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This week is one of those rare weeks when the antiphon – after which the entire Sunday is named (Quasimodo Geniti) – is not from Psalms. It’s from I Peter chapter 2. Here is the full context:

“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because ‘All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away, But the word of the LORD endures forever.’ Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking,  as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.”

In short, you have been born again by the Word of God – it alone endures forever – so as newborn babes, desire the Word of God, by which you grow, from which you have “tasted that the Lord is gracious.”

First, a quick comment on antiphons as a reminder of that liturgical element known as the Introit. Introits are based on Psalms, but they are more than Psalms. They are Psalms with antiphons and the Gloria Patri. True, perhaps 95% of antiphons are from the Psalm, but occasionally the Church has seen fit to add to the Psalms, to improve them, as it were.

Improve on God’s Word? Yes, when that Word is in its unfulfilled mode. Remember, all the Old Testament is as a veil, and the veil only comes off in Christ. The antiphons turn the Psalms from a general word claimed by Jews and Christians, to something only claimed by Christians. No one but a Christian says, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.”

So also the antiphons. The Psalm used this week – “I am the LORD your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt; Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. – was insufficient without the installment of what Jesus added to it. Alone the Psalm could be talking about manna; Jesus fulfilled the manna and became the Word made flesh who gives us His flesh to eat. Manna spoiled each day; Jesus’ flesh never corrupts, and remains the only living, organic thing in all history to not be able to corrupt.

Just like the Word which St. Peter talks about. “The grass withers, And its flower falls away, But the word of the LORD endures forever.” That Word is Christ, who cannot wither, by whose resurrection we are born again in baptism, and Whom we desire as spiritual milk, having tasted that He is gracious.

The Psalm needed that antiphon.

Now to the main theme of the week. As newborn babes.

This is obviously speaking about being born again, or what was known as palingenesia, a term used by many of the mystery cults in the ancient world, as well as by the Gnostics. For them, being born again meant being made woke to the delusions of this world. It was an internal phenomenon, involving the manipulation of internal, psychological faculties.

Everything about the Christian’s second birth focuses on the external. It’s by the Word that rebirth happens. It’s by baptism.

At the center of the distinction between the two births is the heart of the analogy itself: babies. Consider how Gnosticism looks at the birthing event versus how it actually works and what it means for the analogy.

The pre-born situation is one in which one’s individual existence blurs with that of the mother. The distinction between Self and Other is at a minimum, particularly at conception, even if the new person’s individual distinctiveness grows bit by bit which each new day. Still, prior to birth that distinction is almost negligible. The baby doesn’t even eat. It’s almost like another organ of the mother, being nourished like a kidney or the brain.

In Gnostic terms, this phase is similar to our pre-born existence in the Pleroma, where all is as one. The things that separate people – our flesh and blood – haven’t developed yet. We exist in a fullness of harmony with one another, the distinction between Self and Other is almost negligible.

At birth, a radical separation is introduced. Now, the “walls are set up” (in Gnostic terms), and now we begin to see ourselves as distinct persons separate from all others. This, again in Gnostic terms, is the radical beginning that sets us on the road to delusion, to falsely thinking our flesh and blood define us. We lose that primal oneness from which we came.

And the growth of a baby only furthers the evil. Day by day the child grows more independent, gains consciousness, discovers himself as a distinct being. Notice the discovery a baby first has when he sees himself in a mirror. In Gnostic terms this is the fall! All this “growth” and “discovery” is actually propaganda from the Creator of this fleshly, material world, getting us to define ourselves by where our flesh and blood places us – as members of a family, as located within the borders of a nation, as having a sex. And this is the stuff we need to be “woke” from, truly born again from, if we would be saved.

The Christian understanding of new birth couldn’t be more different.

For us, it’s the birth of the new man – precisely as a distinct flesh and blood person – that is exactly the goal! That new birth climaxes, after all, in the resurrection, in our new birth from the grave, following what happened with Jesus’ flesh and blood.

And because it’s all physical, external stuff, we have no problem discerning the “born again” moment as formed by water and the Word, both external things. It was the Gospel, St. Peter said, rooted in the Word that endures forever – Jesus – that causes us to be born again.

Since the creation, God’s Word has had a “separating” effect, separating light from darkness, land from water, up from down, man from dirt. God’s Word is the midwife of the newly born baby! It separates us from a world submerging into nothingness, dust, and chaos. God’s Word calls us out of the world.

