The Resurrection of the Body (3 page)

T
ime in my Study

I sat down at the desk and looked at the first page. I had been writing about the nature of the resurrection. I was discussing how, from the beginnings of time, man had needed this image of rebirth. The West Kennet long
barrow
in Wiltshire was aligned so that when the sun rose on the midwinter solstice a ray of light came in and lit up the inner chamber. We do not know what kind of rites were enacted there, but it is almost certain that they were rites of rebirth. Then there are the resurrection myths in other societies, of Osiris in ancient Egypt, Attis, and Mithras in the Greek and Roman empires. Throughout ancient history we have the same potent myths. We can’t know exactly what these ancient people believed, but the myths
are so similar that it’s hard not to argue that they point to some underlying truth, either about human nature, or about the nature of the world we live in. But these myths all point to the same thing: the intervention of the
spiritual
in our earthly, bodily life.

I have to confess at this point that I, like many other Anglican clergy, do not believe in the physical
resurrection
. Thank God for the Bishop of Durham having the courage to say out loud what so many of us think. Reading the New Testament carefully tends to support this view. The Christ who appears after his death, to Mary
Magdalene
and the disciples, is not the same man who was with them before. He appears and disappears in their midst, strangely and suddenly; he is often not recognised; he has the character of a vision. At the same time, he eats with the disciples and asks Thomas to put his hand in his wounds, to show that he is not a ghost.

Despite this, I believe that the symbolism of
resurrection
represents a very deep and profound truth. At times, when I feel weak and filled with doubt, I wonder if there is any meaning to it, whether it is just wish fulfilment to escape from the appalling reality of man’s mortality. The truth is that from the moment man could look into the future and foresee his own death he was in trouble. Let’s be honest, the idea of our own personal death is
unthinkable
, intolerable. Have we just invented these myths as a way of making life bearable, of enabling ourselves to live?

Yet it was thoughts of the resurrection that prompted my ‘conversion’, if you can glorify it with that name, in Jerusalem, at the Garden Tomb. I laid down my pen and
stared ahead at the photograph above my desk of Harriet outside the tomb. Ten years ago I had visited Jerusalem, with Harriet and Thomas when he was a baby, staying with friends in a small flat in the Armenian quarter. This was before I entered the church and at the time I described myself as agnostic. Wandering the streets, leaning against the same gnarled olive trees under which Jesus must have prayed at Gethsemane, I found myself preoccupied by the questions of who this man really was and what was the foundation of this religion which I had always taken for granted and always struggled against. I trailed Harriet and the baby round from one site to the next, visited the
excavations
of the Essene community at Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Brought up a Catholic,
Harriet
didn’t like to delve too much into reality, preferred to accept things entirely on faith. She said my search was obsessive.

In the darkness, lying in our hot, un-airconditioned room, I would wake night after night and find myself unable to sleep, puzzling these questions. By the time the muezzin started up at five o’clock I would abandon thoughts of sleep and go out on to the terrace to read my books on Christian history in the cool air and watch the sun rising over the roofs of the old city.

It was at the Garden Tomb that an insight came to me. Outside the old wall of Jerusalem, in the face of a quarry that imagination can draw into the shape of a skull, lies a genuine first-century tomb. Carved out of the rock, it contains space for three bodies and on the roof are carved Christian crosses to show that it was once used as a place
of worship or pilgrimage. In front of the tomb is a grooved track which sinks to its lowest point in front of the tomb entrance, and to one side, in the groove, would have stood a huge stone, like a gigantic millstone. It was clear to see how it would be relatively easy for a few men to roll the stone downhill to cover the entrance but almost
impossible
to heave it uphill again.

Our guide said the tomb was re-excavated in Victorian times. I asked him, half jokingly, if any bones were found in it. The guide looked at me, startled. Perhaps nobody had dared to ask him that question before. We stood in the hot sunlight in that peaceful place and I realised that I profoundly wished him to say ‘No.’ I wanted there to be a mystery; I wanted to believe.

