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Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel
Why is it 'good news' to say 'Jesus is risen'? This text sets out to show how the experience of the resurrection was from the first one of forgiveness and of the healing of memories of injury, guilt or failure.
125 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
40 people are currently reading
237 people want to read
About the author
Rowan Williams
260 books338 followersRowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, is an Anglican bishop, poet, and theologian. He was Archbishop of Canterbury from December 2002-2012, and is now Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and Chancellor of the University of South Wales.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 9, 2023
Updated 06/08/23
I read this book again, and understood far more of it.
What can I say? It's the most significant book I've read in my life. Everything I've been looking for, everything I need to be transformed, is here.
This book set my heart on fire for Jesus Christ.
I can't thank Rowan enough for writing this book.
-------------------
In reading this book, I received a strange gift: an understanding of the identity of Christ like I have never before and the accompanying sense of his presence. I think it was Hans Frei who insisted that to know the identity of Jesus is to have him present. Something in that vicinity… very slowly… Could that be what’s happening to me?
Reflecting on this point leads to another thought: Kathryn Tanner’s insistence that what matters is “a *sense* of what Christianity is *all* about.” A “sense” because these things tend to be inarticulable, and the “whole” because an understanding of any part must involve the whole. Yet in Christianity, a weird relationship obtains in that an understanding of a part (Jesus) *is* the understanding of the whole.
“In fifty years of doing theology, one thing I have learned is that good theology is theology oriented towards the healing of human wounds,” said Rowan Williams. Good theology heals. Via patient observation, we discern whether a particular theology is good. What Rowan has said of theology in general applies to his own. The least I can say of this process, in which Rowan has played such a vital role, is that I find myself restored and reconciled. I am being healed.
As Rowan points out in this book, healing presupposes a history diminution, “salvation does not bypass the history and memory of guilt, but rather builds upon and from it.” Why should I hesitate to say it? I needed to be healed of my previous sense of what Christianity is all about. If good religion opens itself up to the source of all healing, bad religion is perhaps our best defense against it. “To arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.” Eliot means to say, “To know the place *as* a place that heals.” Because God heals. God cannot help but heal. This is how we know God.
In what specific ways did this book help me heal? For one, this book views supernature as entirely continuous with nature. David Bentley Hart’s book that deals with this same issue was just published. Rowan’s book was written in 1982. Of course, much of DBH’s book deals with the implications of this view. Nevertheless, the germ of what DBH argues in his new book is already fully present in Rowan’s work. I don’t think I’ve met a single ex-Christian who did not assume a strong nature/supernature divide. Carefully listening to their stories reveals that what they narrate is not a process by which they have lost their faith; no, they just come to find out that they already did not believe.
Then there is the identity of Jesus. This matters on so many levels e.g. in whatever way we understand our vocation, minimally it is to be for the world what Jesus was for Israel. Should we act as a karma police, or should we wish to get out of the way? Any place for judgment and exclusion? What does it mean to be “in Christ” or to be the “body” of Christ? As important as these questions are, they seem secondary. What is of primary importance is the question “Who is Jesus?” In contemplating this, we are formed and transformed. This is the sense in which the understanding of the whole paints with a certain hue everything else we might say or think about Christianity.
Let me follow through with just one implication here: Interestingly, Rowan insists that it is not *what* Jesus was that saves, but *who* he was—the “who” question is a question about words and deeds, a question about identity. If we locate God’s saving act at this level, then the question of what it means to be “in Christ” should be answered in the same way. Being “in Christ” does not mean simply belonging to a certain church denomination, doing or abstaining from certain things, or espousing a certain doctrine; being “in Christ” means “doing” and "saying" via church membership, moral actions, and doctrine what Jesus did and said. Rigidly insisting on the meaning of a certain action or object as always being "of Christ” is the surest way we have of discerning a decadent spirit. To have Christ present with us means partially to be haunted by this question: “Am I in Christ?” In this sense, Rowan's is "a difficult Gospel" (the name of a book explicating Rowan's theology). Occupy this honest space before Christ for any length of time and any firm ground beneath our feet will appear to give way. This phenomenon—“dark night of the soul,” “divine darkness,” “unknowing,” or what have you—is the only proof proper we can have for knowing ourselves to be “in Christ.” Again, it is about attunement, perceiving with the heart, and sensitivity to the Spirit.
