Easter is Spooky, but not a Ghost Story

Easter is not a ghost story. What the first disciples encountered may have been spooky, but it was not a disembodied spirit wandering around that transformed them. Ghosts are a common feature in human experience, but there was nothing common about the resurrection of the church after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. It was too clumsy to have been a conspiracy, and too obscure to have been a miraculous stunt of some kind. Whatever it was, it was as real as the emptiness of the tomb, and as tangible as the wounds in his hands and feet. And it was most definitely Jesus whom they encountered, not some celestial being, come to reassure them that their friend had not died in vain.   

Nor was it just one event, one definitive flash of revelation where they all came to the same conclusion all at the same time. The New Testament accounts are raggedy, uncoordinated fragments of what is still not a fully coherent story, the upshot of which was that their discipleship had not ended, their Teacher was not finished teaching, their Christ had only just begun to Christify the world.

So it was no ghost, but neither could they (nor would we want them to) produce a resuscitated Jesus to vindicate their cause to superstitious Roman Rulers or paranoid High Priests. The only evidence they had to offer was their transformed selves, their Eucharistic joy, and their subversive stories, just as the only evidence we have to offer now is us.

We have seen no ghosts, and we, too, find ourselves blessedly spooked by the same stories, the same Eucharist, the same seductive joy. Like the apostolic church, our discipleship has not ended, our Teacher has not finished teaching, and our Christ has only just begun to do whatever it is he does that so transforms the world.