WALKING THROUGH WALLS

          

 

Now, after Easter, we are in the Resurrection Time – a limited period between Easter and the Ascension. The time when Yeshua is back, for a specific task: to explain to the disciples and the expanding community what his ministry, passion and resurrection have all been about, so that they will understand it as a coherent whole, an act of the Father’s love for his human children; and to set the community on its future path of realising the New Alliance between God and the expanded Israel that is the whole human race. 

            It is a strange time. One of the things Benedict XVI points out in his Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week is the fact that when the disciples closest to Yeshua meet him after the Resurrection, they do not recognise him. This is extraordinary. They have lived with him every day for three years ; and yet when they land their boats and see a man grilling fish on the beach who says “Come and have breakfast!” they do not recognise him at first. Likewise the two less close disciples walking to Emmaus, who were clearly among those who had listened to him, seen him, admired him and followed him, and who now spend a couple of hours at his side, listening to him explain the Scriptural basis for the Passion: they only recognise him when, at table in the inn, he breaks the bread with the Baruch atta Adonai prayer – at which point he vanishes. 

            It makes you wonder what his resurrection-body looked like, what it was. Rembrandt painted it, and when you compare it to his paintings of the living Yeshua (probably after one of his Jewish neighbours in Amsterdam), you can in fact see a very uncanny difference. I’m not sure anyone else has imagined it so well. But would he have been unrecognisable? One may also wonder what this resurrection-body in fact was. Was it a temporary one, taken on only for this time between Easter and the Ascension? It did have the stigmata of the Passion, as the story of Thomas shows. Or was it his definitive eternity-body which he still has today, sitting at the right hand of the Father? That’s not something even the boldest theologian can answer.

            Also, this resurrection-body walks through walls. The disciples are together in an upper room; the doors are closed and locked; suddenly there he is among them. Not a ghost: feel my wounds. But suddenly, there. At table in Emmaus: whoosh, he is gone. Now this reminded me of something Benedict does not mention, although I’m sure others have – nothing that can be thought about the Gospels has not been thought and written, usually many times. When Yeshua returns to Nazareth and at first the people are thrilled by him and then turn against him, they want to throw him off a local cliff: “They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”(Luke 4:29-30). I have always found that astonishing in its serene calmness. This is an angry mob, the kind that stoned Stephen and would have stoned the woman taken in adultery. Few things are more terrifying and more dangerous. But he passed through the midst of them. 

            In other words, even in his entirely human mortal body there was something uncanny. A touch of the resurrection-body, one might say, was always already there. This was not one of his “miracles”: it was not done for someone else, and no fuss is made about it. He just wasn’t there any more. 

            So now, in this Between-Time, this Resurrection-Time, we might wish that he would still suddenly appear among us and have a bite of fish; but that’s not going to happen. The Ascension is past, and he is now in Eternity-Time. But still patiently waiting for us, as he was on that beach at breakfast. Would we have recognised him? Do we now? He did tell us where to look: in the child holding out a trusting hand; in the lonely old woman whose children never phone or visit; in the retired psychiatrist whose days not longer make sense; and in the entirely unexpected smile of a total stranger. Perhaps, apart from the gestures such incarnations call forth in us, the thing for us to do at this time is to think and learn and discuss as we would have in that inn at Emmaus, and so come to understand the coherence of the life, calling, death and resurrection of this most unlikely Meshiach.

Images: Rembrandt, "Head of Christ" and "The Risen Christ"

FISH FOR BREAKFAST

One of the things I perennially love about the Resurrection narratives is the emphasis on food. And it doesn’t usually come from the disciples: it comes from Yeshua himself. First, there’s Cleophas and his friend, trudging to Emmaus. (In fact, they may be going further, but Emmaus is a useful day’s walk from Jerusalem, so they’re going to overnight there in a pub.) On the way they meet this fascinating stranger who at first appears clueless as to what’s been happening but who then, when they remind him, fills them in on the Why of it all, citing Scripture as is only proper between good Jews. They like him so much that they persuade him to stay at the pub with them, at least for the evening meal. And at the moment he takes the bread and intones the blessing – Baruch atta Adonai Elohenu etc. – they look at him and say OMG, it’s Him! And he disappears, whoosh.