How does it do this? Simple! By faith. Here is the truth – Jesus Christ is risen and will save you – and if you believe that, you are separated from the world to take part in the holy people who give thanks for that truth (otherwise known as the Divine Liturgy). You are separated, midwifed, by the Word, and now you are like babies.

It’s not a pre-born analogy, where the baby receives nourishment similar to an internal organ of the mother. It’s a post-born analogy, where the baby is in a posture of receiving his gifts from an “other” distinct from itself, the milk. He lives by pure grace and gift, and at birth, the connection between the baby and its desire for nourishment is almost seamless – like it was born knowing how to suckle.

So also us. The evangelical analogy – “Here’s the gift, but you have to decide whether you want it or not.” – doesn’t fit. Rather, the gift itself – the milk – dictates, you might say, the terms of receiving it, and the baby knows this, from the milk itself! The baby knows not to reject the milk. Of course, it’s hunger drives that reception.

There’s a reason why Jesus sets up babies as the emblem of faith. Babies know only their hunger and receive without rejection the gifts of life and nourishment given to them.

So also us. The gifts of grace dictate the terms of our reception of them, and its our hunger and thirst for righteousness driving that reception. Our hunger for the manna that does not corrupt, the Word that does not wither.

This week Jesus gives out the Holy Spirit, who “speaks by the prophets” and who brings the Word to us. That gift of the Holy Spirit – that breath restoring Adam’s life and turning dry bones into an army – is all centered in the Church’s ministry of forgiving sins.

This is the breast from which the milk comes, the forgiveness every Christian hungers for, delivered by the Word which midwifes us – separates us – from the sinners and places us among the saints. The Church is the product of that, yes, even the architectural structure, each element of its structure rooted in the purpose for which the church is intended. It’s a real thing. It’s walls separate us from the world. It’s pulpit singles out the Word. It’s altar is where the newborn babe’s mouth is directed to suckle.

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord” and that he had said these things to her.

This verse highlights several things we’ve meditated on this week. Yesterday we observed that Mark’s Gospel says the women said nothing, for they were afraid. I commented this dampers some of the feminist enthusiasm that the women were the first bold witnesses of the resurrection.

This passage says Mary did in fact say something and was one of the first primary witnesses of the resurrection. So now do we take all that back and get back on the feminist track? It’s all sort of silliness anyways, isn’t it? It speaks to our current habit of reducing everything to the politics of race, gender, and sexuality. We find things in Scripture we want to find, to support whatever politics we’re trying to push.

Still, we have this issue of a seeming contradiction. Were the women silent or not after witnessing Jesus? Mark says “no.” John says “yes.” This goes back to a meditation a couple days ago about whether there were one or two angels at the grave. Here again, it seems to be a problem arising only recently, in lieu of new standards of veracity and accuracy, standards the Bible writers simply did not have. Again, if there were 5001 people at the feeding of the 5,000, that doesn’t take one drop of divinity out of the account.

Gee, can we have accurate statistics, numbers, and data, and still have fake news? That’s sarcasm. Conversely, can we have broader understandings of “data” while conveying absolutely true, or good, news? It would seem the Bible falls in this category. (And no, I don’t see this as justification for interpreting 7 days to mean 14 billion years.)

Finally, we have the real purpose of this meditation, drawing off a topic we’ve brought up a few times this week, the new mode of Jesus’ being and how He is witnessed.

“I have seen the Lord!” Yet consider, when Mary first saw the Lord, she had no idea it was the Lord. Same also with Peter and the disciples at Emmaus. You could even argue the disciples in the upper room were not convinced it was Him until He showed His wounds. Not until He called their names, or broke bread, or showed the wounds of the cross, did they truly witness Him.

What an incredible and powerful point! Jesus is laying down the foundation for how He is truly witnessed. The witness doesn’t arise from our eyes seeing something, but from Jesus presenting Himself in His new mode through His proclamation of our names and in the breaking of bread, or presenting Himself to us as the crucified one.

They were truly witnesses who saw Jesus in the flesh, after He revealed Himself to them through those means. But so also are we! We witness Jesus in a way similar to the way they did. This, again, is why Jesus told Mary not to hug Him. He’s laying down the foundation for a new way of connecting with Him.

