since easter sunday, i have been thinking about the meanings of the resurrection. we dwell on the victory of Jesus over death that portends our own immortality. we assume that, because Jesus experienced a certain sort of resurrection, our own will be much the same as that of Jesus. it seems to me that scripture is pretty ambiguous on this, and the actual experience of what happens after death or what our own resurrection experiences may be is not of great concern to me. i have faith that Jesus did indeed rise from the tomb, that He did appear to a number of His followers after His resurrection, and that he left this earth just as the scripture says. i have faith that each of us has an immortal soul and that we, too, will experience our own resurrections, though they may be quite different from that of Jesus.
my thoughts have turned to other implications of Jesus' resurrection. first, because death was not the end of Jesus' life, He continues to perform His work of ministering to the world. second, Jesus' resurrection teaches us that life is full of new beginnings, that we experience the joy of resurrection each time we turn from an oft-repeated sin and are raised to a new life free of that sin. third, Jesus' resurrection and appearance in His resurrected body to His followers teaches us that His revelation continues, that it did not end with His ascension, nor with the completion of what is recognized as the scriptural canon.
my prayer for each of us is that we experience the miracle of the resurrected Jesus and all the mysteries that are a part of it. may we not limit the resurrection to what it has to teach us about our own immortality, important as that is.
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