Author: CCW

Lifted up and set in motion

This week in Chapel we had the first of two different but interrelated stories of the Resurrection from the 20th Chapter of John’s Gospel. One concerns the encounter between Mary Magdalene and the Risen Christ (John 20. 11-18); the other, to Jesus appearing behind close doors to the disciples and then again to Thomas (John 20.19-29). The two stories speak to the question of epistemology, to the ways of knowing that belong to our humanity.

The first story is quite moving and touching (if you will pardon the irony since in the encounter between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, she is told, “Touch me not”!). Mary Magdalene comes seeking the body of Christ only to discover, first, the empty tomb, and then Jesus himself whom she doesn’t recognise because she assumes he is dead. She has come not just in perplexity and confusion but in grief and sorrow. Yet she has come with a holy and humane purpose: to honour and respect the body of the deceased. There is something universal and profoundly human about that sensibility. It already suggests that we are more though not less than our bodies, a sense that death does not completely define our humanity.

In ancient Greece, Anaxagoras argued that it was not the material elements of earth, water, air, and fire in various combinations, material causality, as it were, that provide an ultimate understanding of reality but mind, what he called nous. As Aristotle famously said about him, “he was like a sober man in the company of drunks.” I often think of that remark in relation to these stories of the Resurrection in John’s Gospel. How does Mary come to know the Risen Christ? It happens through her encounter seeking one thing and finding another and being changed by that encounter. She mistakes Jesus for the gardener and asks him where you have laid him so that she can take him away and do the burial honours. Jesus simply says her name: “Mary”.

She turns and says, “Rabboni”, meaning master or teacher. Jesus first says to her: “Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father.” But then he bids her “go to my brethren, and say unto them, I am ascending to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.”

Theology consorts with images to bring us to understanding and life. Our challenge is always to attend thoughtfully to the images in order to enter into their meaning and understanding. We are being awakened to a deeper understanding of what it means to be human through our being opened out to the truth and life of God, even in the face of our uncertainties and sorrows. So what does Jesus mean? By telling her not to touch, he is really saying don’t cling to me, don’t hold onto the things of the past or just to the things of the body. He is lifting her up into a greater understanding of who he truly is: the Son of the Father. Here Resurrection is immediately connected to the Ascension, to what the Fathers of the early Church called “the exaltation of our humanity”.

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Things heard and things seen

The second half of the Easter story of Christ on the Road to Emmaus was read in Chapel this week. The story is especially powerful and important with respect to epistemology, to ways of knowing or theories of knowledge. Last week, Jesus drew out of the disciples (or learners!) their perplexity and confusion about the Passion and the discovery of the empty tomb. They were running away from Jerusalem in their uncertainty and disappointment. Only when they acknowledge their confusion, can Jesus then “interpret to them in all of the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Jesus the Word explains the words of Scripture about the Word, namely, himself! Beautiful. A way of learning by what is heard.

But only in the conclusion of the story do we see the effects of this teaching on these disciples. It happens only after the episode in which they learn through what Jesus does, namely through something seen. Sitting at table with them, “he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.” Something done and seen. The immediate consequence is astounding. “Their eyes were opened, and they knew him.” A way of learning by what is seen.

They had heard him but it is the visible word of action that brings them to an understanding of both what was heard and what was seen. Luke tells us that Jesus, “vanished out of their sight,” which is significant to the essential teaching of the Resurrection. Jesus is alive and present but not as reduced to the finite and material. He cannot be possessed and controlled by us. The body is affirmed and made the vehicle of a new and deeper spiritual truth; it is redeemed and restored to its ultimate truth as found in God who is by definition unseen.

What is done and seen by Jesus has awakened them and opened their eyes to the truth of the crucified and risen Christ. But it also leads them to affirm the experience of what had been opened to them in his opening the Scriptures about his Death and Resurrection. “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?” All of that is affirmed through this break-through moment when Christ takes the bread, blesses it and gives thanks. His action immediately and inescapably recalls his words and actions at the Last Supper. His Word in action is the Word made visible. This is the logic of the Sacraments.

Thus the Road to Emmaus story reveals the Christian epistemology of Word and Sacrament, the Word audible and the Word visible. The Word heard and the Word seen transform us. The two disciples on the Road to Emmaus were running away from Jerusalem in their perplexity, fear, and confusion. But after this moment, they rise up and return to Jerusalem and find the others and tell them “what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in the breaking of the bread.” Such a lovely phrase.

There is profound learning gained through the teaching of the Word audible and the Word visible, in short, Word and Sacrament. In the logic of the Resurrection, these are the principle vehicles of divine teaching that belong to the forms of our participation in that teaching. Such is the meaning of things heard and things seen that open our hearts and our minds. Such is education. It is very much about things heard and things seen that bring us to understanding. They transform us in remarkable ways, literally turning us around from our fears and uncertainties to joy and gladness and to our being with one another in care and support. And such is the radical meaning of Resurrection. It provides us with a deeper sense of human dignity and life and gives us strength and courage.

(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy

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