“From the tragically different sacrifices of Cain and Abel to the intricate instructions for the Passover meal, to the Last Supper Jesus had with his friends, a supper we imitate right here every week, food is almost never just a matter of caloric intake in the Bible. It is laden with culture and history and ritual and rules. Because food matters.”
What I learned this week from my study of Dorcas and my encounter with Doreen is that resurrection is not a solo event. Instead, it is a shared, communal experience. It is often messy, much like childbirth. It is also mystical when expectations of what is supposed to happen give way to a chance encounter and then something unexpected and truly transcendent happens.
What made the disciples go back out onto the water? At this point, they had no idea that the man who told them to get back into the boat was Jesus, so as far as they knew, he could be anyone. Maybe it’s just my impatience or extreme dislike of spearing worms with hooks, but if I was there, you would not see me back in that boat.
To know the power of the resurrection is to have one’s life fired by a different energy. We know the way of vengeance and retribution that’s shut up in our ancestral bones. We know about getting ours and getting even from the day we’re born. But to know the power of Christ’s resurrection is to live a life fired a little more fully by energy from the moment when God sent none of our violence back to us.