Popping Up Here, There and Everywhere

Write about a page on the following for your Portfolio:

• What are your reactions to the variations in the appearance stories the gospels?
• The disciples are to proclaim ‘repentance’ and ‘forgiveness’. What might this mean in daily life for individuals, churches and governments?

The variations in the appearance stories in the gospels are slightly unsettling, because while a certain amount of confusion around the passion and resurrection stories is quite understandable, the credibility of the appearance stories is vital: if Jesus really was resurrected, his appearances confirm and define that; they are a seal of authenticity and determine the way forward for Jesus’ followers. More than anywhere else, this is where the intellect desperately needs consistency: seeing is believing. At the same time, with all of the interpretation I’ve been doing as I’ve worked through Units 1 – 3 of this module, I’m more familiar and comfortable with the Gospel writers’ intentions and methods, so the differences are richer and have subtle nuances that I am now more able to appreciate. Even so, I am becoming increasingly aware that I am staking my faith more on my response to the material presented by the Gospel writers than on hard facts! I have to face and accept that I can’t battle the sceptics with “pure science”, I have to deal with the vagaries of faith, and acknowledge the extent to which I am dependent on intuition and feeling: the hope I have in things unseen. It’s very uncomfortable for a systematic and analytical thinker to be in what seems like an untenable position!

Taking all of the appearance stories together as a collective whole, they are a powerful exhortation to Jesus’ followers:

Matthew has two stories in which the passing on of the Good News gains momentum as it passes from the women to the 11, and the reader can feel the energy rising and inspiring one to go out and do likewise. Mark has two stories of disbelief, followed by a story of rebuke and commissioning and a promise; these serve to highlight the necessity of faith bringing about right action that will be affirmed by God. Luke offers two stories of catechesis and teaching that reassure us that suffering is necessary but that this shouldn’t stop Jesus’ followers from rising up and praising God in the temple (doing good and in so doing honouring God’s Law of love).

What does all of this mean in daily life for individuals, churches and governments? Well, maybe Paul Verryn would know better than I do! I think it means that individuals who stand up for what is right, should continue to do that, and be the voice in the wilderness calling churches and governments to act justly. Maybe – and it’s just maybe, mind you – these individuals could also repent of personal pride in their own righteousness and learn to show more love than anger when they do speak out. Churches could examine their operations more closely and repent of taking the easy or least painful path and be more vocal and assertive in challenging themselves and governments on the important social justice issues, and forgive the seemingly renegade members who show scant regard for the hierarchy’s political sensitivities. And governments… well, they could all just resign and let somebody with more moral fibre have the job!

On second thoughts, let’s not demand government’s resignations, let’s forgive them their failings, but keep challenging them to do the right thing, until they get the hang of doing the right thing without having to be badgered into it.

It’s the job of every Christian to daily remember and proclaim that tried-and-tested Ash Wednesday line, no matter how futile or tired it sounds: turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel! And it’s only possible to do this if we are able to forgive, and to receive forgiveness.

Call My Name And Save Me From The Dark

Reflect on the accounts of the resurrection in the gospels and note anything that surprises, puzzles or disturbs you. How do you relate to the women in Mark who flee from the tomb?

For me, the challenge of studying the resurrection stories been in facing up to my own fuzzy thinking and vague understanding of the resurrection.

The resurrection is such an established part of the Jesus story, that I must admit I hadn’t given it much close consideration, and I was a bit taken off guard to have to think carefully about the difference between resurrection and resuscitation, and to acknowledge that while I have always known that the resurrection of Jesus was a specific occurrence of revivification unique to the Christian understanding of Jesus as the Christ, I had no real notion about how the resurrection differed from resuscitation. I suppose I had imagined Jesus being properly dead, but then somehow coming alive again, in the same body, and carrying on as before, only a bit shinier and holier looking than previously, with halo attached. Don’t ask me how I accounted for Jesus’ body not having to obey the laws of nature and begin to decompose and be thoroughly unliveable after those three days, no longer fit-­for­-purpose. I suppose I must have watched too much TV in my youth: in the Highlander, the Immortals are able to heal their bodies and come alive again a few days after being killed in a swordfight, just as long as their enemies forgot to cut off their heads in order to claim their victim’s essence, their very life­-power. It’s embarrassing to have to admit that, on closer scrutiny, my personal image of Jesus turned out to be something quite like Duncan MacLeod! (As the show’s tagline says: There can be only One! In my defence though: my granny is Scots, of the clan MacLeod, and I think it’s fitting that my unconscious self would identify Jesus as my clansman, even though my unconscious self got the rest of it totally wrong.) While I can’t claim to have solved all of my now conscious confusion about the resurrection, it has been most helpful to discover that I am not alone in this: the early Christians struggled to articulate their experience of the resurrection (and they were THERE, they actually had experience of the resurrection, so I don’t feel too badly about not being able to clearly explain my beliefs, which live in my gut and my heart more than in my head!)