Then, they race back to Jerusalem and we next see them with the other disciples, somewhere undefined – indoors? outdoors? a rooftop? a courtyard? – nattering away in a state of high excitement about the Blessing Man, when suddenly, there he is again, in the midst of them. Shalom, he says. Yes, it’s me. Really. See? Hands with holes in them. Feet with holes in them. Not a ghost, not even a Holy Ghost. And when they still look astonished: Got something to eat? He eats a chunk of fried fish. Ghosts eat fish? Nah, course not.

Next scene: the shore of the Sea of Kinneret, alias Lake Tiberias. Dawn. (The scene is of extraordinary beauty, still. I’ve been there.) Two or three fishing-boats full of tired, irritated, frustrated young men – a whole night’s fishing, no fish. To Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire with it, says Peter, let’s go home. So they head for shore, and there is this bloke. Got anything? he shouts. Nowt, says Peter, crossly. Drop your net one more time, over starboard. Grouchily, Peter does. OY! Hey guys, help me lug this bugger up, it’s full! They manhandle it to shore and there are 153 bloody great big musht (St Peter’s Fish) in it, or possibly mixed with few enormous carp. Pant. Sweat. So come and have breakfast! says the bloke. And sure enough, he’s got a little fire going and is frying fish – a tantalising smell in the crisp air of dawn. And once again, they take a second look – or maybe he’s blessing the fish, Baruch atta Adonai Elohenu Melech ha’Olam – and once again, OMG, it’s him!

As my mother used to say, the reason the Gospels are so convincing is that nobody, but nobody, would have made this kind of Resurrection up. Gods often do things on earth: they seduce nymphs, they help warriors, they mark special children, so forth. But never, never do they stand on a beach eating fried fish. The Power and the Glory. And fried musht for breakfast.

ON THE ROAD

Yesterday’s reading was the story about Cleopas and his friend walking to Emmaus from Jerusalem. The Hebrew name of Emmaus was Hammat, which means Warm Springs; it lay about 7 miles NW of the city, 2-3 hours on foot. The two are referred to as “disciples” of Jesus, which reminds us that the Twelve were not the only ones to be known as such. Deeply depressed, they can’t stop talking about the horrors of the last few days.

Then, as happens on foot journeys in a pre-mechanized world, another traveller joins them, and they walk on together. He wants to know what they are so depressed about. “Hey,” they say, “Where have you been, man? Are you the only one who hasn’t heard?” “No, what?” he replies. And they tell him. “There was this great prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. He was awesome: all he said and did, you wouldn’t believe. A real prophet, and a major one. We all thought he was going to liberate Israel. And then the chief priests and co. had him crucified!”

“Really?” says their new companion. “Yes; and this is where it goes from horrible to weird. Some of the women in our crowd went to the tomb; they found it open and empty, with a couple of angels sitting on the stone. And the angels told them He was alive. So some of our men went there to check up on this women’s tale; and they found it just as the women had said, minus the angels: tomb open, tomb empty, no Jesus.”

“OK,” says the newcomer. “I know how you feel; but you guys have it all wrong.” So he starts talking, like a good learned Jew, beginning with Moses, and doubtless spending a good deal of time on Isaiah; and for an hour or more he explains how the Meshiach was supposed to go through all this, and suffer, and die, precisely in order to liberate, not only Israel but everyone.

Boy, are they impressed. This man really knows his stuff; and when they hear it explained like that, they begin to have an inkling that maybe what happened was not simply the horror and the weirdness. Meanwhile, they’ve reached Warm Springs, and it’s getting dark. “Hey, stay and have dinner with us,” they say. Well, he demurs a bit, but in the end they persuade him. So they sit down, and as he is clearly a rabbi, they ask him to say the blessing. So he takes the bread and breaks it, and begins “Baruch atta Adonai Eloheinu melech ha'olam hamotzi lehem min ha'aretz.....”

OMG. (Literally.) They have heard that voice before. And suddenly they see him with new eyes, and realize it’s Him. And ---- and then He vanishes, and there are just the two of them at table, with the bread and the wine and the rest of the meal. And they look at each other the way people do, and say “I knew it. I knew it. Remember how thrilling it was when He explained it all? Didn’t our hearts burn within us?”

Dr Luke does not relate what happened to Cleopas and his friend afterwards; but I can think of few ordinary blokes in history I’m more inclined to be jealous of.

The images are by Rembrandt.