Questions for the Pulpit

with your rector, Harold Munn
March 20, 2008

When we recite the Apostles Creed, we say the words, "and the third day he rose again according to the scriptures". Where, in the Hebrew scriptures, does it say that he rose again on the third day? I have searched, but cannot find this.

You are quite right, gentle believer, there is nowhere in the Hebrew scriptures that Jesus' resurrection is predicted as happening on the third day, or even, some would say, ever predicted at all. To understand why those who wrote the creed included this phrase, we have to understand the issue from their point of view. Since they believed that God had spoken to the Hebrews in their scriptures, it was inconceivable to the early Christians that God wouldn't have mentioned the central redemptive act of Jesus' resurrection and some of the details surrounding it. If God hadn't mentioned anything at all about Jesus in the ancient scriptures, then the early Christians would have concluded that none of what they knew about Jesus could actually have happened. The concept of three days may also have had less to do with the number three than with a sense that being dead for three days is a guarantee that a person really is dead – there is no chance of it being a mistake.

When the authors of the creed said that the “third day” was according to the Hebrew scriptures they were trying to say that Jesus' death and resurrection were actions which God had in mind from the beginning of creation. They wanted to prove that Jesus wasn't God's "Plan B", as if God hadn't got things right the first time and had to think up an emergency response at the last minute.

When we say these words we might try, in our minds, to say something like, "Jesus died and rose just as has been happening to me and every person who ever lived – in small or large ways every day. I trust that Jesus really rose because I've experienced it myself, all my life. Some things in my life really are dead, but after those little deaths, I've found God giving me new life. God has been demonstrating this to me, and others, for the whole of human history.”

Can I truthfully recite in the Nicene Creed "I believe in the resurrection of the body", when I have made plans to be cremated at death?

I'm glad to hear you are making plans for your death. That's an important step in being freed from the fear of death.

To understand what the writers meant by the resurrection of the body, we have to enter into the minds of those who wrote this phrase and understand what it meant to them.

There are three aspects to the word "body" that we need to be clear about. First, the early Christians used the word "body" in a variety of ways, not just to refer to our medical mechanical physiology. Thus Paul speaks of the congregation as the "body of Christ", and Jesus himself speaks of giving us his "body" to eat. Try saying the phrase using those alternate meanings.

Secondly, in the modern world we have inherited much of Plato's idea that physical bodies are only temporary, and rather unfortunate, prisons for eternal souls. But that was not what the Jewish people in Jesus' time believed, and probably not what Jesus and his disciples believed. They believed that bodies and "soul" were the same interwoven reality. Our bodies are just as holy as our souls, and they are really the same thing seen from two perspectives. At the time of Jesus there was a belief that people who had been martyred for loyalty to God would be brought back to life by God so they could live out the rest of their natural lives. It didn't mean that the person would live for eternity, but that the full span of human life which God had promised to everyone would not be denied, even if you had been executed as a young person. If resurrection were real, for them that would have to be a physical resurrection.

Thirdly, when the writers of the creed referred to the "resurrection of the body" they were trying to say that the same thing that happened to Jesus' body will happen to ours. His resurrected body was clearly not just a repairing of his human anatomy. If that were all the resurrection were, then it would be a marvellous curiosity, but not the event of cosmic significance which Christians proclaim it is.

So what are we to make of this? Here are some suggestions. First, we could say the phrase "resurrection of the body" and mean something like "I believe that God will hold my whole person in triumphant love for all eternity". Or, second, while saying that phrase, we might mean, "God's raising of Jesus is the central reality of all existence, and I look forward to the whole of God's creation being given new life in ways beyond my imagination..” Or, third, some people might be thinking of the way in which their physical lives lead them into new experiences of God at every stage of life – that is a very real kind of resurrection. Finally, we might think of the “resurrection of the body” as meaning that my life will have eternal significance - who and what I am will never, ever, be of no meaning or no significance.

The word "creed" comes from the Indo-European word "kerde" from which we get "cardiac" - the heart. To say "I believe" originally meant more like "I give my heart to this: ....." To give your heart to God's resurrection in your present physical life, is to live already as a resurrected person. So plan your cremation with joy - it is the offering of your body back to God, just as you have been doing every day of your life. (By the way, it is well worth offering your full body to God in the church before cremation or burial - the particular form of your body is the particular way God made you, and to come before God in God's created form is a good way to complete your earthly journey. But that's an answer to another question!)