Lastly, “If we are still in our sins, we have not yet truly heard the news that Christ has been raised,” says Rowan. Here is a conviction that voluntarism is false. The identity of Jesus matters because in seeing who he is we find ourselves transformed. No need for harshness. No need for self-blame. Self-compassion and gentleness become perhaps the two most important virtues to help us along the way. In the end, this recognition opens the door to universalism. All of Jesus’ life was about love and its communication—the kind of love that, if we were to fathom its depth, we would not be able to resist. If not apokatastasis, then at least a reason for hope, an insight into “the secret that Paul learned, of a divine justice, righteousness, which acts only to restore – what Luther so strangely called the ‘passive righteousness’ of God, the justice that will not act against us, that is incapable of aggression or condemnation: the righteousness that makes righteous.”
With that, I feel my quivering heart. I am not sure if I can ever get over it.
I read this book again, and understood far more of it.
What can I say? It's the most significant book I've read in my life. Everything I've been looking for, everything I need to be transformed, is here.
This book set my heart on fire for Jesus Christ.
I can't thank Rowan enough for writing this book.
-------------------
In reading this book, I received a strange gift: an understanding of the identity of Christ like I have never before and the accompanying sense of his presence. I think it was Hans Frei who insisted that to know the identity of Jesus is to have him present. Something in that vicinity… very slowly… Could that be what’s happening to me?
Reflecting on this point leads to another thought: Kathryn Tanner’s insistence that what matters is “a *sense* of what Christianity is *all* about.” A “sense” because these things tend to be inarticulable, and the “whole” because an understanding of any part must involve the whole. Yet in Christianity, a weird relationship obtains in that an understanding of a part (Jesus) *is* the understanding of the whole.
“In fifty years of doing theology, one thing I have learned is that good theology is theology oriented towards the healing of human wounds,” said Rowan Williams. Good theology heals. Via patient observation, we discern whether a particular theology is good. What Rowan has said of theology in general applies to his own. The least I can say of this process, in which Rowan has played such a vital role, is that I find myself restored and reconciled. I am being healed.
As Rowan points out in this book, healing presupposes a history diminution, “salvation does not bypass the history and memory of guilt, but rather builds upon and from it.” Why should I hesitate to say it? I needed to be healed of my previous sense of what Christianity is all about. If good religion opens itself up to the source of all healing, bad religion is perhaps our best defense against it. “To arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.” Eliot means to say, “To know the place *as* a place that heals.” Because God heals. God cannot help but heal. This is how we know God.
In what specific ways did this book help me heal? For one, this book views supernature as entirely continuous with nature. David Bentley Hart’s book that deals with this same issue was just published. Rowan’s book was written in 1982. Of course, much of DBH’s book deals with the implications of this view. Nevertheless, the germ of what DBH argues in his new book is already fully present in Rowan’s work. I don’t think I’ve met a single ex-Christian who did not assume a strong nature/supernature divide. Carefully listening to their stories reveals that what they narrate is not a process by which they have lost their faith; no, they just come to find out that they already did not believe.
Then there is the identity of Jesus. This matters on so many levels e.g. in whatever way we understand our vocation, minimally it is to be for the world what Jesus was for Israel. Should we act as a karma police, or should we wish to get out of the way? Any place for judgment and exclusion? What does it mean to be “in Christ” or to be the “body” of Christ? As important as these questions are, they seem secondary. What is of primary importance is the question “Who is Jesus?” In contemplating this, we are formed and transformed. This is the sense in which the understanding of the whole paints with a certain hue everything else we might say or think about Christianity.
