FINDINGS III By Harry T. Cook

 

  

Easter III - B  
 Luke 24: 36b-48

 

 

 

By Harry T. Cook
4/16/12
   

Harry T. Cook
Harry T. Cook

 


  


Outwardly at least, most expressions of the Jewish-Christian religious experience are theistic in nature, positing an objective deity that is supposed to be more or less in charge of the universe. "Belief" is focused upon the imagined existence or presence of such a deity, and, to a lesser extent, that deity's invisible but nonetheless potent initiatives said to be carried out through human beings, events of history and natural phenomena.

 

For traditional theistic Christians, the figure of Jesus Christ, believed by many to be that character variously told of in the gospels, is the exclusive agent of the deity for the salvation of the world (in the most liberal interpretations) and of believers (in the most conservative).

 

We have just passed through the Holy Week-Easter cycle with its emphasis on the dying and rising of the Christ figure. Surely as anything, this partakes in mythology -- mythology being a poetic way of accounting for a truth not readily communicated via journalistic reporting. The Passion story is not a who-what-where-when-why story. It is a complicated network of legends with pieces of history here and there woven into its telling.

 

"Believing" the story does not mean taking it literally.

 

An example: For a long time after the 9/11 catastrophe, a story went the rounds, which has now become a fixed urban legend, that a New York Fire Department chaplain was killed by falling debris after he took off his helmet in an attitude of prayer to anoint a dying firefighter.

 

The chaplain in question did, in fact, administer last rites to many a firefighter that day, and that chaplain did die, but not while he was administering last rites. Some versions of the story say that at the time of the incident that caused his death he had not been wearing his helmet as required. Nonetheless, he was a hero.

 

The myth, though, redeems for many the utter tragedy of 9/11. Myths and legends can do that redemptive work, but they do it better when they are not sold as actual history and then have to be de-mythologized for the sake of the record.


The first question one might ask about Luke 24: 36b-48 is: Is it a continuation of the Emmaus road episode (24:13-35), or is it part of another tradition that was married by the editor or editors of Luke to the earlier passage with the transition sentence of v. 26 ("While disciples were telling how they had seen Jesus risen from the dead  . . .")?

It is reasonable to surmise that the Emmaus road story is a stand-alone gem. It is certainly typical of the prose lyricism of Luke (see, for example, 2:1-14 the Nativity), 2:41-52 (the young Jesus in the Temple), 7: 36-50 (the weeping woman at Jesus' feet), 10:29-37 (the Good Samaritan), 15:11-32 (the Prodigal Son). Emmaus may have been incorporated into the narrative because of its obvious value as a compelling story. While it has no clear parallel in Mark and Matthew, distinct echoes of it are heard in John 20:19ff and 21:5ff.

What this may mean is that by the time of the compilation of the canonical gospels (ca. 70-120 C.E., being the earliest and latest probable dates), the post-resurrection appearance tradition was pretty firmly established. About this we must remember that extant myth religions of the time had in their own traditions numbers of dying and rising sons of the gods.

The appearance tradition of the New Testament seems to have distinctive elements: 1) Jesus becomes present, often seemingly out of nowhere; 2) those to whom he appears are confused, even fearful and do not recognize him; 3) he produces evidence of his identity; 4) he eats with them and 5) expounds upon a scriptural text that, perforce, must have come from the Hebrew bible or related literature. In the case of the Emmaus road story, the scripture comes first, then the meal -- no doubt contributing to the historic shape of the Christian eucharistic liturgy.

The scripture Luke depicts Jesus "opening" to the 11 of v. 33 may have been Hosea 6:2 to which Paul also seemed to make oblique reference at I Corinthians 15: 3-4. This evidently is how Jesus Jews made their appeal to synagogue Jews -- that is, to connect the events of Jesus' death and the claims of his resurrection wherever possible to Hebrew scripture as if what happened (or what they claim to have happened) constituted a fulfillment of such scripture.

In the event readers of FINDINGS wish to bypass the all-too-common literal interpretation of Luke 24:36b-48, here are a few obvious clues to point the way. In v. 36, Jesus is said to have "stood among them." He wasn't observed approaching the place where they were. He wasn't heard knocking at the door. He just "stood among them."

That's clearly a deus ex machina device frequently used in classic Greek drama. You can see it also at John 20:19ff and 21:4. The set up in v. 37, mentioning that the 11 thought they had seen "a spirit," i.e., a noncorporeal entity, gives Luke's Jesus the opportunity to display certain of his body parts. He also eats the piece of broiled fish, less to be at table fellowship with them than to prove he is a real human being.

Do we think that the "Look at my hands and my feet" of v. 39 constitute a kind of parallel with John 20:27 in which John's Jesus invites Thomas to "put your finger here, and see my hands," referring to the print of the nails Thomas mentions in his skepticism at John 20:25? The point is that the Romans did not crucify spirits.

Vv. 44-47 constitute the interpretation of the scripture mentioned toward the end of the Emmaus narrative. It appears that the interpretation and application of scripture was a function of the late First Century C.E. emergent Christian movement as its communities sought to tie their understanding of the by-then almost mythical figure of the dead Jesus to earlier Jewish tradition.

Those readers of FINDINGS who are inclined to the nontheist, humanist interpretation of their Jewish-Christian background need not turn away from the more fantastical aspects of the passage under consideration. Myth and metaphor can carry the day.   

 

Homiletic Commentary

What "Jesus" has ever represented among interested humanists is a countercultural archetype, one of whose manifestations is credited, among other things, with advocating the love of one's enemy and the creation and maintenance of a culture of forgiveness ("Forgive 70 times seven"). It is the appearance and recurrence of such a disposition in individuals and societies to which responsible and caring people are drawn and with which they are likely to cast their lot.

One wants to believe that malign power structures -- otherwise known in New Testament language as "principalities and powers" -- do not always win the day, but that singular figures can rise of humanity's better parts to make a difference for the greater good.

It seems to be almost axiomatic that such figures become martyrs to the cause they serve. One need only call to mind Lincoln, Gandhi and King in that regard. Was Jesus of Nazareth, as variously depicted in New Testament literature one such martyr?

Conventional Christianity rejects that model for portrayal of his death as expiation "for the sins of the world." The more fundamentalist evangelicals celebrate what they call the "blood atonement" and with immense certitude stress the "good" of "Good Friday."

Who needs a god that demands human sacrifice? Even Abraham's imagined god was imagined to have relented and spared Isaac (see Genesis 22).

Yet it is a curious commentary upon human nature to have to acknowledge that it is almost certain that the works of Lincoln, Gandhi and King have about them a shimmer and a glow both of which might long since have been effaced were it not for their martyrdoms.

Death and the wounds that can lead to it do, as it turns out, make a difference. What if the Jesus figure had not been successfully depicted as dying at the hands of an oppressive government of occupation? What if he had been depicted as aging and dying by inches, fading bit by bit into memory without the barbaric G�tterd�merung that has captivated painters, sculptors and composers for time out of mind?

If Lincoln had been able to yield the reins of government to Ulysses S. Grant in a natural succession, or Gandhi to some lesser light, or King to Jesse Jackson, and the three elders had retired to rural villas to write their memoirs, where would be the sustaining story of the majesty of duty unto sacrifice?   

 

 

 


� Copyright 2012, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.


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