This leads to Jesus’ words to Thomas of course, that while the first generation of disciples did see Jesus, obviously, in an expanded sense that we don’t have, the next generations of disciples will be blessed because, while not seeing, we believe. That “expanded sense” went away, ascending into heaven, but what remained – or better, was continued with the coming of the Holy Spirit – was exactly what Mary, Peter, and the disciples all witnessed, their Lord coming to them in the flesh, calling their names, revealing Himself in the breaking of bread.

And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

By one interpretation – one I don’t accept – these words are the last words of the Gospel of Mark. Everything after these words, so the theory goes, is a textual addition from a later age. On what basis is this case made? Science. OK, whatever.

At least Lutherans can’t accept this argument because it cuts out one of the important verses in our catechism establishing Holy Baptism, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.”

Yet, because it’s purported to be the true ending of the Gospel of Mark, suddenly it becomes an issue. Why does Mark end with fear? As it says, “They were afraid.” And then the end. If that’s truly how the Gospel of Mark ended, why does it end on such a, well, “fearful” note?

There’s several directions we can go with this. We could go with irony of fearfulness. Afraid because someone you loved rose from the dead? Huh? But this speaks to how conditioned we are in a culture of death. It’s normal to accept death. It’s fearful and anxiety-inducing to contemplate death is not the end.

How much of our own fearfulness is really ironical? What do we really need to be fear when Christ turns every defeat into victory?

How about this direction. Based on their fear, the text tells us, the women said nothing. So, all that stuff about “Jesus witnessed first to women” stuff the modern church has spun into way more than what is warranted actually tells us nothing. For the women were too afraid to say anything. Their witness was blunted by their fear. They may have been the first to witness Jesus’ resurrection, but they didn’t act on it.

We shouldn’t read more into this than need be. The disciples in the upper room were afraid also. Fear struck everyone. But it does undermine the feminist narrative of the “women’s witness.”

So, if the women said nothing, how did the disciples know to meet Jesus at Galilee? It appears that Jesus had talked about meeting the disciples at Galilee prior to His death. “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”

Perhaps here is another direction. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Mark’s Gospel was likely written under St. Peter’s guidance. Well, look at what St. Peter writes about fear, “And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear.”

Conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear. That’s quite a philosophy of life! Conduct your behavior during your stay here on earth…in fear. Why? Because fear leads to wisdom. How? Because of reasons we now know to be absolutely true.

Ever since Frederick Nietzsche declared God’s death, fear of God has become less and less a thing. Hell is rarely preached about, and it’s an all but accepted principle that “you can’t fear people into the church.” Certainly our new contemporary worship forms engender no fear of God, presenting God more as a boyfriend, casual acquaintance, entertainer, or therapist.

Culturally also, fear of God has been replaced by ironical indifference toward the holy and all it stands for – ethics, piety, duty, and so on. And what are the results? Where do we begin? A revolution in sexual ethics leading to the breakdown of family and subsequent poverty. A pleasure-seeking culture leading to addictions and all the problems associated with that. A materialistic society addicted to mounting piles of plastic and electronic stuff, each new toy promising some sort of taste of heaven. And flowing like magma in the psychic depths of our souls is that perennial melancholy and anxiety – that existential dissatisfaction necessarily arising when one finds himself alone, adrift in cosmic silence…no God.

I’ll take fear instead of that!

Fear of God leads to wisdom, and all its concomitant blessings, like ethical order, a true sense of justice, a reason to die for what is right.

The fear at the supposed end of Mark leads to a fear in a different sense. It’s the fear induced by knowledge that life has triumphed over death. That changes everything, and change is fear-inducing. Of course, that knowledge centers on Jesus Christ, the one person in all of history who broke the “death cycle.” Sticking with this life, this Jesus, and the way of life He introduces for us, puts us in scary territory. For the disciples and women, it could have meant their death. It certainly meant for the disciples that their lives were going to be redirected away from fishing, like Peter would have gone back to doing, to proclaiming life in Christ.

There’s also a simple fear that, this Jesus is Lord and King, God of God and Light of light. That was the heart of Peter’s first sermon that led to the people being cut to the heart and begging, “What shall we do?” In other words, “How can we be saved from this Jesus and His day?”

To which Peter responded, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you; this promise is for you and for your children.” (This speaks to the longer Mark ending, which climaxes with Jesus’ words to preach the Gospel, and whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.)

And most certainly, baptism, catechesis, and living in the life of the Church, is the beginning of wisdom, for Christ is our wisdom.

Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

What a loaded comment Jesus said to Mary. Mary wanted to hug Jesus. It’s a human and natural reaction. But Jesus rebuffs her and says, “Do not cling to me.” He’s making a bigger point and using Mary’s love for him as the foundation for how those who love Him will connect with Him after His resurrection.

We’re again dealing with mysteries of Jesus’ mode of being. Prior to His death, He lived as a human body in the typical earthly mode of being. In that mode of being, hugging those you love is expected and normal. But with Jesus’ new mode of being, things change.

Most important is Jesus’ statement that Mary not cling to Him, for he has not yet ascended to the Father. Jesus ascending to the Father is critical moment in salvation history. It’s at that moment that Jesus restores what Adam had lost when he and Eve lost fellowship with God in the garden. Adam was in fellowship with the Father, but was severed from God when he was cast out of the garden, blocked from fellowship by the angel’s flaming sword.

But at Jesus’ birth, we get a foretaste of the glories to come, when the angels give the shepherds a vision of the re-opened gate to Paradise. God and man were one in Christ. After Jesus’ full mission was complete, and He sat down at the right hand of the Father, now what belonged to Jesus could be made available to all of us.

For listen to what Jesus had to say about His sitting at God’s right hand, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. …He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

Right here we get the explanation why Mary could not hug Jesus. The way we hug Jesus after His resurrection is by grasping those things He has available for us by returning to the right hand of the Father. What are those things? Well, primary among them is fellowship with the Father. Also, the status of sonship. Eternal life. The riches and glories of heaven. These things belong to Jesus, and once He sits down at the right hand of the Father, He sends out the Holy Spirit to deliver these things by way of declaration.

So we “hug” Jesus by hearing and receiving what He has for us by way of the Holy Spirit’s declaration. “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” But once He ascends and sits at His right hand, He sends the Spirit out, who gives to us by declaration what Jesus possesses. That’s who we “cling” to Jesus post-resurrection.

There’s another little blessing Jesus bestows by His comments. He says, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

This is a perfect example of what Jesus bestows to us. This is what He delivers to us by declaration of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the only-begotten Son of the Father. God has one son. But here, Jesus shares what He possesses with us. “My Father and your Father.” His Father is now ours because the thing that separated us from being God’s children – sin – has been atoned for, eliminated by His death.

God has one son, Jesus. If Jesus would share that with us, it’s because we are one flesh with Him. Again, this is something Jesus shares with us only once He sits down at God’s right hand, and sends out the Holy Spirit, who delivers by declaration what Jesus Himself possesses.

Don’t cling to Jesus, until He sits down at God’s right hand, restoring our fellowship with God, and sends the Holy Spirit to deliver to us by declaration what Jesus now possesses, once He restored on behalf of all mankind what mankind had lost in Adam.

Then, in that mode, might you hug Him.

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

Why didn’t Mary recognize Jesus when He appeared to her? The focus of all her passion and anxiety was standing right there before her, and she had no idea it was Him.

Why didn’t the disciples on the road to Emmaus recognize Jesus? Same there. The one who filled their minds was walking right there next to them, and they had no idea.

Why didn’t Peter recognize Jesus on the beach? The one he had walked with for three years was speaking with him, and he had no idea.

Clearly Jesus was in a different mode of being, the type of mode of being which walks through doors. Or as St. Paul puts it, “So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.”

A spiritual body is not a non-body. The doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh or body believes that the body that is buried will be the very body that rises from the dead. But it will be a “spiritual” or “glorified” body. What does this mean? Evidently Jesus’ own resurrection sets the pattern. It will be a body that is not recognized, that can disappear, and that can go through doors.

And it’s also a body that can be on millions of altars around the globe on Sunday morning.

If Jesus’ body is in a different “mode” of being after His resurrection, even more pertinent is how we have contact with Him in this mode. Mary and Peter didn’t recognize Jesus until He called their names. The disciples at Emmaus didn’t recognize Him until the breaking of bread.

When does Jesus call our names? When does Jesus break bread among us?

In Holy Baptism, your name becomes part of the liturgy. Jesus calls your name even as we confess His name, for as Jesus says, “If you confess my name before men, I will confess you before my heavenly Father.” Jesus calling our names is how we recognize Him, and how He has chosen Himself to be revealed in His post-resurrection appearance.