He said he believed that there were not. Of course this didn’t mean anything; the graves could have been looted at some earlier time. I went back to our flat and read the
narrative
in Mark, the earliest and simplest version without angels or earthquakes, and wondered yet again about the identity of the young man who sat in the tomb. I noted the last words of the original ending of Mark’s gospel in which the women ran away and said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.

That had been the moment when I decided I wanted to study theology. I felt there was some mystery here to which I wanted to find the key. This was the moment which set me on the way to becoming ordained as a priest.

When I had stood there in the tomb at Jerusalem it had somehow seemed quite real and simple. Something had happened. But now I am trying to explain, to rationalise it.
I cannot do it. To tell the truth, Easter Sunday has for me a shoddy, empty ring. It seems shallow and out of tune with what has happened, like the person who says
cheerfully
‘Life must go on’ to someone who is recently bereaved. After the glorious tragedy of the passion
narrative
, the alleluias seem like a false, jolly coda. It could be argued that we need that note of lightness, like the joke that breaks up the solemnity and brings everyone back to life after some grave occasion. But my heart is never in it.

The door opened. Thomas looked round it. ‘Do you want a hot cross bun?’

‘No thank you, Tommy. I’m trying to work.’

‘Is it true a man was murdered in the church?’

‘We don’t know if he’s dead yet, Tommy. Let’s hope that he’s not.’

‘Why did it happen?’

Harriet’s voice came from the kitchen. ‘Tommy, leave your father alone. I told you …’

I got to my feet. Work was impossible. I went into the kitchen and paced up and down in agitation, jingling the coins in my pocket and generally driving Harriet to
distraction
. After a while I said, ‘Harriet, somehow I feel responsible. That man came into my church, perhaps he was seeking something. I know that’s silly, unlikely, but I feel that I must … I’m going to Bart’s to see what has happened to him.’

T
o St Bartholomew's Hospital

I parked the car on a meter in a courtyard somewhere in the maze of streets that wind between the various wings of Bart's. As I got out of the car I shivered. It was
unseasonably
cold, and a shower of fine snow fell, driving along the pavements like dust.

I asked at the main reception and was sent up to the intensive care ward. A nurse rushed past, clearly too busy to be bothered with me. A policeman was sitting on a chair in the corridor outside, his hat in his hands, bored, waiting. I sat down beside him. For some reason we didn't speak.

I don't know how long I would have sat there, not
saying
anything. After about twenty minutes a doctor came
out through the pale green doors in a white coat, carrying some notes. Something about the manner of his
appearance
reminded me of the priest who pops out through the gilded doors from behind the iconostasis at the climax of the Russian Orthodox mass. He looked at the policeman, then at me, and motioned us into a room at the side.

It was clearly a doctor's office. There was a computer on the desk, and a bank of filing cabinets against the wall which took up too much room and made it difficult to open the door. Papers were strewn in a muddle all over the desk and there was a stale, half-drunk plastic cup of coffee near the edge.

He sat behind the desk and indicated two chairs in front of us.

‘Make yourselves comfortable.'

We sat down.

I explained who I was and the doctor seemed to accept that I had a right to be there. Being a vicar is very useful in this way. He said his name was Hunt and he was senior registrar. He tapped his fingers nervously on the desktop and fidgeted in his chair; then he cleared his throat, flipped through the notes, and began to talk without once looking up at us.

‘I'm afraid the man came into us in a very bad
condition
. He had lost a great deal of blood and suffered a
respiratory
arrest, but we were not able to say for certain for how long. You understand that there is only a very short period, about two minutes, that the brain can be deprived of oxygen before damage results.'

The policeman nodded.

He referred again to his notes. ‘We intubated him, put in venous lines, took him into the operating theatre and carried out an emergency thoracotomy, that is, we opened the chest cavity. There was bleeding from the heart and from the pulmonary artery, which was dealt with, and we then removed part of one of the lobes of the lung. There was no damage to other internal organs so the operation was not unduly complicated. We sewed him up but when we removed the ventilator he did not breathe of his own accord. He is therefore being kept ventilated but unless there is any improvement in his condition, which I think unlikely, I'm afraid that he will not survive.'

