Last Sunday the Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter. According to the church calendar of the East, this was the first day of the Easter observance. Traditionally when these Christians meet one another in this season, they exchange the following greeting: “Christ is risen.” To this the other person replies, “He is risen indeed.”
Meanwhile, the Christian churches of the West continue the Easter celebration that they began the previous Sunday. Their prayerful observance of Christ’s resurrection will continue for several more weeks.
This is the liturgical season when Christ’s Resurrection remains uppermost in the hearts of people everywhere who are committed to faith in Jesus.
Against this backdrop I wish to share some inspiration gained from the classroom of Father Stanley Marrow. This New Testament scholar is unique: a Jesuit who was born in Baghdad and grew up there an Iraqi citizen. As a young man he emigrated to this country, studied at Boston College, and became an American citizen.
Father Marrow is also unique in the way he appreciates the Gospels and other parts of the New Testament. By this stage in his career he has taught generations of students at Weston Jesuit School of Theology and elsewhere, imbuing them with knowledge and even wisdom about these sacred writings.
Sitting in on two classes last week, I admired the way this former colleague of mine combines solid knowledge based on New Testament scholarship with a deep spirituality that comes from his own life and his tradition of prayer and other spiritual exercises. From what I could observe, his students leave the classroom both informed and inspired, an accomplishment most teachers would be proud to achieve.
This dynamic teacher emphasizes that the New Testament is a book of faith, based on proclamation. The Resurrection of Jesus is not provable; if it were, it would not be an object of faith. This faith is freely given by believers in response to the testimony of credible witnesses. Miracles of any sort are not proofs, Father Marrow says, but instead signs intended to witness to the truth of God’s presence and activity.
In rising from the dead, Jesus saves his people, setting them free from the triple slavery of sin, death, and the Law. In saving humans from death, Jesus does not save anyone from dying, however. Everybody must go through this rending of the physical self as did Jesus himself.
It is a matter of history that Jesus died; that he rose is a matter of faith, an interpretation of what happened to the Lord. The appearances of Jesus to his disciples and others are not proofs of his resurrection but illustrations of the risen life that he now leads. And that others will lead after their deaths.
No matter what the circumstances of a person’s death, New Testament faith says that God creates out of nothing the same person who died. The person with all his or her relationships is brought back to life. Just as Jesus is identifiably the same person, so will the believer be through the saving action of Jesus.
Belief comes through love and, Father Marrow emphasizes, love remains the best sign that we have been made into a new creation. We have been given eternal life so that, in loving you, I need not worry about losing you. The relationship we have will never be lost.
For Christians, the important point about Jesus is that he died for others. This fact, known by faith, takes on palpable reality each time an individual encounters another person in faith and love.
In this faith, life led for the sake of others witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. The quality of our love is the most important single reality of the Easter faith. Jesus died to save his people from death and this reality becomes manifest in the relationships that people have with one another.
Clearly, Professor Marrow places great emphasis on God’s love for everyone and the New Testament’s call to implement this love in real life. For example, he cites the attentive listening to other people as an important act of love. It emerges in sharp contrast to the way human beings use one another, manipulating the other for our own advantage.
By contrast, accepting others as they are and where they are is putting into practice the Easter message.
Richard Griffin