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Each year I read the Auckland Church Leaders message about Easter addressed to the people of Auckland. There is a lengthy list of signatories, mostly of fundamentalist churches, but also including the mainline denominations.  We don’t know from year to year who wrote it, and therefore whom we might want to dispute with. Each year I look for something worthwhile in it, something that gives hope. And each year I cringe, for the hope recipe it offers is simply to believe what everybody knows literally doesn’t happen. For dead bodies don’t come back to life, they stay dead.

Easter is a symbol of transformation, a story to live, a call to action. It is not about one dead body coming back to life some 42 hours later (not 3 literal days), walk around (including through locked doors) for 40 days, only then to ascend to heaven (which was up in the sky) to be where God was said to dwell. Even if that was literally true, what does it prove? What hope does that offer? Does it mean that when we die, we might go to be with him? If so, is that what Christianity is about, a hope in an afterlife?

Easter is about hope in this life, here and now, finding the sort of love that liberates us from the captivity of fear. A quality of love that is more than affection. A love that changes us and the world.

This morning I want to go on a brisk walk through the appearance tradition.

Let’s start with what is probably the earliest written: Paul’s writings. For Paul, like in his great hymn (Philippians 2), the resurrection is not a physical event but an exaltation. Jesus’ actions and teaching, especially his being a human and suffering, are why he is exalted. There is no empty tomb for Paul or physical resurrection. When Paul refers to Jesus being raised, he is referring to a spiritual body (whatever that precisely means). Paul equates his experience of ‘seeing’ Jesus (and thus conferring apostleship on Paul) on a par with the experience of those in the gospels – like Mary and Peter and many more than 12 others.

In the Gospel of Mark, the original ending has no appearance of a risen Jesus. Instead, three women (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome) go to the tomb, find the stone has been rolled away and a messenger dressed in white saying not to fear, Jesus has been raised and is going ahead of them to Galilee. Note the passive verb, ‘was raised’. God does the raising. God is the one vindicating all that Jesus was and did. God is the one exalting him. Later the passive verb would evolve into an active verb – so it was Jesus who did the rising.

In the Gospel of Matthew there is some seemingly weird stuff. Like after Jesus breathed his last (27:52) tombs in cemeteries split open and dead bodies of ‘saints’ got up and started walking around. Dom Crossan tells us this was part of a larger narrative, common in the Eastern Church, where Jesus’ resurrection (or vindication) was part of a universal resurrection, seen for example in the icon where Jesus descends to Hades and grasps the hands of Adam and Eve. Crossan writes “The Crucifixion and Resurrection offer us a parable bigger than themselves. When Christ, rising from the dead after being executed for nonviolent resistance grasps the hands of Adam and Eve, a parable of possibility and a metaphor of hope for all humanity is created.”  So, in plain language, if God vindicates/exalts Jesus so too God will vindicate/exalt all people, living and dead, who stand against the violence, fear, and the myths of the powerful that support such.

Back to Matthew. In chapter 28 he has a similar ending to (and probably dependent on) Mark. Two women show up to the tomb, the messenger (angel) is a bit more dramatic, but the message is essentially the same: ‘Don’t be afraid. Jesus has been raised. He is going ahead of you to Galilee.’ Then Matthew includes a Galilee scene, on a mountain,where the 11 disciples gather, and the risen Jesus commissions them to make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching. Interestingly the text says the 11 worshipped him; but some doubted. Why worship? Luke 4:8 has Jesus saying worship God alone. And why doubt? Especially when you’re one of the 11, an insider.

Crossan, in another of his books,alerts us that these appearance narratives seem to be endorsing certain peopleto be apostles/leaders in the emerging Jesus movements. We know the idea of 12 apostles (mirroring the twelve tribes of Israel) was a later development written back into the gospels. And we also know from Paul (1 Cor 15) there were many more than 11 apostles. Who are the 11 in the gospels is also confusing. But it seems they were all male. Which flies in the face of the first witnesses tradition being all women, notably Mary Magdalene.

