Thoughts on the empty tomb

[Thomas]

"The Virgin Birth cannot be understood in abstraction from the triumphant consummation of Christ’s life in his resurrection, for it is there that the mystery of his Person is revealed.

In fact the birth of Jesus of the Virgin Mary and the resurrection of Jesus from the virgin tomb (wherein no human being had ever been laid) are the twin signs which mark out the mystery of Christ, testifying to the continuity and the discontinuity between Jesus Christ and (fallen time and) our fallen humanity.

... The empty tomb points to the revelation of the secret of Christ and as such is the authentication of the Virgin Birth; it is the unveiling of what was veiled, the resurrection out of our mortality of what was inserted into (time) it and recreated within it. But such a resurrection: of true Man and true God points back to the Virgin Birth of Jesus as a union of true God and true Man... Thus the mystery of the Virgin Birth is the basis of the mystery of the resurrection. By the mystery of the resurrection the mystery of the Virgin Birth becomes effective and understandable. Here we have a closed circle; to deny the Virgin Birth involves a denial of the resurrection, and vice versa."

from "Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ", Thomas F Torrance MBE FRSE FBA, full extract here (bracketed text mine)

 

[Thomas]

To be more concrete, apocalyptic theology begins with the empty tomb. The apocalypse is not pushed out into a distant extended future. The future is now. Because God the Father raised His Son Jesus from the dead, the Last Days are currently upon us. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day completely altered and recast human history. The empty tomb of the crucified and risen Jesus is the eschatological sign par excellence. DBH describes well its shock-and-awe effect:

In this sense, the living tradition, if indeed it is living, is essentially apocalyptic: an originating disruption of the historical past remembered in light of God’s final disruption of the historical (and cosmic) future. One might even conclude that the tradition reveals its secrets only through moments of disruption precisely because it is itself, in its very essence, a disruption: it began entirely as a novum, an unanticipated awakening to something hitherto unknown that then requires the entirety of history to interpret… This is the only true faithfulness to the memory of an absolute beginning, a sudden unveiling without precise precedent: an empty tomb, say, or the voice of God heard in rolling thunder, or the descent of the Spirit like a storm of wind or tongues of fire. In a very real sense, the tradition exists only as a sustained apocalypse, a moment of pure awakening preserved as at once an ever dissolving recollection and an ever renewed surprise. (pp. 142-143)

“Disruption” is the key word here, even if it is an understatement. If we confess with the Nicene Creed that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who rose from the dead on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, we must realize the radical consequences of such a statement. Nothing can ever be the same for a conscientious disciple of Jesus Christ. We can no longer look at our lives and our cosmos in the same way ever again.

The empty tomb is the greatest gauntlet ever thrown down to challenge historicism and its all-embracing, all-determining relativism than which none greater can be conceived. The crucified, risen, and ascended Jesus is the greatest novum of all novorum.

Review of Tradition and Apocalypse, David Bentley Hart, article here

 

[Thomas]

This brings us to a question much discussed by Catholic scholars and others: should we see the resurrection as an historical event in the same sense as the crucifixion or burial but simply following them in time? Was the resurrection an historical event distinct from the death of Christ? I want to stress that this is something debated amongst Catholic scholars and theologians as well as others. None of them wish to deny that the resurrection took place; the question is simply its relationship to history.

Was it something that happened to the corpse of Christ in the tomb as truly as the crucifixion and death happened to the living body of Christ on the cross? To put my own cards on the table, I think that it was. I think that there was an event other than the crucifixion in consequence of which the body of Christ was not to be found in the tomb but is transfigured and glorified. I just want to indicate that there are perfectly good and devout Catholics who believe in the reality of the resurrection as firmly as I do but would put things differently.

Herbert McCabe, "God Matters", p106

 

[Thomas]

The resurrection from the tomb, then, is ambiguous in that it is both a presence and an absence of Christ. The resurrection surely does not mean that Christ simply walked out of the tomb as though nothing had happened. On the contrary, as we shall see, he is more present, more bodily present, than that; but he is nevertheless locally or physically absent in a way that he was not before.

