Witnesses of these things – 16 April 2021

 

You are witnesses of these things (Luke 24:48).

There are devout Christians who actually find Easter quite difficult.  Christians all around them are joining in joyous affirmations – but like Thomas Hardy, these others find it more a matter of hoping it might be so.[1]  They suspect that underlying these strange resurrection stories and the big credal statements there is indeed something vital about God, about creation and life, about suffering, death and evil, something about the meaning of Jesus… if we could pin it down.  But we can’t – and we hang in there, somehow sustained by it. 

Let’s look at the narrative in Luke’s Gospel.  The disciples are huddled together, Jesus, who had been killed, appears in their midst, shows them his wounds, eats some fish, teaches them from the Jewish scriptures… and then tells them, You are witnesses of all these things.[2]

But what am I witnessing to?  Being a witness is a weighty thing.  Jews in Auschwitz and many other such places, who knew they would not survive, solemnly charged those who could:  Your task is to survive! Bear witness! Tell what happened.  You are witnesses, says Jesus.  But of what?  To some people the answer is as plain as day.  We witness to the resurrection – God raised his Son from the dead, is the classic statement.  On Easter morning the church proclaims: The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed!  To Paul it is clear – but now is Christ risen![3] The old has passed away, all has become new.[4] 

We are in a powerful line of witness down the centuries, of something which cannot be proved… or disproved.  It is always a statement of faith.  It is a witness borne by Helmut Rex, a young German pastor, imprisoned by the Nazis – and he later told us, his students, how Resurrection filled and sustained him during that time.  Creation, love and meaning are not wiped out by tyranny, mindless relentless evil, or death.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, also thrown in prison, was steadied and sustained, he knew, by the Risen Lord.  We witness to life – L’Chaim, in Hebrew[5] -- the conviction that God’s overarching Creative Word, God’s Logos, is Life… life restored, life renewed, life whose pathway is lit by love.  I think of Moses, as portrayed in the Book of Deuteronomy, giving his final charge to the people of Israel: I call heaven and earth to witness… today, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.  Choose life… that you may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, holding fast to him, for that means life to you… that you may live in the land…[6]  It is a choice, and it is a choice of faith.  And then, somehow, for us – I can’t explain it – there is a light on the path, the light of Hope, the abiding, sustaining Spirit of the Risen Lord.  We are witnesses of these things.

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[1] Thomas Hardy poem, The Oxen.

[2] in Greek the word martus (μάρτυς) – witness -- means also a martyr.

[3] I Corinthians 15:20, etc…

[4] II Corinthians 5:17

[5] לחיים

[6] Deuteronomy 30:19-20