Transformational Resurrection
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Bob Henry
April 20, 2025
Happy Easter, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. The text I have chosen for this Easter is Matthew 28:1-10 from the New Revised Standard Version.
After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
This week as I was preparing my message, I stopped by Barnes and Noble to peruse the shelves for new books. I was happily surprised to find a new book by author and scholar Elaine Pagels.
Many of you have enjoyed the work of Elaine Pagels, especially her work on the Gnostic Gospels. Well, her new book happens to be about Jesus and again had my attention. So, I grabbed a comfy chair in one of their nooks and turned quickly to the chapter on the resurrection which she, quoting Dale Allison, says is the “primary puzzle of New Testament research.”
She then goes on to give a history of understanding from multiple views including the Gospels writers. Yet probably the most interesting aspect is her focus on the Apostle Paul and what he actually said verses how we have interpreted it over time from our own beliefs and theologies.
As I sat at Barnes and Noble reading veraciously, I stopped on one line that really spoke to my condition and my heart as a pastor. Pagels says,
“Paul wants far more from his listeners than that they believe what he preaches. Instead, he passionately longs for them, too, to “be transformed.”
That’s exactly it. This is my heart’s prayer as I prepare each week. Folks, I don’t get up here every Sunday, for you to have tidbits of information, meme worthy quotes, or answers for trivia games with friends. My hope each week is that God will use me and the words the Spirit has inspired in me to share – to transform lives.
Paul saw this in the life of Jesus and said that transformation is what Jesus’ Resurrection was all about. Whether it was a metaphor or an actual physical resurrection. Paul describes it as a seed that goes into the ground and has to die, only to be raised as something new – a plant, a tree, a flower.
Pagels points out that when Paul was talking about the Resurrection he was actually talking about two different kinds of resurrection. The first included the physical body, what he called the First Adam, and then there was the “psychic’ body, a being that consists of psyche or the Greek term for the soul. This was what he equated Jesus or the New Adam to.
What this helped me understand was the holistic nature of the Resurrection. That it transforms us on the inside and out. It affects us physically and spiritually at the depths of our being. We all have things we must die to, things that we wrestle with, struggle with, even things that we feel are out of our control. And Paul believes our response will take transformation – moving from death to new life.
I remember one of these transformation resurrection moments in my life. I have probably shared this story before, but I think it is worth hearing again.
On the final night of a conference, I attended in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the writer, philosopher, storyteller and public speaker, Peter Rollins was speaking, I will never forget how he concluded the evening by talking about practicing the resurrection. He concluded by sharing a parable his friend wrote as he left church one day...it went like this…
“I dreamt that I died and I went to heaven and St. Peter was there. He opened the gates to welcome me in. “How great to see you!”
He said, “I was just about to step into heaven, then I noticed some of my friends were here. Some of them Atheists, some of them Buddhists, and some of them “God-knows-what.” He said, “St. Peter, what about my friends?”
St. Peter says, “Well, you know the rules. You know the rules”
And then his friend said, “I thought of my reference point. Jesus the outsider…Jesus the drunkard…Jesus the bastard…the friend of sinners…Jesus the one who would always stay with those who were oppressed.”
And he said, “You know what…I’ll just stay out here with them.
And the parable ends with St. Peter breaking a smile and saying “AT LAST, AT LAST, YOU UNDERSTAND!”
THAT RIGHT THERE IS A BEAUTIFUL EXAMPLE OF TRANSFORMATIONAL RESURRECTION!!!!
Even though this was a powerful parable, Rollins concluded this story with a more personal story. At a speaking engagement, he was asked a question about if he denied the resurrection of Jesus. This is how Peter Rollins responded,
Without equivocation or hesitation, I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think. [And then he paused.]
He held the pause long enough for some people in the room to literally gasp and concerned whispers to be heard. Honestly, I felt my physical body react to his words. That Quaker seed growing in me began to quake. Then without missing a beat Peter Rollins continued by saying...
I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.
Folks, that is death, that is the seed being buried in the ground. He goes on to say,
However, there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.
In those moments, he was transformed, and new life arose!
As he spoke, I was transformed, moved to tears, quaking, ready to go! I still feel the power of those words running through me right now.
This is what Paul was talking about – it is not just the preaching about the resurrection alone – but the power to be transformed by it and to act! To allow the dead places in our lives to regain life and bring hope to a dying world.
The Spirit working through Peter Rollins transformed that auditorium that night, and not a single one of us left the same as we had entered.
