Scars of Life

Have you ever wondered what heaven will be like? Most Christians have. I remember as a kid fooling around with concepts of white light everywhere, getting my wings (all dogs go to heaven?), walking streets of gold and feasting on the jellybelly forest. Poor kid.

In all seriousness, the details about the afterlife, heaven, paradise or whatever you'd like to call it, have been the subject of discussion, debate and (sadly) division throughout the history of the church. When reflecting on the specifics of the resurrection, many look at verses such as 1 Cor. 15:23 and 1 Pet. 4:13 for a general encouragement about our sharing in God's glory upon our resurrection. But what does that mean? To what degree are we "raised" like Jesus was raised? Specifically, will we also bear the scars of our lives? or even worse, will we bear the scars of our deaths? It seems clear in the gospel accounts that Jesus did. Just ask Thomas.

Salvation as Deification

Deification is kind of a big word that, even as a "churched" Christian, you may not have heard of if you grew up in America like me. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition (arguably the oldest version of Christianity still functioning), it is a very much alive concept of salvation and it is one that I personally ascribe to.

You see, in this tradition, salvation is not merely a legal transaction to correct the faults of humanity (or one pair of humans, if you're into that whole hereditary guilt thing); instead, it is intrinsically concerned with two issues that are the result of the fall of humanity:

1.  The distortion of the Image of God in creation

and

2. The illness known as sin

Well that isn't totally disagreeable to our western ears. Let us press in by contrasting with the focus of our western, Augustinian understanding of salvation and the fall in which salvation is meant to:

1. Satisfy God's wrath towards sin

and 

2.  Cleans us from the filth known as sin

Now we're starting to see some differences. I should also mention here that I am generalizing a bit for the sake of the scope of this blog. On both sides of the issue, the beliefs and development of the above, abbreviated conclusions are thorough, extensive and not nearly as simple as I'm presenting them here. 

So what's the big deal? Different Christians disagree on some minute points, that's par for the course in Christianity. Well, I would like to point out why I generally lean towards the East for this answer. In the first place, I think that it is more consistent with Scripture to understand divine salvation as a cure and restoration rather than as a payment and shower. We are sick with sin and it has caused us to have a distorted spiritual countenance; we are spiritual lepers who no longer look like the intended, good creature that God breathed life into. We did not choose this illness but we do self-inoculate on a regular basis. We keep ourselves sick and thus keep our image flawed. Sin is not merely some dirt that we are born with nor the breaking of some unsatisfiable list of laws; thus, salvation isn't payment to God (or Satan?) nor is it a bath (though we baptize, it's not to wash our spirits like some think). No. 

Salvation is the miraculous healing of our illness, the correcting of our spirit into the likeness of God and the opportunity to quit self-inoculating our souls with more sin.

Now, to be sure, some take these ideas to varying degrees and get some odd beliefs, but our salvation - our participation in the glory of God upon our resurrection - is intrinsically and irrefutably (from a Scriptural basis) a deification of the human creature, that is a joining in divinity. This, however, does not place humanity higher than the rest of creation, but instead places humanity as the way in which God will restore his divine image to all of creation. Christ's assumption of humanity placed the rest of the human race as the intermediary for creation to become all that it was intended to be.

Back to the scars

I may have taken a while to get back to the odd question of our resurrected bodies, but I felt it necessary for you to understand where I'm coming from in order for you to understand what I mean when I say 

It doesn't really matter

I had a feeling that answer would not come across well, so I didn't want to lead with that, but under a deification-centered theology of salvation, it doesn't matter what our bodies are like. Instead, we are to be concerned with the restoration of creation and our own intended form as well as true freedom from the illness of sin. 