And of course, Jesus is recognized in the breaking of bread. The moment He broke bread, the disciples at Emmaus recognized their Lord. So also us. Again, this is how He has chosen Himself to be revealed in His post-resurrection appearance.   He is present with us in body, in His body at the breaking of bread point, at Holy Communion.

Oh yeah, one more highly important appearance of Jesus. That’s when He passed through the doors and showed His pierced hands and side. For, “They will look upon Him whom they have pierced,” as all must. The disciples recognized Him then as well. And it’s there that He breathed on them and said, “If you forgive the sins of any, thy are forgiven.”

So, when Jesus calls our names, when Jesus breaks bread, and when He shows us His wounds…the basis of baptism, communion, and absolution. These are how Jesus makes His presence known to us in His post-resurrection mode. This is the presence of Jesus in His body, the Church.

So what is it? Were there one or two angels in the tomb?

Here’s a more important question. Who cares?

We know who cares. Very often it’s people who are looking for reasons to reject the Gospel. To be charitable, perhaps it’s someone who become skeptical of the faith they grew up in during their “finding themselves” phase in college. Anything that smacks of “contradiction” or “inconsistency” is fuel to their the fire going on in their soul.

But at a minimum, this is most certainly what we can say about those who care. It’s people who apply a different standard of verification than what the Bible, obviously, has. What standard is that? It’s the standard of modern accuracy, or mathematical precision, or scientific veracity. As if the fact that there were 5001 people at the feeding of the 5,000 proves Christianity is all a lie or that the Bible has errors.

When I was younger, understanding the Christian faith almost became solely an exercise in apologetics, of proving to modern skeptics why the Bible is consistent and accurate in everything it says. Josh McDowell was helpful here, with his several books on the subject. He rightly deals with a lot of the supposed inconsistencies. Were there one or two angels? It’s a simple matter of two different accounts and what they’re focusing on. To say there is one angel is not to deny there were two angels.

Here’s the thing: no one really cared. Some time in the middle of all this, post-modernism crept in when truth itself is all a construct. “You have your truth and I have mine.” And logic itself was seen as a tool of a by-gone, patriarchal age. Who cares what logic says?

And now one has to wonder what value apologetics even has when the very paradigms of epistemology (the study of how we know things) has shifted.

How many angels were at the tomb is a question suitable to our modern era not unlike the way “How many angels can dance on a pin?” question was suitable to the Medieval scholastic age. Who knows what conundrums will confront future generations.

Here’s the bottom line: What we have in the Gospels is precisely what the Holy Spirit, through the apostolic writers, over time through a process of ecclesiastical self-authentication, intended to be in the Gospel. If one Gospel writer had two angels, and another had one, then that is what the Holy Spirit intended. And what of it? You either believe it or you don’t.

The argument I’m making is what’s called a heuristic. It’s an argumentative scaffolding intended to get us to a bigger point, at which point the scaffolding can be removed. Yes, of course, it’s important that the Bible doesn’t contradict itself or propagate blatant lies. And yes, it’s important that we find satisfying explanations for the seeming contradictions in Scripture, particularly in a time when many seek to undermine the Scripture with standards of veracity that may have no currency with ancient standards of veracity. Apologetics is necessary.

But at the end of the day, you either believe the revealed Word of God or you don’t. It comes down to faith.

And as far as that is concerned, let’s consider something. As Christians, we don’t found our faith on the veracity of Scripture. We found our faith on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Proving the consistency of Scripture is a project we undertake lower on our list of priorities than several other projects, like proclaiming, “He is risen.”

“He is risen” is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. 500 witnesses saw the risen Christ. That’s your veracity right there. If the “consistency” of Scripture is an issue, it’s because a man, without a doubt, rose from the dead, and because He Himself had a respect for Scriptures, we are obligated to have that respect as well.

And one of those who witnessed the resurrected Christ, St. Paul, said all Scriptures are inspired by God. This all matters.

But if some detail of Scripture doesn’t match up with whatever are the current standards of veracity, that doesn’t disprove the fact that Christ is risen. Many witnesses were willing to undergo torture rather than give up their absolute certainty that Christ had risen from the dead. It’s a tested witness. And that is the cornerstone of our faith.

Were there one or two angels? Matthew and Mark say it was one angel. Luke and John say it was two. What of it? The Gospel writers were not journalists. They were evangelists. They were each proclaiming the Gospel as unique instruments of the Holy Spirit. That is how we should receive them. And whether it is reported it was “one angel” or “two angels,” faith simply says, “Amen.”

