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IN THE FACE OF UNCERTAINTY….Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009 I have often gazed on summer evenings at the Milky Way, what our third Eucharistic Prayer calls “…the vast expanse of interstellar space…” and wondered with the Psalmist, “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” Some such a notion of God providentially caring for each of us is at the heart of the major monotheistic faiths of our world. And, responding to such a God is a personal challenge in each of our lives. John Polkinghorne is an English particle physicist and ordained priest in the Church of England. He writes often of matters both scientific and spiritual, contending that both disciplines are, as he puts it, “faith seeking understanding.” In leading into his discussion of the Resurrection of Christ, Polkinghorne discusses what we know of the universe. The history of the universe is a giant tug of war between the expansive force of the big bang, driving galaxies apart, and the contractive force of gravity, pulling them together. These two effects are so evenly balanced that we cannot tell which will win. If expansion prevails, the galaxies now [growing further apart from each other] will continue to do so forever, eventually decaying slowly with the universe ending in a whimper. If, on the other hand, gravity prevails, the present expansion of the galaxies will one day be halted and reversed. What began with the big bang will end in the big crunch, as the whole universe collapses back into a singular melting pot. Most of you, like me, have no idea how to picture a black hole, much less how to envision the entire universe collapsing back into nothing. We are inclined to just drop the subject and let these bright folk figure that out while we get on with fixing the garbage disposal, which just ate part of a measuring spoon. But Polkinghorne comes a little closer to us when he notes that this sense of futility about the fate of the universe is not different from the sense of futility that we can feel sometimes about our own lives. In both cases he points out that what is at issue is the faithfulness of God to his creation and to its individual creatures. He also says that how we think about our own destiny impacts how we live.
And so are we. Just as the scientists are uncertain whether to trust the forces of expansion or the forces of gravity, so we are uncertain whether to flee from fear or to follow in trust. This, it seems to me is not just a theological issue for us. It is a lifetime dilemma. Parents who have accompanied their young child to school or to the bus on the first day of kindergarden know that they can see in their child’s face both eagerness and uncertainty. Perhaps more unsettling is their awareness that their child’s face reflects their own, in that the parent is eager for the child to move on and, at the same time, uncertain about whether to let go. Paul Tillich, defined faith as the Courage to Be. The parent at the steps of the bus or school has a gut level understanding of that definition. You at the Church of the Messiah face uncertainty and can be excused if at times it scares you and at times excites you. So the women at the tomb represent us all. And the gospel story ends with the reader understanding that if the disciples and the women want to see Jesus in Galilee they will once more have to renew their faith and follow rather than fleeing in the face of their fear. They went simply to perform an ancient and treasured role and found their day and their lives were to be changed. What it would be was uncertain. One of those uncertainties, for them and for us, is the simple meaning of the Resurrection. So, in chapter 9, Mark reports to us that the disciples themselves, despite their long association with Jesus, discussed among themselves, “What is the meaning of the Resurrection of the Dead?” I guess that if they could take that liberty we can also. Surely it does not mean that we each go on living at whatever age we were at death, some only three, others thirty, others still three times thirty. It also does not mean that some apparition, some spirit without form, floats around the universe checking in on a galaxy here and living room there. I cannot say that wouldn’t be exciting, or that there aren’t such ghostly spirits, only that such is not what we mean by the resurrection of the dead. I cannot even say much about the nature of the time and space to be occupied by whatever the new creation is. After all, I don’t really understand our own very well. About six years ago I visited an exhibit about Albert Einstein’s work at the Museum of Natural History in New York City. There I began to glimpse for the first time what he meant by relativity. It is perhaps enough to tell you that when a clock travels faster, time moves slower. The difference in small increments of time, like the difference between the speed of a clock on a train and that of a clock on a plane is too small for us to measure, so if you are late for an appointment don’t trow your clock out the window to slow down time. But if a clock could move at the speed of light, the time it is measuring would indeed stand still, and thus the oft-repeated implication that if we could move at the speed of light we would not age. If I could leave now at the speed of light and return in ten years, you would all have aged ten years and I would still be 71. Assuming God may move at at least the speed of light, if God so chooses, are not the past, the present and the future all one with God? Indeed, Einstein, in writing words of comfort to the wife of a friend who preceded him by a few weeks in death, said, “I will join him soon, when I finish with this fiction of past, present and future.” I do not claim that Einstein believed in a personal God, he said he didn’t. But it would be fun to ask him where he expected to join his friend. It might shed new light on Jesus’ reported words to the thief who hung beside him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Now, this brief recitation of the relativity of time is meant only to show how little we know about what will happen after our own death. It is futile for us to try to figure out how complex the universe may be or where and how we might be in some way reconstituted. It is equally futile to build a case against resurrection on whatever little we know about the mechanics of carbon based life in this universe. Others before Jesus believed in life after death. But what energized the disciples was that He returned to be with them when they had so obviously deserted him. Thus they understood what St. John means when he reports that Jesus prayed to the Father that none of these be lost. Just as the women and the disciples faced a choice between following and fleeing so do we face the twin roads of fear and courage at every point; in deciding on a career, in choosing a school, in deciding whether to marry, and if so, whom, in joining or not joining a church, in choosing to fight or to protest. In fear, which we all have, we postpone these choices, waiting for more evidence, or we choose casually, thinking there will always be a way out. But with courage we make commitments to we follow unknown roads trusting that we can follow where they lead. Polkinghorne, who was addressing the issue of believing or not believing in the Resurrection, asks, “are the deep order of the world, and the fruitfulness of its history, hints of its being a creation , or are they just happy accidents in a meaningless process? Are human intuitions of hope windows into a divine reality, or are they comforting illusions that offer us delusive support as we battle to survive?” In another place he refers to the philospher, John Hick, who told a parable of two men on a journey together. One believes that they are going to the celestial city, the other has no such belief. On their way, their experiences are similar. “And yet, when they turn the last corner, it will be apparent that one of them was right and the other wrong.” Polkinghorne asserts his belief in the celestial city, but adds, that “those who are seeking a homeland” to quote the book of Hebrews, will tend to conduct themselves in the present in a manner different from those without such a hope. So that even on the way there will be a difference between the two travelers. The one will endure privations for the sake of the prospect before him; the other will be tempted to paths of ease, even if they deflect him from his journey. It will be easier for the one than the other to honour the sometimes painful obligations that loyalty and faithfulness impose upon us.” It was so for the women. It was so for the disciples. And when we deeply trust that a place is prepared for us, it is so for us. And now unto God, in whose mysterious creation we seek both our present joy and our ultimate destiny, may be ascribed as is most justly due, all might, majesty and glory, now and forevermore. –The Rev. Jay Hanson Comments are closed. |
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This issue of our response to the challenges of life is put clearly at the end of Mark’s Gospel. We are told there that, upon arriving at the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body with oil the women find his body gone and are told that they will find him in Galilee. The women ran from the scene and said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. We, the readers, know of course, that that is not true. The women are bid by the man in white raiment to follow his directions in order to see Jesus, but they are inclined by their own inner fears to say nothing to anyone.