Perhaps Jesus bore his scars specifically for the purpose of convincing Thomas of the reality of the resurrection (after all, they are only mentioned once in the gospel accounts where we might expect there to be a greater emphasis placed on them before political officials or crowds). Perhaps Jesus scars were metaphorical and have gotten placed as a literary device to emphasize his true humanity. Perhaps we truly will bear the scars of our lives and deaths. At any rate, apophatic that I am, I contend that it is something we cannot know with any certainty on this side of the resurrection (not that we should necessarily seek certainty). Furthermore, it is not the point; whether you agree with my (and the Eastern Orthodox) views on salvation or not, I believe we can agree that if it were truly important, Jesus would have said something. True to form, however, Jesus continues to point us to the immediate world around us and promise us just enough to have hope for our reunion, restoration and cure.

grace and peace,

C.M.

For a couple of different views, check out Scarytino's blog and The "Almost" Heretic, they should have some good thoughts. ;)

Resurrection Sunday!

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death.

Come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the grave.

Here we are, Resurrection Sunday! Today is a day when we can all breath a sigh of relief and whisper a prayer of gratitude. It has been a weekend riddled with drama; from the death of God to the quiet despair that comes with the tomb, we have once more walked our hearts through the path of Christ.

However!

The story does not stop there; we are not followers of a God that can be kept in a building, a book or a tomb. We are the adopted children of the One who breathed movement into atoms and first erected the cell walls of life on this planet. The incarnation, ministry, death, burial and resurrection of our God is now our family heritage.

I went through a phase in my spiritual development where I seriously doubted if I wanted to be a Christian any more. After all, I said to my older brother, "if we are Christians, then our spiritual heritage is one of butchers and pirates (and not the cool kind)". The fundamental flaw in my assertion was that I had forgotten that our primary heritage is that of martyrdom and love.

This is the relevance of the resurrection

That by the awakening of Jesus on Sunday morning, we may join in God's victory over death. The gospel or good news is not that God beat death - of course he beat death - the good news is that God wants to freely share that victory with us; he wants us to be one with him. 

Adam of old was deceived:

Wanting to be God he failed to be God.

God becomes man,

so that He may make Adam god.

- "Doxastikon at the Praises," Feast of the Annunciation.

By our baptism, we are joined in the process of deification, the union of man and God. Make no mistake, the creature will never be the Creator, but now we are joined in that creative energy which is the foundation to all life and all nature: grace. The truth of the events of the resurrection is that it necessarily elicits a response and only one is appropriate. We devote our lives to taking the same course as our savior and brother, Jesus. Our lives are now intrinsically oriented toward martyrdom; we take up our cross - our sin and sickness - and carry them towards the death of the corrupt us so that the resuscitation of the new us can thrive.

Today, let not a moment more go by before you acknowledge the new essence in your being, the deep connection we now have with the divine. Rejoice indeed and come awake.

peace,

C.M.

Dissonant Saturday

 Today - Holy Saturday - we mourn at the level to which humanity is capable of stooping. The crucifixion is, if nothing else, a glaringly obvious example of the enormous capacity that mankind has for evil. Why do I point this out? Because

it is good for Christians to exist on Saturday.

What I mean is that so often we reach Good Friday and talk about the events of Christ's crucifixion and how incredible they were - and we should. Also, we like to spend time on  Sunday and before talking about how incredibly joyous an occasion the resurrection of Christ is - and it is. But what about Saturday? What is the purpose?

We mourn

You see, the problem with shaking our heads on Friday and clapping our hands on Sunday without bowing our hearts and bending our knees on Saturday is that we are able to simply say "Jesus died and Jesus was raised". The truth, however, is that there is a Saturday and it exists to give space to reflect on the events at hand. The sin of humanity, the missing of marks, the shortcomings and sickness in our hearts which put Christ to death.


We chose to kill God.

We do so with every act of evil.

 Every act.

 Let us take this time to remember that despite our incredible capacity to accomplish the seemingly impossible (cell phones, moon landings, DNA splicing, etc.) we are intrinsically missing something.

Goodness; we're missing goodness.

Jesus of Nazareth - a lay worker, a brick-layer and an innocent pauper - shows humanity how evil it is by willingly being crushed and laying cold in a tomb.

We know what comes next, but let's not gloss over the ugly part for our own sake. Look at the tomb. Look at the blood on the ground. See the weeping mother and brothers. We did this and we deserve no forgiveness for it.

Reflect and pray

peace,
C.M.