Can the Written Word Convey a Real Presence of the Risen Christ?

2 Easter Sunday  B April 15, 2012  

Acts 4:32-35      Psalm 133

1 John 1:1-2:2  John 20:19-31              

Lectionary Link

   The late French philosopher Jacques Derrida provided an interesting insight on language.  In his musings about the development of language he made the claim that spoken language comes into being after written language.  On the surface, this seems like it is absurd since we know that babies learn to speak before they write.  And in aboriginal cultures, native peoples often speak but do not have written language.  So how can written language come before oral or spoken language?  Well, his point is people who only know spoken language and who do not have writing do not really know the meaning of spoken language since they do not have writing to compare it with.  So spoken language only truly becomes known as spoken language after writing has occurred; without writing there was nothing to compare spoken language with to give it an identity.

  This may seem like trivial and peevish philosophical sophistry, but I think that the  Gospel of John may indeed be a very rich reflection and speculation upon the philosophy of word and language in spoken and written forms.  We assume Jesus spoke words but those spoken words could not now be known unless at some point they were written down.  But  the words that Jesus may have said occurred before they were written down and they could not have been retained in culture or tradition if they had not been written down. 

  The first verse of John’s Gospel: In the Beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.  This notion of word is an acknowledgement that human consciousness as we know it, is created because of word ability.  Words are a human mystery; human beings have language ability.  We think that we can pinpoint areas of the brain that are active when speech and language are involved but there is still a mystery as to why we have and use language in the ways that we do.  Word ability defines the very social distinction of human beings from other members of the animal kingdom.

    Spoken word happens because a person is actually physically present to create the oral sounds and the audible phenomenon of speech.

  All of the Gospels including the Gospel of John presume that there was a Jesus of Nazareth who once had a physical presence and that when he was physically present, he spoke to many people.  He spoke to enough people words that could be remembered.  But human memory is not like the technologies of memory that we have today in being able to record the human voice in a variety of ways.

  The actual voice of Jesus as it was heard by his followers had to be remembered.   And the words of Jesus had to be recounted by those who remembered them.  And when those who had heard Jesus speak recalled the words of Jesus, they did so in a future time after Jesus and so they had to relate those words to new situations.  And so those remembered words would be presented in different ways according to the situations because the original context of the spoken words was gone.  It is possible to remember the words of Jesus but the setting of where those words were said have passed and so the remembered words of Jesus had to interact with new environments and new people.

  Those who heard the spoken words of Jesus were a direct link with Jesus to people who did not experience the physical presence of Jesus.  But what happened when those eyewitnesses of Jesus began to die out?  What happened to the remembered words of Jesus?  What happens to the memories of what Jesus did in this life?

  This dilemma is what the Gospel of John is dealing with.  As a teaching on how embracing the notion of word is, the writing of the Gospel of John makes a self reference to the significance of the technology of writing as an important way for people of the future to know Jesus of Nazareth as the risen Christ.

  The punchline of the doubting Thomas story is this:  “But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”  For Thomas, only seeing was believing.  The writer of John is making the case that one does not have to see Jesus; one can still read words about Jesus and one can still believe.  And this kind of belief is even a more blessed state of faith than the faith of the eyewitnesses of Jesus of Nazareth.  The writer of John is trying to accomplish quite some magic by essentially stating that the absence of Jesus of Nazareth opens up another kind of presence for the risen Christ.

  The eternal word of God creates and organizes all of human consciousness.  The eternal word is evident in actual human flesh.  The eternal word is exemplified best in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.  And he was word and he used words; he spoke words and his words were creative.  His words created friendships and relationships; his words created community.  And his words were spirit and life.  Jesus is quoted in John’s Gospel as saying, “My words are spirit and they are life.”  The words of Jesus created a community.  But could that community continue to have life?  Could that community survive?  Could the words of Jesus continue to be spirit and life in the future of the world long after he was gone and when his audible voice could not longer be heard?

  Can Jesus only be known in his physical historical body and is he only present when his audible words can be heard?  Is Jesus only present when his body and his scars are present to be touched?   Do you understand how the early Christians were already grappling with the reality of the presence of Christ long after the physical Jesus could no longer be heard, touched or felt?

  Can writing, a technology of memory, actually create another significant and real kind of presence?

  How many lovers have dealt with the reality of “absence make the heart grow fonder?”  How many letter writing lovers have had the imagination of faith to seemingly palpably know each other’s presence through the writing of love letters, and then when they settle in to live together as husband and wife grow to be completely distant and absent from one another?  Meaning is turned on its head: Absence is presence; presence is absence.

  Does the physical presence of a person and the ability to actually hear their voice guarantee an enhanced presence characterized by recognition, devotion and attention?

  The writer of John’s Gospel uses the doubting Thomas story to illustrate the experience of the enhanced presence of the Risen Christ that was deeply felt in the community by people who did not see Jesus but who still believed.

  They heard and read the words of Jesus and those words were spirit and they were life.  They had the reality of effecting peace.  They had the reality of forgiving sins, not retaining sins; they had the reality of another kind of presence that was real.

  And it is to this real presence of Christ, you and I are invited today.  The words of Jesus are still spirit and they are still life for us.  And that life is a real presence to us.  Amen.