The policeman sat and wrote all this in his notebook. He had mean, cramped writing and the act of his
recording
this so painstakingly and with such detachment
irritated
me.

The policeman asked, ‘What was the cause of the injury?'

‘It's a knife wound, undoubtedly. Considerable force must have been used to inflict it.'

I asked him, ‘Do we know who he is yet?'

‘He wasn't carrying any identification,' said the
policeman
. ‘So far no one has come forward to report anyone missing, but of course, it's early yet.'

The doctor leaned forward. He looked tired, seemed bored with the whole thing and because we weren't
relatives
didn't seem to feel he had to pretend otherwise. ‘I don't think there is anything else I can usefully say. Would you like us to call you in the event of his recovering consciousness?'

I told him that I would. He gathered up the file and got to his feet; it was obvious the interview was over.

I had one last question. ‘I noticed,' I said, ‘that there were cuts on his hands. I wondered …'

And now the doctor actually smiled. ‘Yes, I noticed that,' he said. ‘It occurred to one of us that this might have been some bizarre kind of sacrificial act, that the assailant might have intended to kill him in this way, you know, inflicting the same wounds as Christ and doing this in a church. After all, it is Good Friday.' He paused, watching me, but I did not react at all. ‘But I'm afraid there is a much more mundane explanation. Many people will instinctively put up their arms in front of their faces to deflect a blow. It seems to me that he probably used his hands to try to grab the knife and push it away from him. That would be entirely consistent with the injuries we found.'

T
he Man Dies

I arrived back home to find Harriet and the children
sitting
down to eat supper round the kitchen table. As always, on Good Friday, we had fish. Harriet had bought plaice for the children but for us a beautiful sea bream. A candle was lit, and Harriet, who was raised as a Catholic but now says she is agnostic, was wearing black, because she liked to keep up the traditions. Good Friday supper in our house is always spent just with the family and is always a very solemn occasion.

Harriet didn’t ask me what had happened and we put Thomas and Joshua to bed. They were quite lively and began to play a silly game with the duvet covers which had us all laughing and fooling around. When they were finally
settled a tremendous weariness came over me and I said that I wanted to go to bed. I ran a bath and soaked there, listening to Harriet tidying up in the kitchen downstairs.

The phone rang. Not many people who knew me well would call on Good Friday evening. I strained my ears but I couldn’t hear any of the conversation. Then I heard
Harriet
coming up the stairs. She put her head round the door.

‘It was the hospital. The doctor said that the man has died. He was taken off the life support systems about an hour ago. He said that he thought you would want to know, in case you were saying prayers for him tonight.’

I said, ‘That was very thoughtful of him.’ Frankly, I was surprised that he had thought of this.

‘I’m not sure. He might have been ironical.’

‘Come and sit here with me.’

Harriet and I have been married for twelve years. Our first baby, a daughter, conceived before we were married, was stillborn, and that was when Harriet had announced that she no longer believed in God. We had suffered terribly together after her death; while such strains can drive some people apart, this tragedy had brought us closer; despite all the differences between us Harriet is my rock and the one on whom I can always count whatever happens. She is slim and lovely at just forty and one of the most generous people I know.

She sat on the loo seat and watched me, fondly.

‘Hurry up and get out of the bath,’ she said, ‘I want to make love to you.’

Her gaze upon me was already arousing. I got out of the bath and stumbled into the bedroom. She didn’t take off
her clothes and I didn’t bother to dry myself; she threw herself on to the bed and I pulled her towards me and we made love fiercely and quickly. For me there was
something
sharp and almost painful in it, and more intense than usual; a contact with death often makes us cling more tenaciously to life and the pleasures it can bring us. My emotions were aroused and I wanted to share them; perhaps I wanted also to seek a temporary oblivion.

We got into bed and Harriet turned off the light. We lay with our arms round one another and she fell asleep instantly. I lay awake for a long time, watching the lights from the cars passing in the street, casting shadows on the ceiling. For some reason that I couldn’t understand, I was afraid.