It is, of course, essential to the Catholic tradition that the resurrection of Christ is bodily; that is to say that it is Christ himself, this human bodily being who is risen. The resurrection does not cancel but rather crowns the incarnation, the enfleshing of the Word. It is not, for example, that some thought about Christ, some inspiring memory of him, lives on in the minds of his followers. The message of the resurrection is that the incarnate Christ is alive and is with us. Resurrexi et adhuc tecum sum: | am risen; | am with you.]/i]

Herbert McCabe, "God Matters", p110

 

[Thomas]

"The problem with calling Christ’s Resurrection a “literal, historical event”, though, is that we call only those events historical which are describable in physical ways and above all by historical causes. Something happened to Christ and to his body specifically, and we would like to explain it. However, both the cause and its result lie outside time, and the event is not itself describable other than by saying, “he was raised” or “he arose”.

The empty tomb is the sign of this resurrection, but notice that, apart from the story of the guard and the bribe in Mt 27.62-66, 28.11-15 the writers take no interest in anyone’s reaction to the empty tomb.

But even more importantly, after his crucifixion, only his disciples ever see Jesus in his risen glory— even the appearance to “more than 500 of the brethren” that St Paul mentions in 1Co 15.6 is an appearance to “the brethren”. So it seems that faith is an *essential* part of affirming his resurrection— you cannot say it occurred apart from faith somehow. (Although NT Wright i think has done a stellar job of assembling all the evidence!)

But all those “Evidence That Demands a Verdict”–type books always fall flat somehow, and fail to be as convincing as their writers are confident they will be, precisely because they are trying to prove something that’s outside of proof; to show logical something beyond logic.

...

Now, i’m aware that that might sound like i’m saying that Christ did not “really” arise “historically”, or at least that i’m hedging about it. Not at all, but I am reflecting on the nature of what Mark saw and said, what we saw and and say, and how both he and we see and say.

We have to take seriously the fact that for all the gospels, the last publicly visible image was indeed the cross. And my main point is that – this goes to the essence of what Mark is driving at in his Gospel – that for him (and for the other writers), the empty tomb is about the cross!

But already with the empty tomb (something seen in Matthew even by unbelieving guards) we’re on the border between this age and the oncoming Age, and that Age is most definitely not a mere continuation of present history, not the future of one particular stream of events, while other events in other places (and particularly, in other religions) might have other futures. The cross of Christ is the essence of this age, and the resurrection of Christ is the future of the entire world, of all time and history everywhere. So, can we speak of something like that as “historical” in the same way that we say the destruction of the Temple was historical?

Although for Mark, Luke, and John the tomb is already open and Christ already gone when the women arrive, for Matthew the tomb is still closed when the women arrive, and an angel opens it before them, sits on the stone, informs them that Jesus is not there, and instructs them as to what the tomb’s emptiness means. Matthew is midrashing Mark as he always does; he’s drawing the moment out so that he can have the angel make his speech. But each in his own way, all four of the gospel writers are dealing with what the tomb’s emptiness means for us who live in the history where the cross is the “last visible reality”.

In this sense, the resurrection is not a historical event like the cross was, but the kind of event that we can for now experience only in the Breaking of the Bread and all that surrounds it. History is always inherently a history of death— but here is someone who overcame death.


John B Burnett, in response to an article here

 

[TheLightWithin]

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day completely altered and recast human history.

I used to think something like that as a kid, with my vague understanding, I didn't know how to articulate it or what to compare it to.
More to come in "head canon" I am going to do that, I'm working to make it coherent and not overly personal so I'm working on it on the side.
But what I would like to know is, if it recast human history, what would have happened without it / what was going to happen if Christ's resurrection had not happened or if for some reason it had been delayed?

My childhood head canon had some vague, very vague theories, heavily influenced by then current events.

 

[Thomas]

But what I would like to know is, if it recast human history, what would have happened without it / what was going to happen if Christ's resurrection had not happened or if for some reason it had been delayed?

