The Resurrection

My favorite cartoon (which I have searched for on the net for weeks now and still cannot find)shows a man sitting up in bed on his elbows looking in shock at the TV on his dresser at the foot of the bed. On the screen is a middle-aged angel with two huge wings reading the news "Last night, while you were sleeping, the world as you knew it ceased to exist."

Today, we celebrate the anamnesis, the never-forgetting of that event and its facts (in the very best Wittgensteinian understanding of event and fact) and proclamation. Christ is raised! The LORD is raised indeed!

We tend to forget that God raising his son from the dead, i.e., the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is NOT the Gospel Proclamation! The resurrection of Jesus Christ was the Sign, St. John would have us believe the final Sign of the Good News; St. Paul, Christ the "First Fruits" of them that slept! Note, Paul did not say "them that are sleeping," meaning that they still sleep til the general resurrection, but "them that were sleeping but no longer are," for the resurrection of the dead has begun, "Christ the first fruits, and a then the rest." "Do you not know that you have (already) died (aorist, over, done) with Christ and that now you too are living in him (presently, not future)?"

The resurrected Christ is the Sign that all he said is the Truth and as the Resurrection has now begun, all that he proclaimed has begun to come pass-- there is a new Creation, not a return to the past, not a return to Eden and the good ole days, not a return to what we once thought was "real life, " but to heaven itself, here and now-- "Last night, while you were sleeping, the world as you knew it ceased to exist," as the announcing angel said.

Christ did not return to life; he left the dead to bury and tend their own dead; Christ has been raised on the other side of death into a new world where God is the very governor of the universe, keeping all in shalom,
and woe to the one who does not believe the good news! They too have been raised and all "our life is hid with Christ in God!" How dare we war in the Kingdom of God, how dare we hate, condemn, not share, not love one another, for God loves us all and God reigns. Metanoia-- repent. Change of mind, change your ways of thinking. Change the paradigm of how we look at the facts (Wittgenstein) and events of the world around us. "Awake sleepers, rise from the ones who are dead; Christ has given you a new Light; open your eyes, and see where you already are with resurrected eyes, your very own new eyes from the other side of the Icon of God himself!

Alleluia! Last night while you were sleeping, the world as you thought you knew it ceased to exist, for Christ has been raised from the dead! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

(Fragments from "Auguries of Innocence" by William Blake)

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.
A Dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus’d upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fiber from the Brain does tear.

He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar.
The Beggar’s Dog and Widow’s Cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.
The Gnat that sings his Summer song
Poison gets from Slander’s tongue.
The poison of the Snake and Newt
Is the sweat of Envy’s Foot.

A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go.

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.

Are you in living in sweet delight, or Endless Night?