Let me follow through with just one implication here: Interestingly, Rowan insists that it is not *what* Jesus was that saves, but *who* he was—the “who” question is a question about words and deeds, a question about identity. If we locate God’s saving act at this level, then the question of what it means to be “in Christ” should be answered in the same way. Being “in Christ” does not mean simply belonging to a certain church denomination, doing or abstaining from certain things, or espousing a certain doctrine; being “in Christ” means “doing” and "saying" via church membership, moral actions, and doctrine what Jesus did and said. Rigidly insisting on the meaning of a certain action or object as always being "of Christ” is the surest way we have of discerning a decadent spirit. To have Christ present with us means partially to be haunted by this question: “Am I in Christ?” In this sense, Rowan's is "a difficult Gospel" (the name of a book explicating Rowan's theology). Occupy this honest space before Christ for any length of time and any firm ground beneath our feet will appear to give way. This phenomenon—“dark night of the soul,” “divine darkness,” “unknowing,” or what have you—is the only proof proper we can have for knowing ourselves to be “in Christ.” Again, it is about attunement, perceiving with the heart, and sensitivity to the Spirit.
Lastly, “If we are still in our sins, we have not yet truly heard the news that Christ has been raised,” says Rowan. Here is a conviction that voluntarism is false. The identity of Jesus matters because in seeing who he is we find ourselves transformed. No need for harshness. No need for self-blame. Self-compassion and gentleness become perhaps the two most important virtues to help us along the way. In the end, this recognition opens the door to universalism. All of Jesus’ life was about love and its communication—the kind of love that, if we were to fathom its depth, we would not be able to resist. If not apokatastasis, then at least a reason for hope, an insight into “the secret that Paul learned, of a divine justice, righteousness, which acts only to restore – what Luther so strangely called the ‘passive righteousness’ of God, the justice that will not act against us, that is incapable of aggression or condemnation: the righteousness that makes righteous.”
With that, I feel my quivering heart. I am not sure if I can ever get over it.
October 8, 2021
This book took me over a year to finish because it is a neutron star of theological material: very small but extremely dense. Definitely got some good stuff out of this, really underline-able quotes,but so dense as to be almost unintelligible at times.
April 28, 2018
Grace is not abstract. Christ resurrected and grace filled frees us from stories of revenge and weaponized victimhood.
Read this book!
Read this book!
March 16, 2018
perhaps his best
a beautiful work worthy of meditation upon. an invitation to see anew and see our personal histories anew. experiential and intellectually alive.
a beautiful work worthy of meditation upon. an invitation to see anew and see our personal histories anew. experiential and intellectually alive.
November 8, 2023
I decided to read this ostensibly Easter-focused book in the early leadup to the Christmas not because I'm a moron, but because the subject - Christ's Passion and Resurrection - has been more on my mind recently due to another good book I have been reading; a Catholic one based on the life of Mary as seen and reported by certain mystics.
To be honest, this quality book by the hugely likeable Rowan Willians, former Archbishop of Canterbury (and perhaps real-life muggle version of Albus Dumbledore? I mean, seriously, just watch him in interviews, especially more recent ones when he is older and sports a beard), would have been even better an experience if I had read it in print, as opposed to audio. But still, a good book is good whatever the medium one reads it in. And this, true to form of Protestantism's best thinkers (I got Barth vibes in particular from this book), Williams opens up the Easter story with deep insight, and offers his reflections in a way that is highly relevant for the modern world.
Surely, a good companion for the Easter period. But if you want to read it over Halloween and the first stirrings of Christmas instead, then why not, eh?
To be honest, this quality book by the hugely likeable Rowan Willians, former Archbishop of Canterbury (and perhaps real-life muggle version of Albus Dumbledore? I mean, seriously, just watch him in interviews, especially more recent ones when he is older and sports a beard), would have been even better an experience if I had read it in print, as opposed to audio. But still, a good book is good whatever the medium one reads it in. And this, true to form of Protestantism's best thinkers (I got Barth vibes in particular from this book), Williams opens up the Easter story with deep insight, and offers his reflections in a way that is highly relevant for the modern world.
