When native wit, after all these years, is simply weary
(or wary) of trying to express the truths of resurrection adequately in words,
it’s not a bad idea to turn to poetry. I
went back to this Hebrew prophet of the Exile.[1] He is one of three different prophets in what
we now call the Book of Isaiah, and he lived about 500 years before Jesus. The Jews had come back from Babylon after some
two generations in exile. It was their
grandparents who had last seen Jerusalem, as children. On their return to what war had destroyed
long ago, they had to cope not only with rebuilding but also with other people
now living there. How familiar is
this? Here is the prophet’s poetry. He tells how God sees it:
For
I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not
be remembered or come to mind. But be
glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create
Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or
the cry of distress. No more shall there
be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live
out a lifetime… They shall build houses
and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they
shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of
my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labour in vain, or bear
children for calamity… Before they call
I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the
lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy
mountain, says the Lord.
It is a sublime, impossible vision of resurrection –
all things new -- and all these many years later, I find, it is easier to
describe resurrection not so much in the words of theology and belief, as by quietly
noting where we see it, or saw it, marking the changes we didn’t expect. I have attended Easter services where the
announcement of Jesus’s resurrection was accompanied by much shouting and by a
fanfare on the organ trumpets. It is
worth remembering that the risen Lord, on the first Easter morning, mests Mary
of Magdala in her grief, quietly. At
first she thinks he is the gardener. He
joins the disciples walking to Emmaus as an interesting companion on the
road. They know him later in the
breaking of bread.
Tomorrow
shall be my dancing day, sings a very old English
carol. It pictures Jesus singing, I would my true love did so chance / to see
the legend of my play / to call my true love to my dance. We are called to his dance, in a
frightening, suffering world. Our friend
Michael Dougherty, who leads meditation groups in Whangarei, very timely sent
an Easter poem in which he wrote of Mother Julian of Norwich: And
Mother Julian cried out: What was the Lord's meaning? She was answered: Love
was his meaning ….. remain in this, and you will know more of the same.
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