Things would go on exactly as they are.

A view common to some of the theologies above is expressed above by Burnett:
However, both the cause and its result lie outside time, and the event is not itself describable
Indescribable because it lies outside time ... but the Fall initiates our aeon, and that aeon would just run on under its own inevitable impetus until either the Higher intervenes (the Incarnation) or until, if not eternal, which our cosmos is not, we will do something that has unforeseen but inescapably cataclysmic consequences.

The End of our Age might be likened to the Kali Yuga ... in which case we have another 42,000 odd years to go ...

 

[wil]

Things would go on exactly as they are.

Fall initiates our aeon

And if "the fall" had never been described, written down or understood?

Things would have gone on just as they are...

But would the wars have been as violent without an invisible beings to guide us?

I wonder without prophets which gods would have held up....as basically the abrahamic texts and revolution wiped out the Greek, Roman, Norse and many African and American traditions...

 

[TheLightWithin]

But would the wars have been as violent without an invisible beings to guide us?

I suspect so.
Wars are fundamentally economic, and all about power over land and resources and what belongs to Us vs Them.
Religion helps identify Us vs Them / Ingroup and Outgroup.
Religious strife may seem like the reasons for wars, and may even seem like a motivator on the ground, but religious ideals are at most the topic, never the actual cause.

 

[wil]

I suspect so.
Wars are fundamentally economic, and all about power over land and resources and what belongs to Us vs Them.
Religion helps identify Us vs Them / Ingroup and Outgroup.
Religious strife may seem like the reasons for wars, and may even seem like a motivator on the ground, but religious ideals are at most the topic, never the actual cause.

I started another thread so as not to derail this one. (Worse)

A world without the abrahamic revelatio...revolution.

So monotheism already existed or would have come around..but let's say no Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohamed... Now the devil came along with those guys...so we have none of that. This thread is to speculate as to what the world would be like. What calendar would we use? What year would this be...

www.interfaith.org

 

[Thomas]

And if "the fall" had never been described, written down or understood?

Then it would have been proposed as a philosophy ... as the Greeks did.

I wonder without prophets which gods would have held up....as basically the abrahamic texts and revolution wiped out the Greek, Roman, Norse and many African and American traditions...

Yes, it's easy to blame a less-than salutary history on Christianity, and I'm not about to defend it.

But we didn't 'wipe out' the Greek Gods, they were being undone by Greek philosophy ... and those traditions were often busy wiping out alien traditions, so what you're pointing too, really, is a failure of man, rather than a failure of religion.

And more recently politics has shown itself to be quite capable of genocides without bringing religion into the mix ... Stalinist purges, Pol Pot ... it always boils down to 'us and them' ...

 

[muhammad_isa]

.. it always boils down to 'us and them' ...

"who knows which is which, and who is who"

 

[TheLightWithin]

"who knows which is which, and who is who"

Well, religion influences identity/community/belonging, so religious identity can be part of determining which is which and who is who, and those who know...
Which is what I meant when I said religion is not necessarily the actual cause of wars, like many seem to think, but it IS a marker helping to divide people into us vs them, and religious ideas are often the TOPIC... but not innately the CAUSE of conflicts as many seem to think, and as I used to think also.

I used to believe, for example, that religious extremism, leading to discrimination, persecution, wars, terrorism, or whatever else, was caused the zeal caused by adherence to the ideas and the anger caused by having to put up with opposing viewpoints. I actually thought people endangered their own lives and killed others ALL BECAUSE "they would far, far prefer to kill and die, than to endure one more minute in a world where different beliefs even exist." Those were the words I cooked up to explain to some other person once upon a time. I based it on my limited understanding of world events as well as my less than joyful experiences with some evangelizing zealots in real life. But now I think I understand things like history, identity, economics, and the nuances that go with them, and theology and its history and nuances too, a little better than I used to and my own zealous little quote (as stated earlier in this paragraph) sounds flat, childish, and uninformed to me now.