dead. ... It is sown a (physical) body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a (physical) body, and there is a spiritual body." 1 Corinthians 15: 42-44
If Jesus is spiritually resurrected then one can assume that he was spiritual ascended. The question remains whether there was a need for an ascension story. If Jesus was resurrected as a spiritual body, was there a need for him to ascend? Interestingly, it is the Gospel of Matthew that provides a solution with very last thing Jesus says, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20b) As a spiritual resurrection, Jesus transcends the physical limitations of time and place. Jesus is not bound by the physical location of the time and place pose on physical existence.
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"If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins".
We need to come back to this verse and provide and answer to Pauls rhetorical question. I would argue that if Jesus wasn't literally raised from the dead, faith would still be operative because the mythic Jesus consists of stories about Jesus or, more to the point, stories upon which the teachings about Jesus are based rather than the teachings of Jesus. Ultimately, faith in what Jesus taught should be more important than the teaching that are taught about him which are largely theological speculation.
Myths have a role to play in every religion. The myth of Jesus' resurrection and ascension has a role in Christian faith because it hits on something that is experiential; not in the sense of someone being physically raised from the dead, but in the sense of resurrections that don't involve someone physically dying do occur. There are many forms of death we experience in life, all of which are potentially life changing.
In life, the resurrection experience involves a death of some kind; the death of an idea, the death of an occupation; the death of one's beliefs, the death of a personal relationship with someone, and so on. It is likely all of us have experienced some personal forms of death within our lives These can be extremely painful, frightening moments in which it is hard to see life being the same or going forward after such an event or events.
I know that I have experienced such "resurrections" and it is not necessary to go into personal details because everyone or anyone who has been faced with the death of something thought vital to one's existence will recognize the dynamics involved. Luke captures this dynamic best by his description of the Jesus' crucifixion. In Luke, just as Jesus is about to be crucified, he says, "Father forgive them for they don't know what they are doing."
The death of something can seem totally unjustified at the time. Ideas and long held beliefs are the hardest things on earth to let die. It usually takes a shocking revelatory experience to let go of something that is is no longer life-giving; especially, when a false belief is undeniably destroyed by a factual truth. Unless one is open to the factual truth of a situation, one can wither on the vine and remain an ideological corpse that serves no purpose. Letting go of something held a long time that has been proven wrong can be one of the most resurrecting, liberating, and life giving experiences one can have.
Losing a job that one has been at and one has been good at can be another experience that is like dying, but resurrection can occur there too. Ending a necrotic relationship with another person or group of people that is sapping the life out of one, can result in resurrection to new life. The phrase, "Letting go and letting God" is very operative in such situations.
In Luke's version of the crucifixion, Jesus is seen doing this when he forgive those who are crucifying him and when with his last breath, he commends his spirit to God. This is the relevance of these myths in the twenty-first century. I know in my own experiences of resurrection, the story of Jesus' crucifixion came to mind in each case and it was that realization that allowed me to let go and let God. The end result has always been resurrection to a new way of looking at life and a new way of enjoying life. It is an ascending feeling that rises above the doldrums of negative events that if one were to dwell would merely keep one mired in anger, fear, and/or self-pity.
While the resurrection story of Jesus cannot be replicated as a scientific event, it can be experienced in this life as a new perspective of life after having experienced a loss of some kind. Death is a fact of life, but experience also teaches us that life comes from death and one doesn't have to hold out till one is physically dead to experience resurrection and a sense of an ascending beyond what was to a new life in this life. In spite of all the variants stories associated with the mythos of Jesus' resurrection, it ultimately suggests and underscores an intuitive human awareness that this life suggests more life and if there is more life to be experienced beyond this life, death as letting go and letting God is a requisite part of such a journey.
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Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
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