orichalcum

Non-ecumenical part (but may still be interesting to non-Christians):

The pastor today (J. Henry of St Pauls UCC) chose Matthew's version of Easter morning, rather than the more typical Luke or John. He made that choice because he wanted to emphasize the shock of Jesus' reappearance, rather than the calmer "are you the gardener" versions in the other gospels. In Matthew, there is an earthquake, and the angel's appearance is "like lightning (Matthew 28)" and "the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men." The angel's first words, like earlier angels in the Bible, are "Fear Not!" (Literally, "away from _phobos_, where phobos is not so much fear _of_ something in Greek, though that is related, as soul-clenching irrational terror. It is the state of fear, if that makes sense, but differentiated from panic.)

So first we have a shocking but conventional angel. Madeleine L'Engle noted that this repetitive request to banish terror suggests that angels aren't beautiful winged humanoids, but deeply alien, startling creatures. Even courageous, saintly people don't meet them and say "wow, how pretty!" They quake in terror.

What really struck me about this version, however, is that when Jesus appears to the disciples, his first words are "Fear Not!" Jesus has become a figure who inspires terror. Given the parallelism, I don't think this is just a matter of "I know you're surprised because you thought I was dead." It suggests that he has become more divine than human - alien in some very fundamental fashion. Yes, he has risen, but not as their carpenter-preacher friend, but as something Other. When he appears to the disciples in Galilee, some are "in doubt," and perhaps this doubt comes from a lack of recognition. The mystery of Jesus is that he is very easy to comprehend (like the Word, and light) when he is human and speaking in stories and engaging in everyday activities like fishing and wedding attendance. Reconciling and equating that prosaic Jesus with the poetic, terrifying, post-Resurrection Logos - that's the hard part.

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Ecumenical part:
The other thought that came to mind during today's service was a new focus on the idea of Communion. Communion has always made me slightly uncomfortable to the extent that I thought that what I was supposed to be remembering was Jesus's suffering and death. And frankly, that isn't the central part of the story for me; I'm much more interested in Jesus' moral teachings during his life. But then I focused on the actual text - when you eat this bread and wine, _remember me._ And I considered how the sharing of bread and wine is itself, of course, just an evocation of the weekly Sabbath blessing of bread and wine in Jewish tradition, as well as the ceremonies of Passover seders. And that ceremony, among its other purposes, has as a central idea remembering God and our relationship with the Divine. ladybird97 once mentioned to me that one of her reasons for choosing to keep kosher was as a regular reminder to herself of her faith and her culture. Having that sort of regular reminder of "hey, right, don't forget about God in your life" can be useful. And so, thinking of Communion not as "Remember Death and Suffering!" but as "Remember God! and this community of fellow believers" makes it much more palatable and evocative for me. It's good to have a Calendar reminder of God, as it were, and much more beautiful symbolism than a little computer beep.