The Same But Different

In Christian tradition there is a fruitful tension in seeing Jesus as the same but different. By that I mean the same but different to every other human being. The tension is very real and the weight has tended to shift from one to the other in different movements and at different times. On balance, I think the tradition has sided with the “different” understanding of Jesus. Because Jesus is different to us Jesus can save us. He is different to us because he was born of a virgin. He is different to us because he worked all those miracles and walked on water. He is different to us because he rose from the dead.

I want to think about the sameness. This has been more of a minority tradition, but still a strong one. Jesus is the same as all other people and this gives us hope. If Jesus is so different to us, then as an example he is not very useful. “It was OK for Jesus, because he wasn’t like us. He didn’t know how we struggle with the things we struggle with.” Yet, the sameness means that we can be like Jesus. I think this was something of the feeling of charismatic theology that said Jesus did not do miracles because he was the unique Son of God, but because he was a human being (like us) empowered by God. If Jesus, as a human being like us, could heal the sick, then we too empowered by God can heal the sick.

This is the Easter season when we focus on the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus is so different that the resurrection is seen as unique, then it helps us little. However, if, in sameness to us, the resurrection of Jesus awaits us all, then there is much to be glad about. If the story of Jesus rising is the hope of the world, then all who die rise in the same way. Death is not the end, not the finality of everything, but rather a gateway to something new. Those we love who have passed before us have risen as Christ has risen. I think that is the meaning of the pericope that says when Jesus died and rose; the graves released their occupants. Just like Jesus, the dead are raised. They too continue to be.

There is a second way of looking at the same but different theme in terms of the resurrection. It is a central idea in Christianity, but it is full of mystery. It is very difficult to understand what the resurrection is about. It perplexed the early Christians who strongly affirmed it, yet found it difficult to get their heads around it. They expressed it in narrative form in the Easter stories, but the stories have inconsistencies, ideas difficult to grasp. Jesus appears but is not really known. He speaks but his voice is somehow strange. He appears and disappears, yet seems to have substance as he eats fish.

One way to look at the stories is to say that in resurrection Jesus is the same, but different. Jesus is clearly a continuing self, a person who continues after death, the person after death forming a continuing narrative with the person before death. Yet, the person after death is different than the person of flesh and blood.

A continuing self, the same but different. That is a meaning of resurrection and it is an idea full of hope.

The Psalmist wondered: “Do you work wonders for the dead? Will those who have died stand and give you thanks? Will your loving-kindness be declared in the grave? Your faithfulness in the land of destruction? Will your wonders be known in the dark? Or your righteousness in the country where all is forgotten?” (88:11-13)

That wondering is common to all people at some time. What happens when we die? Is there something or nothing? The popular BBC science fiction series Torchwood touches on life and death a great deal. One of its main characters dies and is brought back to life, only to live in some shadow, half-life. He is asked what it is like to die. His answer is that there is nothing. You die and there is nothing. In some respects that is a hopeful idea. If there is nothing, then you do not feel anything good or bad. Death, then, is not to be feared. No heaven or hell. No continuing self. Just nothing.

The Christian story tells it differently. What happens when we die? Just like Jesus we continue. Differently, but continue as the same self, with the same memories, the same experiences passed through that shape and make us the people we are. Yet the sting is removed, the poison taken away, the suffering ended. The scars are there is hand and side, but they no longer afflict. The same, but different.

+Ab. Andy