Resurrection
Stories
THE WONDER OF WORDS: BOOK 2
ONE-HUNDRED MORE WORDS AND PHRASES SHAPING HOW CHRISTIANS THINK AND LIVE
In 1908, near La Chapelle-aux-Saints, France, a human body was discovered in a cave. These human remains were 50,000 years old. A noted American anthropologist, Loren Eisley, commented about these ancient remains at a scientific symposium: "Massive flint-hardened hands had shaped a sepulcher, and placed flat stones to guard the dead man's head. A haunch of meat had been left to aid the dead man's journey. Worked flints, a little treasure of the human dawn, had been poured lovingly into the grave. And down the untold centuries the message had come without words: 'We too were human, we too suffered, we too believed that the grave is not the end. We too whose faces affright you now, knew human agony and human love'."
That unspoken message, from a cave in France, tells us our loves and our hopes as humans are far older than we ever realized. And a cave outside Jerusalem has confirmed and transformed that ancient yearning to conquer death. To that empty cave, the forsaken grave in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, we look again every Sunday. Every Sunday is a little Easter. We hear again, by the silent witness of the church's existence, the message about Jesus' resurrection. Peter, the big fisherman, testified: "God raised him, releasing him from the pangs of death." (Acts 2:24) Remember both the word resurrection and the term raising are metaphors, visual images, picture words taken from "awakening" and "rising" from sleep. Resurrection is like returning to consciousness from sleep. But it is also unlike it. It is transformation to a new, unparalleled, immortal life. Jesus died. He passed to the realm of the dead, and he returned to walk in newness of life. Paul wrote: "Christ has broken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." (2 Timothy 1:10)
That unspoken message, from a cave in France, tells us our loves and our hopes as humans are far older than we ever realized. And a cave outside Jerusalem has confirmed and transformed that ancient yearning to conquer death. To that empty cave, the forsaken grave in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea, we look again every Sunday. Every Sunday is a little Easter. We hear again, by the silent witness of the church's existence, the message about Jesus' resurrection. Peter, the big fisherman, testified: "God raised him, releasing him from the pangs of death." (Acts 2:24) Remember both the word resurrection and the term raising are metaphors, visual images, picture words taken from "awakening" and "rising" from sleep. Resurrection is like returning to consciousness from sleep. But it is also unlike it. It is transformation to a new, unparalleled, immortal life. Jesus died. He passed to the realm of the dead, and he returned to walk in newness of life. Paul wrote: "Christ has broken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." (2 Timothy 1:10)