I believe I can say that I experienced the power of transformational resurrection with the people in that room in a special way. About five or six years later, I ran into one of the guys that I sat with that night, and we reminisced about hearing those words of Peter Rollins and how they had such a huge impact on our lives, our trajectory, even our callings. He agreed it was life giving and life altering.
But I also believe, each week here at First Friends, I experience transformational resurrection with each of you. And I believe you experience it throughout the week with each other.
Currently, there is a lot that is bringing death into our lives and we need our fellow Friends prompted by the Spirit to help water that seed, nurture it through friendships, and help it blossom into something beautiful.
Clarence Jordan, farmer and New Testament Greek scholar, and founder of Koinonia Farm in Georgia where Habitat for Humanity was birthed, puts words to this…
The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church [or Meeting].
Let me read that again:
The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church [or Meeting].
That is exactly how I felt that night in Grand Rapids – I was a transformed disciple, part of a spirit-filled fellowship and a carried-away church.
And that is how I hope we feel each week at First Friends. Gifted and ready to bring transformational resurrection to our world. To bring new life into people and places that are dying. Seeds who had gone into the ground and are ready to rise up and bloom!
So, what are we to learn from all of this? Like Peter Rollins and Clarence Jordan, we need to see the Resurrection of Jesus in ways that pertain to us bringing NEW LIFE and HOPE into our world, TODAY. I don’t think Jesus intended it for just this day nor for simply when we die. He wanted it to become a new way for us to live this life – daily!
As we are transformed – then others too will be transformed.
Again, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan’s book, “The Last Week” makes a good point about going one step further with what you believe about Jesus’ resurrection. They ask the following queries,
If you believe the tomb to be empty, fine, now what does this story mean? If you believe that Jesus’ appearances could have been videotaped, fine, now, what do these stories mean? And if you are not quite sure about that, or even if you are quite sure it didn’t happen this way, fine, now what do these stories mean?
“What does this resurrection of Jesus mean to you and me?” “What does the resurrection of Jesus mean to the world around us? What does the resurrection mean to people who need a new take on life?
If the Resurrection of Jesus doesn’t have some type of continued impact on us today and we are not seeking out its meaning in our daily lives, I think we miss the full impact of transformational resurrection in our lives.
I believe the Resurrection of Jesus is more than an event 2000+ years ago, it is more than a simple transaction creating a ticket to heaven when we die, or the possibility of living again someday after we die. And I definitely do not believe it is an event that is dividing us into people who are being sorted into places called heaven and hell.
Rather it is about the transformational resurrection all around us and what I consider the daily resurrection life.
Transformational resurrection changes everything – because it changes us.
The early Christians talked all the time about this transformational resurrection life and its importance. Like in Romans 8:1,
"God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike 'What's next, Papa?'"
Or as Paul emphatically explaining the importance of this to the people in Corinth,
Do you think I was just trying to act heroic when I fought the wild beasts at Ephesus, hoping it wouldn't be the end of me? Not on your life! It's resurrection, resurrection, always resurrection, that undergirds what I do and say, the way I live." 1 Corinthians 15: 32.
Ponder for a moment…
How am I experiencing transformational resurrection, today?
What in me must die so that the seed in me can arise and bloom?
My answer to those queries co-mingle the thoughts of Rollins, Jordan, the Apostle Paul, and Jesus. Folks, it is about being transformed to live out the resurrection in our daily lives – in the present moment, as much as it is a future hope.
And maybe that is because resurrection is about transformation from death to life – not just after we physically die, but after each death we face on this planet. We are surrounded by death all the time – failures, struggles, losses, you name it…they create death all around us.
Marcus Borg says it this way,
[For Jesus] God was the central reality of his life and the kingdom of God was the center of his message. The kingdom of God was not about heaven, not about life after death, but about the transformation of life on earth, as the Lord’s Prayer affirms. It is not about “Take us to heaven when we die,” but about “Your kingdom come on earth” – as already in heaven. The kingdom of God on earth was about God’s passion – and Jesus’s passion – for the transformation of “this world”: the humanly created world of injustice and violence into a world of justice and nonviolence.
That sounds like a charge for us Quakers. As we respond to this transformational resurrection life, as we expand and deepen our understanding, as we are beckoned by God to go, as we sense the adventure in bringing freedom, hope, peace, and life to a world filled with violence and injustice.
Be transformed!
On this Easter morning, let’s take a moment to ponder all this as we center down and enter waiting worship.