So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.

Piecing together John’s account of the resurrection with those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke makes for an interesting overall narrative. Here’s an interesting question. When was Jesus wrapped up in spices? Luke and Mark say this was the reason for the women coming on Sunday morning, to anoint Jesus with the spices they had prepared. But John informs us Nicodemus had already wrapped Jesus up in 75 pounds of spices.

Was there just miscommunication? Was Nicodemus operating secretly by night, as he’s prone to do, squirrelly fellow he seems to be?

In any event, 75 pounds of spices is an awful lot of spices. Imagine the smell of myrrh wafting over the tomb. It was needed to hide the smell of death. As we learned about Lazarus who had died, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Best to catch that stench on the third day, before it begins!

If we run with the details from the Mark and Luke account, focusing on the women’s stunted attempt to anoint Jesus with spices, we could say, “Why do we seek to anoint the living among the dead? What smells are we trying to hide?”

But what of John’s account? Nicodemus anointed Jesus with the spices. Jesus was drenched in the aloe-myrrh mixture for two full days. What does this tell us?

It tells us Jesus smelled like myrrh when He arose! Either that or He didn’t rise in the body he was buried with. But we know this is not true. So, if the body drenched in myrrh rose from the dead, unless there’s evidence otherwise, we have to assume Jesus would have smelled like myrrh.

If we run with this detail, what does this tell us? We could interpret it according to another Johannine text, Revelation, “Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand.”

Jesus is the one in whom our prayers, by His ascent, are lifted up to the Father. And if He smells like myrrh, the smell of the myrrh – replicated by the smoke of the incense – parallels His name, by which our prayers are taken to the Father.

However we interpret how Jesus smelled, the one thing we can be almost certain of is Jesus smelled like myrrh. Which means, as He went here and there, appearing to disciples, the smell of Him announced His presence. The disciples gather in the upper room, in fear of the Jews, when suddenly they detect the smell of myrrh. They look, and there is Jesus.

If the smell of myrrh announces the bodily presence of Jesus, does it still today? After all, Jesus’ body is present where He is present – He didn’t leave His body behind when He ascended. And the Church is the body of Christ. Does the Church smell like myrrh?

How would the Church smell like myrrh? What could the Church do to confess this mystery, that Jesus arose in the same body He died and was buried in, with all those 75 pounds of spices, and that this body is the Church, the people there, the minister, and the elements on the altar which become the Body and Blood of Christ?

And what could the Church do to confess the reality that in this smelling-like-myrrh Jesus, our prayers arise – the Bible says they arise like incense – to the Father’s ears, a sweet smelling aroma ascending to the Father?

What might the Church do to confess these truths? Here’s a possible idea, how about the use of incense? Well of course, this is what the Church has done for hundreds of years to announce these truths, anchored first in the truth that the Church is Christ’s body; Christ is present in body; and His sacrament is His true Body.  The places where Christ’s body is going on is incensed:  the congregation, the minister, and the altar.

Use of incense is rooted in a simple question:  What does the resurrected Jesus smell like?  And if His body is truly present, why wouldn’t we be smelling incense at church?

From Luke’s resurrection account: “And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead?’”

Why do you seek the living among the dead?

What a question to guide the Christian life. Why do we keep on seeking life according to the “death cult” principles of this world? Why do we keep on seeking life in the “dead works” of this world? Why do we keep on seeking life in ideologies that only lead to vast graveyards?

Like a fish not knowing it’s wet, or a homeowner not recognizing the smell of his own home, we don’t see the death cult that is the human experience. We’re like the people laughing at Jesus when He said of the girl who had just died, “She’s not dead, she’s sleeping.” How ridiculous. Doesn’t Jesus know that death is just the way of the world?

No, the way of the world is, “Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we will die.” It’s a cynicism. And amidst that cynicism, if we can get a taste here and there of feeling alive, we’ll jump at it, knowing full well the death that lurks on the other side.

Why do we seek the living among the dead? Why do we seek that taste of “being alive” we think drugs, excess drunkenness, or sexual lust give us, when everyone knows they only lead to the sapping of our lives.

Why do we seek the living among the dead? Why do we seek the lie of some philosophy or political ideology that we think will enhance life, when so often such programs lead to vast graveyards and deadened hopes?

