Saturday, July 02, 2005

Proper 8, Saturday: Musings on the afterlife

Today's Readings:
In Samuel, Saul calls another roll. Jonathan is not there. Saul has the ark brought forth. As chaos ensues in teh Philistine camp (thanks to Jonathan), Saul draws his army into battle. Israel wins the day. Saul commands the troops not to eat before nightfall. Jonathan does not hear this order and eats some honey. Jonathan complains against his father.
In Acts, God tells Ananias, a man in Damascus, to got ot he house of Judas to lay hands on Saul. Ananias resists, knowing Sauls reputation, but relents when God assures him that things are working out. He goes to Saul and lays hands on him and baptizes him.
In Luke, Jesus is crucified. He prays for God to forgive 'them'. One of the criminals who are hung with him derides him, but the other rebukes him. Jesus promises that one that "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
The Gospel reminds me of a discussion in Lynne Truss' book Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. The comma in Jesus' statement is theologically important. I don't think the original Greek had punctuation. I may be wrong, but if that is true, then all punctuation in the English Bible is editorial, and here it plays a deeper role. In the back of the BCP the 39 articles of religion state that it is believed that Jesus went into hell, or sheol, after the crucifixion, and some of the non-canonical books have great stories about the harrowing of hell, but Jesus' statement, with the comma where it is, tells me that Jesus didn't think that he was going to spend any time in hell. Jesus felt that he was going straight to heaven.
The other implication of the comma before 'today' is that death-bed conversions work. We don't like to think that they work. We don't like to ponder Charlie Manson begging God for repentance right before he dies and being baptized and being forgiven and going to heaven. It doesn't fit right with what we commonly understand to be 'Justice.' But in truth, what we consider to be 'Justice' is more often than not 'Revenge' or 'Retribution'.
This passage is unique to Luke in the canonical Gospels. I haven't surveyed the rest of them, but it means that the Lucan community wanted true believers to go straight to heaven.
Here are some other dangerous thoughts. Jesus thought that he was on his way to paradise. Tradition states that he was resurrected on the third day, but he was put in the tomb on Friday and nobody went to look until Sunday. The resurrection could have happened any time after the rock was rolled into place. But tradition also says that Jesus was seen for forty days after the crucifixion in fleshy form, and this is in the Book of Acts, which is the second part of the Lucan Gospel, so what is going on here?
I dismiss the idea that Jesus survived Good Friday, woke up in the tomb, and then lived for a little while and taught a little more, using his 'death' as a weapon, before dying of his injuries (or, as one rumor had it, going East and ending up in Japan and keeping a rice farm). I dismiss any notion that Jesus survived Good Friday at all, no matter how much you add to the story to make it sound plausible. I can't reject the corporeal resurrection of the flesh of Jesus. The tomb was empty. As for his post-death appearances, I'm still not entirely convinced, but Jesus was resurrected into his flesh, and I believe that I will be resurrected into my flesh at the end of time.
Looking at the rest of the readings, Ananias questions Jesus. If Luke is pushing the idea of pure faith in Jesus, then that probably doesn't include questioning Jesus. Of course, the desciples questioned Jesus, usually for clarification, and they also gave Jesus orders, which He ignored. Ananias questioned, and we need to remember that. He was not chastised, but he served Jesus and God because he had--eventually--faith and trust.
From Jonathans complaint, I would say that the sin of Saul was letting his own personal goals hinder his people.

posted by Josh English @ 6:25 PM

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