The Gospel of Luke seems to draw on sources other than Mark and a common (Q) source with Matthew. Luke again begins with stone rolled from the tomb, but now with two messengers (angels) who are more verbose, though without the direction to go to Galilee. (There is now 3 women again, though a Joanna rather than Salome).

Luke’s next episode is the women telling the 11 ‘and all the rest’, and Peter (rather than taking their word) goes and looks for himself.

Luke’s next episode is a stand-alone and unique resurrection parable that we call ‘The Road to Emmaus’ where a seemingly physical Jesus (who they don’t recognize) walks and teaches two unknown followers (not part of the 11), then, when stopped at an inn for refreshments, Jesus breaks and blesses bread, the followers ‘eyes are open’, they recognize him, and he vanishes.

The ability to be unrecognizable (think voice, mannerisms, as well as looks) and to be able to vanish suddenly is hard to equate with the idea that this is the historical Jesus who suffered,died and now has been brought back (revivified) to life. Indeed, it points to a different kind of experience altogether.

The last Lukan episode has (following Matthew) Jesus suddenly being amid the 11 (but note with their‘companions’ and the 2 from the Emmaus Road), telling them he’s not a ghost (touching, eating), then commissioning them (like in Matthew). But unlike Matthew this Luke has Jesus ascending up into heaven.

Then, lastly, there is the 4^thGospel, ascribed to John. The first appearance story has Mary Magdalene finding the empty tomb, but not initially meeting any angel, instead running and telling Peter and another male disciple. (So, the boys are first, not the girls). The boys also run (a race?) and both see linen burial wrappings but no angels. Yet Mary has also run back, and she sees two angels who tease her with the question ‘Why are you weeping?’ Then she turns and meets Jesus the gardener, whom she doesn’t recognize until he speaks her name. She is told not to touch him. Which is the opposite of what later Thomas is told.

The next Johannine episode is the risen Jesus passing through locked doors to tell an indeterminate group of disciples not to be afraid. And, importantly, to be breathed on to receive the Holy Spirit. This is John’s Pentecost – no Jesus ascending so that the Spirit can come down (like in Luke’s Gospel). The imparting of one’s spirit to one’s followers was a well-known trope (like Elijah and Elisha).

But alas Thomas isn’t there. So,there’s another episode, again with locked doors which the risen Jesus walks through. The emphasis is on scars (there’s no mention so far in the Bible aboutJesus being nailed onto the cross – the Romans usually used rope), on touching (unlike with Mary), and again on eating.

Then lastly, there is my favourite appearance narrative where Jesus tells a group of his male followers where to find the big fish, then cranks up the BBQ, and makes breakfast on the beach. Again, there is a conversation where they fail to realize who Jesus is. And again, like in the other gospels, this last appearance is a commissioning, but this time solely of Peter (reversing the narrative of a triadic betrayal).

That’s where the biblical appearance tradition leaves us. And its from this tradition that the Church developed the Easter affirmation that Christ has risen.

Whatever Easter was literally for the disciples (and if anything it’s a confusing picture), symbolically it meant that Jesus had been taken into God and vindicated/exalted/praised byGod. It also meant that though his body was dead somehow his life (his animating spirit) had transcended death and was still present. I would suggest that the appearance narratives are all stories to convey this death-transcending presence, and are stripped of value when used to make impossible claims about a dead body.

Like in these symbolic stories from so long ago, how we meet Jesus’ on-going presence varies from Christian to Christian, from one Christian tradtion to another. The Bible gives us stories of individuals finding strength to overcome their fears – finding that strength in themselves, or by rehearing the words of their mentor, or by finding that strength of being together. A number of these stories also include food. To paraphrase Paul: when we are together, eating together, sharing together, its as if his presence is among us. And a number of these stories are about commissioning – calling us out of the isolation of our fears and into a task, liberating us from crippling anxieties into a love that is powerful enough to bring freedom, non-violently topple oprressive regimes, and give hope to all people everywhere.

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