എന്തായിരുന്നു ഉത്ഥാനം? Jijo Kurian

 What is meant by Resurrection

മനോഹരമായ ഈ പടവും കുറിപ്പുകളും (ഇരുഭാഷകളിലുമുള്ളവ) ഫാ. Jijo Kurian, കപ്പുചിൻ, ഫെയ്സ് ബുക്കിൽ ഇട്ടിരുന്നതാണ്.

എന്തായിരുന്നു ഉത്ഥാനം? മൂന്നു നാൾ കുഴിമാടത്തിൽ ഉറങ്ങിയിട്ട് പൊടിയും തട്ടി പഴയ ശരീരത്തോടെ എഴുന്നേറ്റു പോന്നതോ? പുതിയനിയമത്തിലെ ആദ്യ ലേഖകനായ പൌലോസ് എന്തേ ഉത്ഥാനകഥയൊന്നും അറിയാതെ പോയി? ആദ്യ സുവിശേഷമായ മർക്കോസിന്റെ സുവിശേഷത്തിൽ എന്തേ ഉത്ഥാനകഥകളൊന്നും ഇല്ലാതെ പോവുകയും പിന്നീട് കൂട്ടിച്ചേർക്കപ്പെടുകയും ചെയ്തു? എന്തുകൊണ്ടാണ് ഉത്ഥാനകഥകൾ പറയുമ്പോൾ സുവിശേഷങ്ങൾക്കിടയിൽ വൈരുദ്ധ്യം കടന്നുവരുന്നത് (നാല് സുവിശേഷങ്ങളിൽ രണ്ടെണ്ണം പോലും ഉത്ഥാനകഥകൾ പറയുന്നതിൽ യോജിപ്പില്ല എന്നതോർക്കുക) - ഇത്തരം ചില ചോദ്യങ്ങൾ കൂടി ഈ ഉത്ഥാന നാളിൽ ചോദിക്കുന്നത് ക്രിസ്തു ജീവിതത്തിന്റെ മഹത്വം വർദ്ധിപ്പിക്കുകയേയുള്ളൂ.

(വാൽക്കഷ്ണം: ശിശിരം തല്ലിക്കൊഴിച്ച ഇലകളും  ഉണക്കച്ചില്ലകളുമായി ഈ കടുംവേനലിൽ നിന്നിരുന്ന നമ്മുടെ കൊന്നമരങ്ങൾ എവിടെയായിരുന്നു ഇത്രയേറെ നിറവും സുഗന്ധവും ഒളിപ്പിച്ചുവെച്ചിരുന്നത്!)
The Gospels were written later than Paul. The stories of the Resurrection in the gospels are very “simple,” unadorned with theological comments. The Resurrection itself is not described. (In fact nobody saw resurrection. Nor can we say it took place on the 3rd day. When the ladies reached at the tomb in the early morning after Sabbath the resurrection had already taken place. When? Nobody knows. According to John's theology resurrection is on the cross itself: "You will be with me in Paradise TODAY." These resurrection stories only describe the discovery of the empty tomb and meetings with Jesus. The Easter narratives represent the attempt to proclaim the Easter message in ANOTHER MEDIUM, the Medium of narration (story telling) set within a historical context. However, this attempt later brings in a number of puzzles and problems along with its “eye witness nature”:

• It is difficult to reconcile the various Gospel accounts on matters of: where did Jesus appear after his resurrection? Galilee? Jerusalem? Both?, how many women came to the tomb. Which angels did they see?
• Unlike the Passion narrative, which is a continuous story from start to finish, and which is unfolded in fundamentally the same way in all the four Gospels, the resurrection of Jesus came to be proclaimed in a group of independent stories.

The earliest biblical exposition on the Resurrection of Christ is in 1 Cor 15 which thus runs “The Messiah died for our sins, was buried and was raised according to the scriptures”. (Just proclaiming resurrection without the aid of any apparition story) Why did Paul write this? The Corinthians had a tendency to “collapse” Christian teachings back into pagan religion. In particular, they had a tendency to view the afterlife as a body-less immortality of the soul. Paul is trying to teach them “eschatology” - the story of God’s plan to put the world right in Jesus (Eschatology = the branch of theology dealing with the ultimate destiny of mankind and the world). In the middle of this, he is trying to teach them the Christian view of our future – a bodily resurrection. Following the mention of Jesus’ Resurrection the discourse continues with our own bodily resurrection. What is this new resurrected body? “The resurrection body possesses both continuity and discontinuity with the existing body.” 1 Cor. 15:38 gives us an example of this continuity, discontinuity: “The plant grows from the seed yet is a different sort of a thing.” The resurrection of the body should be thought of as a transformation of the existing body into a new mode of physicality (“transformed physicality”). At the same time 1 Cor. 15:58 gives the impression that the present physical body matters. What you do in the present body is in continuity with who you are going to be in the future body. Paul further discusses the meaning of the transformation of the present body at the end of Philippians 3 and at the beginning of 2 Cor 5. In 2 Cor 5 he uses the metaphors of Seed and Corn; Tent and Temple. The present body is metaphorically thought to be a shadow of our future self. The eschatology of Paul we can thus summarize: “We live in this odd interval in God’s purpose in history, between the resurrection of Jesus in the past, and our own future resurrection, and God’s remaking of the whole world in the future, and these two together hold us in a newly storied world, in a new imaginative world, in which we can live and work as Christians and in which we know that what we do in the present is not in vain, is not going to be thrown away. We are building, hopefully with gold and silver and precious stones, and when the day appears, then that work will appear with it.”

That means Paul experienced, understood and proclaimed (wrote) the Resurrection of Christ even without the aid of Resurrection stories.