If divine incarnation has any truth to it, then resurrection is a foregone conclusion, and not a one-time anomaly in the body of Jesus, as our Western understanding of the resurrection felt it needed to prove–and then couldn’t. The Risen Christ is not a one-time miracle but the revelation of a universal pattern that is hard to see in the short run.
Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ, p. 100.
This is a key part of Rohr’s book. It’s not that Jesus was raised from the dead, it’s that IN Jesus, we see what God has been doing and how the universe has been working since the beginning of time. So in that way Christianity at its best doesn’t put up more walls around Jesus, or focus too much on who/what is right/wrong or saved/lost or whatever else. Rather, because we see in Jesus the essence of the patterns that have always run through the universe, Christianity at its best bursts open doors and windows to embrace God in the world more fully.
The challenge is that resurrection is hard to see in the short run. So I think Rohr is on to something when he cautions Christians about worshiping “old things as a substitute for eternal things.” The time resurrection takes discourages us, so we hold on to relics of the past because we struggle to hold the present and future lightly.
I wonder what universal pattern will be revealed as we look back on this current time. I wonder what ‘eternal things’ will emerge as we wrestle with the loss of so many familiar things in our life together. I wonder how the divine incarnation will continue to be resurrected in/through us.