Surely, a good companion for the Easter period. But if you want to read it over Halloween and the first stirrings of Christmas instead, then why not, eh?
September 6, 2022
I never tire of returning to this meditation every couple of years. Chapter Four is to my mind some of the most brilliant and inspiring theological writing ever written in the English language.
June 11, 2019
Rowan Williams is brilliant, and his writing is a little dense. It’s worth the work for his insights about the post-resurrection encounters: why is the risen Jesus encountered as a stranger (and what does that mean?) What does it mean for us that we can connect with Jesus the human, prophet, and one who suffers in ways that we cannot to the risen Jesus - and how does that have us domesticate God and the gospel? A book I’ll come back to because I’m sure it will read more deeply over time.
April 24, 2022
RW explores the meaning of Easter by explicating the scenes surrounding the resurrection event. As with many of RW's books, RW's theology tends to be more speculative and imaginative, but it also reveres and attends to the orthodox Christian tradition. RW once again emphasizes how important it is that the church remain self-critical (and repentant), ever vigilant in her call to heal and forgive the world by first making peace with her troublesome past.
June 12, 2022
Dense but absolutely worth it.
I read it maybe 5 years ago, and found it excellent. The second time through was even richer. Its depth doesn't make for easy summary. Key concepts include the church as a 'community of gift', and the Eucharist being even more based on post-resurrection meals than the Last Supper.
I read it maybe 5 years ago, and found it excellent. The second time through was even richer. Its depth doesn't make for easy summary. Key concepts include the church as a 'community of gift', and the Eucharist being even more based on post-resurrection meals than the Last Supper.
August 5, 2020
For most of my life I have been more at home in Lent than Easter. But this is an Easter which includes all that goes before. Williams has given me a new, more fruitful Easter. Another to reread and mull over.
September 15, 2022
Very interesting. An approach to resurrection essentially built on accepting our complicity and guilt for the victim's pain. Surprisingly dense and elliptical, I thought. Looks like a snack, but it's a fairly heavy meal.
June 20, 2022
His artful language always provokes new ways of seeing things.
Read
May 9, 2024This book helped me better understand how God works through Jesus' resurrection. Many wonderful insights!
April 5, 2021
Good stuff. I particularly appreciated Williams' discussion of memory, and the complexities of being both oppressor and oppressed.
May 18, 2023
Very insightful examination of the Scriptural records of Jesus of Nazareth's Resurrection.
A valuable resource for meditation.
A valuable resource for meditation.
April 7, 2013
What I find most powerful about Rowan Williams' writing is my constant sense that there is someone there, really there, behind the theology, that he is baring his soul to you in the process of writing. I found this text to be a brilliant examination of the empty tomb on Easter morning and how crucial it is that Easter turn us upside down and reshape the terms we have come to understand our reality. The kind of engagement he describes is one that asserts that we, as Christians, and as individuals, all have a particular past, that God engages with on a personal level. Easter does not wipe away distinctions or return to us a sanitized memory of the horror of Good Friday. Williams boldly states, "Easter means coming to the memory of Jesus, looking for consolation, and finding a memory that hurts and judges, that sets distance...between me and my hope, my savior." (pg 74). Williams draws out the tensions and disorienting nature of Easter and explains why that is necessary to our understanding of Eucharist, community, and the renewal of humanity by terms we do not fully understand.
November 26, 2007
His understanding of what Christianity entails moves me to the point of tears.
March 6, 2008
I'm going to read this again next week on the Native American Plunge. For Easter! How appropriate!
Read
May 18, 2012 Every other page is dogeared, I think.
December 30, 2016
The "Talking To A Stranger" chapter is worth getting the whole book. Simply brilliant.
February 13, 2013
Memory as resurrection, confessions of augustine.
March 30, 2017
Nicely written. Coherent with memorable insights.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews