Resurrection

At the end of the Gospels, Jesus is reported to be dead and buried, following his crucifixion. Then, on a morning a few days later, witnesses arrive at an empty tomb. Jesus makes several appearances, reportedly showing himself to something like 500 people. Then, when all that is said and done, he starts flying upward, disappearing into the distant sky.

This return from the dead, never to die again, is a significant theme in Christianity. Christians refer to it as the resurrection. And, the promise of Christianity is that all people, or at least all Christians, will share in this same resurrection one day.

What is resurrected?

Some Christians emphasize a physical resurrection, and insist that the resurrection ascribed to by Christians must be a physical resurrection. However, I have three major doubts about a physical resurrection.

1) If Jesus was physically resurrected, and never again physically died, then to where did he ascend? From the story of the Tower of Babel, I have been taught to scoff at the idea that heaven is a physically reachable place. From the findings of astronomers , I have learned that there is not an observable heaven-like place out there in the universe. So, the question of where a physical, flying Jesus would have gone remains a mystery.

2) Growing up, I was taught that there was no sanctity to preserving my human form in anticipation of a physical resurrection. The Christian leaders I spoke to on the subject saw no fundamental issue with cremating a person and spreading his or her ashes in the constantly churning ocean. This destruction of a body makes the notion of a physical resurrection implausible.

3) Physically, most of me has died and recycled through the course of my life, and will continue to do so through the rest of it. If my physical body, as the organism it is today, is scheduled to be resurrected, then I could make the argument that these cells don't need to be involved in that process. Any cells that are coded to serve the same function would serve the purpose just as well. That being said, there is not any reason why god would not simply encode an entirely different life form's brain to perfectly resemble my consciousness, thus picking up my conscious existence right where I left off. This perception makes me wonder what value could be derived from a physical resurrection of my cells specifically.

Maybe the resurrection is not physical. Maybe it is strictly a spiritual experience. In that case, the physical resurrection of Jesus was nothing more than a depiction, or model, for the upcoming event that applies to us.

If that is the case, then what Christians are looking forward to is not to share in what happened to Jesus, but to experience something that was merely suggested by the experience of Jesus. I am not sure how the Christians I know would feel about that.

What is the resurrection?

I don't know the answer, so I'll keep asking.