Why do we seek the living among the dead? Why do we seek for living neighbors in the unreal, virtual cyber world, and not in the flesh and blood neighbors next door? Meanwhile we wonder why depression and suicide is on the rise.

Why do we seek the living among the dead? Why do we seek the meaning of “church” in stone cathedrals and beautiful artwork, and not in the living Body of Christ worshiping therein?

Why do we seek the living among the dead? Why do we talk about lost loved ones “living on in our memories,” knowing full well this pales in comparison to actually having them there, when we could seek them among the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, at communion?

Why do we seek the living among the dead? Because it’s part of the curse we’ve been born into, and we don’t know how to act any other way. But the Gospel – Christ’s resurrection – teaches us something new. There is life in this world, life to the full, centered in Christ and His Church.

The Lord said to Israel, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live.”

Similarly, the first extant book outside of the New Testament canon was called the Didache, and there too is presented the way of life and the way of death. The Gospel is a way of life, from its ethics, to its teaching of the Ten Commandments, to its Lord and Savior (of course), and to its Church and Sacraments.

Why do we seek the living among the dead? Good question. But it’s pretty good to know that, since Christ’s resurrection, the question can actually be asked. Before it couldn’t.

Contrary to what many people assume, the Lord’s exaltation begins not with His resurrection, but with His descent into hell. Quick catechism review: The Lord’s work as given in the creed is divided into His humiliation and His exaltation. His humiliation goes from His conception to His death. His exaltation goes from His descent to forever.

This fits a theme we’ve been working with from the Gospel of John, that when He said, “It is finished,” this was His ultimate glory, His ultimate triumph, the beginning of His exaltation. Was this the “little word that fell” Satan, of Luther’s famous hymn?

We’ve been contemplating that what was “finished” was the restoration of creation, or, its re-creation. The Lord was finished with the creation and rested on the seventh day. As it is written, “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.”

So also Christ rested on the seventh day, the Sabbath Day. Now He had completed the Father’s work.

But, one might note, Jesus was dead. That is true, but in another sense He was just sleeping, like the little girl or like Lazarus. He is the firstfruits of those who sleep. He was sanctifying the graves of all believers. He was filling Himself into that saddest of places, making it a place of triumph and victory. This is why its so important to maintain His exaltation was going on then. If Christ’s exaltation begins there, surely it also begins for all those who die in His name, for all who are lowered into the grave.

So what was Jesus doing when He descended into hell? Or better put, we should define this place as Sheol, or Hades, the place of the dead, for a reason you’ll see why in a bit. Hell, understood as a place of eternal, fiery abandonment – the Lake of Fire – is something for the end of time, Revelation tells us. But Sheol or Hades, well, this is where the Old Testament saints went. As Jacob said when mourning for Joseph, “No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.” And as Jesus says through the Psalmist, “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.”

Jesus did not go to the place of eternal fiery torments. He went to the place of the death, which yes, was governed by the powers of death (of course) and therefore the devil (Beelzebub, Lord of the flies), but was not yet the place we normally think of when we think of hell, the fiery place of eternal death.

So what Jesus doing there? St. Peter says He went there to preach. What was He preaching and to whom was He preaching?

One ancient Christian belief was Jesus went there to preach to the Old Testament saints (like Jacob) and lead them out. This is the basis for all the artwork known as the “Harrowing of Hell.” Its rooted in several biblical passages which provide the details for the artwork.

For instance, in one of the Easter Vigil readings, we hear the promise to Abraham, “And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies.” Jesus will possess the gates of hell.

What kind of gates were these? A Psalm says, “For he shatters the doors of bronze and cuts in two the bars of iron.” And then Isaiah, “I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron.”

And of course, Jesus fulfilled this when He got the keys of death and Hades, which He gave to the apostles, so that the “gates of hell” could not keep them from releasing souls trapped there by their sins.

Some more imagery describes Hades as a gaping mouth. From Proverbs: “like Sheol let us swallow them alive, and whole, like those who go down to the pit.” And from Isaiah, “Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure.”

And that leads to Jonah, which lays the foundation for Jesus’ death, “I called out to the LORD, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried.” As Jesus said, this is a prophecy of Him lying in the tomb.

And that reference to Sheol as a pit gets picked up by Jesus as well, when He said, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?” Is that not exactly what Jesus did with His sheep on the Sabbath?

