Easter is approaching.
Resurrection is clearly explained. We say that Christ lives as Shakespeare lives in his plays. We say that he endures just as Beethoven endured in his score. We say that just as Socrates lives on, so his spirit lives on in the hearts of his students and in the lives shaped by his death. We say that the Gospels are poems, that is, they supersede facts and at the same time point to truth.
This argument works elsewhere as well. For example, it is useful for birth stories. But it fails here because the resurrection is not mentioned in the New Testament, but proclaimed. There are no scenes, no poems, no stories. All there is is the following announcement. Christ has been resurrected. The New Testament itself is an argument. Without the event, the event that actually happened that morning, there would be no New Testament, no church, no Christianity.
For a long time, I treated “resurrection” as a metaphor for my own experience. I sometimes wonder if I got my Ph.D. by mistake, mostly of my own making. You probably have your own. When my evangelical friends ask me, “Are you saved?” I say, “Many times.” More often than necessary.
But the resurrection rings true as more than a personal metaphor. Literary allusions abound. I think about Persephone’s periodic return. homeric hymnSidney Carton’s Saving Sacrifice A tale of two citiesand the transformation of Gandalf lord of the rings.
We are used to distinguishing between fact and fiction. There is an ongoing debate about whether the Bible is historically true and the resurrection is a fact, or whether it is another story, a myth of its own. In previous cultures, this question would have been incomprehensible. Truth was not just a proposition, it was a story. Orality was literacy.
I think of the Book of Exodus, which served not as an outdated record but as a living memory of a free people, and of the Odyssey, which gave the Greeks a language for their trials and return.
But the central claims of Christianity are different. It means that “the word became flesh.” The ultimate is intimate, existing within us, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bones. What is objectively true is also subjectively true. Modern rationality is as much a myth as an ancient legend. We live in a time of disillusionment.
Goalkeeper Chesterton spoke of a “huge, impossible universe staring back at us”. We want it to be meaningful, but if it is, it’s not on our terms. Perhaps the latest discoveries in astrophysics will finally convince us that our logic is only part of the story, not the last word. Uncertainty abounds.
The same goes for resurrection. That’s not logical. It is as meaningless as the fact that we were born, or the fact that we live just a heartbeat away from death. And yet, we do. We rarely think about destruction until we are forced to avoid it.
Call it good luck or call it an amazing blessing. Death is just a waypoint on the way. The resurrection is still in progress, despite all the things that could have afflicted us. As Christ is, so are we. “For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising its shame,” and claimed the seat of honor at the center of all things.
It is not the denial of doubts, but the discovery of truth.
notes and reading
Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431–1506): Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor. his revival The work is known for its innovative use of perspective and its “archaeological” detail, grounding supernatural events in gritty, believable physical reality.
C.S. Lewis (1898–1963): British scholar and novelist. This quote is from his essay “Myths Became Facts” (1944), in which he argues that Christianity does not supplant the power of ancient myths, but rather realizes it by translating “universal” stories into specific historical events.
Exodus: The basic story of the Hebrew Bible detailing the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt. Historically, it is understood not as a static archaeological record, but as a “living memory” that is re-realized each year through the Passover liturgy.
Odyssey: This oral epic, attributed to Homer (c. 8th century BC), served as the main cultural and moral framework of ancient Greece, providing a common vocabulary for ancient Greek concepts. nostos (returning home) and xenia (Hospitality).
“The word became flesh. ” Reference to the prologue of John’s Gospel (1:14). In Greek philosophy, logo (Word/Reason) was an abstract principle that ordered the universe. The Christian claim is that this universal principle has taken on a uniquely human nature.
“Flesh of our flesh, bone of our bones. ” Alluding to Genesis 2:23, it indicates the closest possible kinship. In this context, it emphasizes the fundamental “nearness” of God in the doctrine of the incarnation.
Modern rationality as a myth: A perspective shared by thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Horkheimer, which suggests that the “reason” of the Enlightenment functions as its own myth, a closed belief system used to organize and control reality.
Age of disillusionment: A term popularized by sociologist Max Weber (Enzaubelung). It describes a modern situation in which scientific intellectualism and the “calculation” of all things have replaced the sense of the world as a place of mystery and divine meaning.
GK Chesterton (1874–1936): British writer and lay theologian. This quote is from orthodox (1908), in which he argues that the strangeness of the universe is evidence not of its randomness but of its design.
Astrophysics and uncertainty: References to the “uncertainty principle” (Heisenberg) and the counterintuitive properties of quantum mechanics and dark matter. These suggest that the fundamental laws of the universe often go against human “common sense.”
Seat of honor: It is a modern expression of the traditional “right hand of God,” signifying the completion of God’s work of salvation and the establishment of His universal authority.
“For the joy set before him…”: A passage from the New Testament that describes the motive behind Jesus’ crucifixion. He depicts this event not as a tragedy worth commemorating, but as deliberate perseverance aimed at future “joy.”
just be careful
Before the end of liberalism
Approximately 2+2=5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
