I conclude from all this ”“ which could of course be spelled out at much more length ”“ that we can only understand early Christianity as a movement that emerges from within first-century Judaism, but that it is so unlike anything else we know in first-century Judaism (and the unlikenesses bear no resemblance to anything in the pagan world) that we are forced to ask what caused these mutations. The only plausible answer is that they were caused by the actual bodily resurrection, into a transformed physicality, of Jesus himself. Put that in place, and everything is explained. Take it away, and everything remains puzzling and confused. Of course, there is a cost. One cannot simply say, ”˜Well, it looks as though Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead’ and carry on with business as usual. If it happened, it means that a new world has been born. That, ultimately, is the good news of Easter, the good news which the rationalism of the Enlightenment has tried to screen out and which the church, tragically, has often forgotten as well. But to address this we need to move to the next section of this lecture.
“We cannot read the stories of the resurrection without realising that this is the great turning-point, when a bunch of frightened and muddled men and women stumbled despite themselves on the truth that world history had turned its greatest corner, that a new power was let loose in the world, that a door had been opened which no-one could shut. The church was born in that moment, not as an institution, not as an inward-looking safe group, but precisely as a surprised gaggle of people coming to terms with something far bigger than they had dared or wanted to imagine.”
How difficult it is to continue to preach and teach this, yet how necessary!
Vintage Wright. I’m filing this away for Easter
Yes, thank God for N. T. Wright. Would that there were more bishops like him!
I note with sadness that a thread like this one doesn’t attract many comments. Maybe it’s not controversial on a conservative Anglican blog, or maybe we’ve just all come to expect this sort of vintage stuff from +Wright, as Ross aptly put it. But it’s still admirable, and Dr. Wright deserves our thanks for it. As does Kendall for posting it.
David Handy+
#3 Agreed, Rev Handy.
+Tom is looking so much more relaxed and happy since leaving us and our mainly self-inflicted problems behind. He seems to have had a second wind and to have entered a very productive phase. One wishes him well and I certainly look forward to hearing him [except on America where he lets himself down]