So, when Jesus descended into Sheol with His keys, He went into the belly of the great fish, barred by bronze gates, to bust these gates, save His people, and lead them up and out. In the Harrowing of Hell iconography, Jesus usually is holding Adam, who represents all mankind.  You’ll also see the broken bronze gates crushing Satan, as well as the keys.

Now, here’s where things become interesting but also debatable. While all church fathers believed Jesus went down to save the Old Testament saints, there was some debate whether He also went down to preach to the unbelieving pagans who never heard the Word.

If that’s the case, this would explain why St. Paul told the Athenians, “In the past God overlooked [your ignorance regarding idolatry.]” How could God have overlooked? What would this have meant? He gave them a pass? Hardly. But if Jesus preached to the Athenians in Sheol, this could explain how God overlooked their earthly sins. Does God do the same today for those who never have heard? That’s an interesting question. But now at least, for those who do hear the Gospel, as St. Paul says, there is no more overlooking.

Christ’s descent into Sheol is part of the message of the Gospel. It’s where He reaches down and grabs His sheep who have fallen into its pit. That could be the pit of despair, the pit of sin, the pit of disease, or just…the pits. Every sermon is Jesus descending into Sheol – our Sheol – to grab the hands of our faith and pull us up and out.

It’s interesting to look at how the crucifixion of Christ has been depicted in the history of art. If you look at the very old paintings, paintings prior to, say 1400, Jesus doesn’t seem to be in a lot of pain. He looks serene. There’s a halo around his head. And the people around him – His mother, Mary Magdelene, John – all look peaceful and contemplative.

And then around 1400 you started getting more humanity in the paintings. You started seeing Jesus writhing in pain. You started seeing the characters in the scene display raw emotion. Even the natural environment around Jesus began to change. Where the older works placed Jesus in the golden background, the latter works showed the stark darkness of the day.

Well, you could say these two ways of viewing Christ’s death parallel the two different types of accounts we get of Jesus’ death in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke – which look alike and used each other in their writing – are very much the “just the facts” version of the crucifixion. They display the gore, the darkness of the day, and provide the material for those later works of art.

But John’s Passion account stands out from these. In John’s Gospel, the Passion is Christ’s moment of glory. The cross is His triumph. The cross is the finalization of His mission. John’s Gospel provides material that shows why for us, the cross is a sign of victory.

To understand what the Passion means in St. John’s Gospel, we can begin with those powerful concluding words of Jesus, “It is finished.” At first glance we all intuitively know what that means: Jesus is finished with His suffering, finished dying for our sins, finished with His mission.

But there’s something more going on. Keep in mind, a big theme in John’s Gospel is that Jesus has come to re-create a fallen creation. Remember when He took that clay and put it on the blind man’s eyes? He was doing just at the Lord did in the beginning with Adam, turning clay into life. But Jesus wasn’t starting from scratch, he was working with broken people. He was working with you and me.

So think of it this way. On the last day of creation, it is written, “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.” But then Adam and Eve sinned, introducing death into the world, and caused the whole creation to have to go back to the dust.  If the Lord was finished, He had to come out of retirement.

This is why Jesus said several times in the Gospel of John, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” Or again, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” Or think of these words which echo the creation account, “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.”

So clearly, the Lord is no longer at rest, and the Sabbath Day of Rest is not really inaugurated. That is what Jesus came to do. He came to finish the Lord’s work, the Lord’s work of creation. So, when He said “It is finished,” only then could it be truly said the work of creation was finished. And now the Sabbath Day, the sixth day of rest – Jesus’ rest in the tomb – can truly happen, so that a new day of creation can arise, an eighth day, a day of light piercing the darkness, a day of new creation.

At Jesus’ death in the Gospel of John, it says Jesus handed over three elements. Notice how these elements parallel the elements that had created Adam. Water, blood, and spirit. When God molded Adam at the creation, it says there was a mist coming up from the ground, and God took the dust from the earth, making it a mud with the mist – and by the way, it’s interesting that in Hebrew the word for earth is related to the word for blood – and then God breathed His spirit of life into Adam.

When Jesus died, He handed over His Spirit, and then water and blood flowed out of Him. These are the elements of the new creation. The Spirit of Absolution that gives us life. The waters of Holy Baptism, and the blood of Holy Communion.

John’s Gospel is a victory anthem, not a sad tale of human woe. Jesus died not so you might feel sorry for Him, but so that you might have life, and have it to the full.