I feel a great deal of Lucan compassion and forgiveness for Mark’s fleeing women. I really don’t blame them for running away and being fearfully silent. I’m inclined to be more observant than active myself; I gather information and puzzle over it and try to make sense of it in order to be sure that any action I take will be the right action, and then I worry a bit and have long conversations with myself and with God before I ever get around to acting. So I think I’d probably have behaved exactly as Mark’s fleeing women did: which would put Mark into a right froth, because my response is so not what he was going for! I think it’s really interesting that Mark uses fear as a means of countering fear: he instils fear in his listeners about what will happen and who will be to blame if the story never gets out, and that is supposed to counter their fear of some very real worldly opposition to the message of the resurrection. I don’t respond well to fear as a motivator, so I thank God for Luke’s compassion and merciful forgiveness: that makes it easier for me to crawl out from under my blanket of shame about my lack of faith, and act.

In The Room Without A Light

We have seen that the synoptic Gospels offer different slants on the crucifixion of Jesus. Does this surprise you? Give some reasons for your answer.

Can you see parallels to the crucifixion of Jesus and events in your country, the world or your personal life? Express some of these ideas in your portfolio.

At first glance I didn’t think I was surprised by the different accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus in the synoptic Gospels: I’ve played “broken telephone” as a child, I’ve heard rumours morph with each retelling as an adolescent, and I’ve learned that if you ask seven adults to describe the same sunset you will hear seven different responses. So, differences in stories are not completely unexpected in my world.

I’ve also never been very concerned with the historicity of the text: I’m a wilful person, and I’m inclined to believe what my own taste and experience supports, rather than be particularly concerned with silly facts and figures. If it’s not true for me, it’s not true. And if it is true for me, then never mind anyone who tries to convince me otherwise. (When I was in high school I quite liked the idea that people in the olden days used to believe the earth is flat: that notion provided far more amusement for me than just being ‘normal’ and agreeing that the earth was round because everybody else said so. I was all for instituting a local flat-earth society, even though I knew that the earth is indeed round. Or, to be technically accurate, it is spherical. Bulgy-spherical, a bit pudgy around the waist and elongated at the poles, almost-but-not-quite rugby ball-like. But you know what I mean! And I was fascinated by how worked up people could get in trying to convince me of the error of my flat­-earth thinking! And most of the round­-earth apologists never appreciated that I was being ‘aspris’, as my Standard 9 Afrikaans teacher Mrs Heese would say.)

However, on closer examination of the material presented in Study Unit 2, I have gained a better understanding of the context of the Gospels and the purpose that each author had for writing his particular account of the Jesus story. So I can say that I am pleasantly surprised to gain a fuller appreciation of aspects of the crucifixion story that had, until now, completely evaded me.

Luke’s version is all about communicating compassion and forgiveness: Jesus, who was innocent, had compassion and chose to forgive even though he suffered terribly, was insulted and mocked. Although I have no scriptural basis for this theory, I like to think that Luke must have experienced Jesus’ compassion and forgiveness himself, and as a result of this experience he was able to empathise with other sinners and to look at a situation through the eyes of understanding and forgiveness, to see the potential for good in people and to call forth that goodness by being compassionate and forgiving, and to encourage others to do the same. Luke’s story also teaches about trusting in God’s faithfulness and power, and not looking for retribution against those who have hurt us.

Mark’s focus is on establishing Jesus’ identity as the Son of God: for him this was vital in exposing that the emperor was not the Son of God, and thus exposing that the ways of the emperor were not the ways of God. He shows us a strong contrast between worldly empires built on abuse of power and domination, and Jesus’ kingdom of non­violence and acceptance of suffering: even the suffering caused by feeling desperately abandoned by one’s companions and by God.

Parallels to the crucifixion of Jesus that I can see:

In my country, there is the story of Methodist bishop Paul Verryn, who with the help of volunteers and staff, provided food, shelter and hope to thousands of destitute asylum seekers – mostly Zimbabwean, and definitely deserving of help! – at the Central Methodist Mission in downtown Johannesburg until he was suspended by his church in late January 2010 to face two disciplinary charges.

