Friday, 30 August, 2002

From Between Cross & Resurrection by Alan E. Lewis



In writing about the cross, the Saturday in the tomb, and the event of the resurrection and the life of Jesus Lewis notes:

Unheard-of things are begin said in this story, of which the most we can understand is how little we could ever understand. And that is why from the first moment that the events occurred, they have been told in the form of narrative... The danger is, however, that in our attempt to conceive and understand it we in fact suppress the very revolution that the story embodies, naturalize the alienness of its ideas, tame the violence it does to our logic, and anesthetize its wounding of our pride. For all its power as story - and as a story of powerful resurrection - this is, after all, the vulnerable of stories , a story of suffering and absence, of negation and of death.



In an analytical world that tends to trust only what can be proven and displayed like a science project at a fair, we do miss that certain power that goes along with the telling of a story. It is a power that sweeps people off their feet. It is a power that produces a history of changing people's lives. It is a power that is able to pull people in a new direction even when we think that we "know" everything about the story. We may know the story line but we are always being introduced to more of the story as it is retold to us. I find this comforting in a time when there is a growing number of people who are attempting to lock a story into the trap of literalism. "The book says it, this is what the book says, this is it." The story of the cross, the tomb, and the resurrection is story that continues to unfold and dig up more and more ways that the power of our God is available within the present and setting us up for whatever may come before us. The story is is not canned, it is alive and it engages us more and more and in new ways because it is a story that touches the very depth of what it is to be, as Lewis notes, vulnerable. Vulnerable to a point beyond our imagination and yet very much a part of our imagination...and that imagination longs for a story that will continue to have something to say again and again about life.



Connection: Sometimes it would be a good exercise in our day to simply ask people what they heard when someone tells a "story of something that took place during the day." This would be especially good if there were a number of people to whom you could ask the same question. In the middle of all the storytelling may appear the wonderful diversity of hearing and meaning that takes place when we may have only thought one way about the shared story.



God of all history and the many stories of our lives, refresh us again and again with the word of life that you offer to us through the lives of your faithful people. Inspire us to hear a new word of hope and peace and love as we retell and re-hear of your grace. Amen