The first charge was for initiating a court action to have an independent curator appointed to ensure the interests of the destitute orphaned children living in the church. Serious allegations had been made that some of the volunteers at the church were abusing some of the children living there, and the government’s social services department thought they could solve the problem by simply removing the children from the church and placing them in foster care or orphanages without first taking the time to understand the plight or specific needs of these makwerikweri children who would quite likely be the victims of xenophobia (whether or not this would be accompanied by violent attacks) wherever they were placed. When the children persistently ran away and refused to go with the social workers because they were afraid, the government castigated Verryn for refusing to co-operate: he was supposed to round the children up like sheep and deliver them to the social workers. Instead Verryn realised the complexity of the situation, felt called to be a gate to the sheepfold and saw a real need for an independent curator who would understand the needs of the children and act as a reasonable go-between to ensure that the children received appropriate help from social services. However, the church claimed that Verryn had no authority to institute court proceedings to appoint a curator – probably because Verryn’s actions made church relations with the government quite difficult because the church was publicly embarrassing the government.

The second charge was for speaking to the media when he had been instructed by church authorities not to do so. There was a great deal of interest from the media about the matter, and the public have a right to know how challenges are being handled by government – especially when it seems that government is not serving the needs of the people. Personally I think Verryn had every right to explain the situation and why he wanted an independent curator. Again, the church had its own interests to protect, so they preferred to gag Verryn instead of supporting his apostolate.

For me, this story parallels the crucifixion because in the face of the necessary and quite admirable work that Verryn was doing for the oppressed (despite the considerable resistance he encountered from all quarters, and the personal sacrifices he was making), the charges brought against him and the resulting suspension by his own church are the equal of the mocking inscription on Jesus’ cross. To me it comes off as if they’re saying “This guy thinks he’s doing God’s work, but he’s a bit confused. We didn’t give him a mandate to get into anything political; he was supposed to stick to the requisite photo­-op soup kitchen that would keep our funders happy. And why he felt the need to bring Zimbabweans into the mix is anybody’s guess, we’ve got plenty of hungry locals who would have been a lot less trouble. Fool! Thanks for messing with the status quo and complicating everybody’s lives!”

The Way Down Is The Way Up

Having studied Mark’s passion story to this point, and disregarding later theologies of atonement, reflect on what this Study Unit says to you personally. Write about a page for your Portfolio.

Working through this Study Unit and grappling with the material has been an enormously challenging yet wonderfully liberating experience. I hadn’t realised how ingrained and entrenched atonement theology has been in my Christian journey: until I tried to disregard it in order to write this Portfolio! But I think that after much reading and pondering I am now able to hear and understand Mark’s very welcome message.

The way Mark tells this story shows me that the essential requirement is to have faith in Jesus as the Christ who had the humility to accept his human identity, along with the courage to accept and confess his extraordinary identity, and yet understand that his identity did not exempt him from suffering and death in carrying out his purpose of fulfilling God’s plan.

Jesus knew that he would suffer and die if he chose to go along with God’s plan, and out of love he freely chose to participate with God’s will. Mark’s purpose of encouraging Jesus’ followers to have faith and courage, and to participate with Jesus by passing along the way through death to a new life here on earth is achieved with the help of examples of failed discipleship: betrayal by Judas as someone close to Jesus; denial and refusal by Peter to accept that Jesus’ way was not about power and domination; and the fulfilment of the Zec 13:7 prophecy when the disciples scattered like sheep. The way that Mark presents these failures serves to demonstrate that God’s plan is not derailed by failure: it continues.

It is not easy to understand that suffering and loving service are the chosen way!

Jesus and Barabbas both embrace the good intention of liberating God’s people from the oppression of Imperial rule and the unjust collaboration of the religious leaders in this oppression – but Barabbas’ way is to pursue a power/domination/fight brand of violent revolution, while Jesus’ way is all about suffering and non-violence. Mark’s telling presents us with a very challenging choice between these two very different ways of working towards a good goal.

The religious and political trials that Jesus is brought to, instead of being fair, are both about rejecting Jesus’ identity (as a prophet in the religious trial, and as a king in the political trial) – and ironically neither trail has actually understood Jesus’ identity and message: he is tried as a pretender to political power and domination in a system that cannot grasp the idea of non-violence or loving service as the way to lead. Barabbas would have been more fairly judged by the findings of these trials than Jesus was!

Mark’s Gospel judges Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, and the symbol of the people of God, who, though he had earthly authority, was so committed to his way of non-violent transformation that he was prepared to die in doing God’s will. Because Jesus was the Christ, he was resurrected, and will one day return in heavenly power and glory. Because the religious leaders and Pilate could not grasp this, they mocked Jesus.

What I’ve learned from this Study Unit is that the way to be a disciple of Jesus is to believe what Jesus says – about himself and about everything he taught – and to be kind and loving, and to do whatever service is within my power, without ever resorting to abuse of power and domination, even if my intention or goal is good.