Glimpses of the Resurrection

Fr. Lloyd Baugh SJ - April 1, 2018

 

The Windhover

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin,
dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

– Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

Moving with transcendent beauty and mystery, with liberty and energy, with grace, the flight of Hopkins' windhover is widely understood as a poetic metaphor of Jesus the Christ, in the full glory of His Resurrection. Hopkins' poetic reflection offers a dense, intense, and mysterious experience, that, in some way, can evoke in us glimpses of the Resurrection.

Why so "mysterious"? Why only "evoke"? Why only "glimpses"? Let us remember that the Resurrection of Jesus the Christ is not something to be understood or explained as a specific, immanent experience, however powerful, like the healing miracles of Jesus and like his resuscitation of Lazarus.

The "actual moment" of the Resurrection of Jesus as the Christ was not seen, nor witnessed, by anyone. Mary of Magdala first, and then the disciples, experienced post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus, and then, as deeply mysterious, even troubling. The Resurrection is not an "event" that took place in 33 AD once and for all, an "event" that we simply recall at Easter each year.

However, I believe we are empowered by God to risk imagining what the Resurrection is. The Resurrection of Jesus the Christ is the absolutely transcendent "Event," far beyond all other events, and that breaks through the human bounds of time and space and experience. The Resurrection is the fulfillment of the kenosis of the Eternal Logos of God in Jesus of Nazareth, represented in Philippians 2.

It is in the light of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ that the Gospel writers represent some particular moments of the experience of Jesus of Nazareth: the voice of God heard by Jesus and others at his baptism at the Jordan, and the experience of Jesus and the disciples at His Transfiguration.

Should we think that the Resurrection is an experience only of Jesus Christ and for Him, to be somehow "observed" by us from a distance, as it were, we are very wrong. The Resurrection is the Absolute Act of the Redeeming Love of our Trinitarian God for human beings of all times and places, of all religious traditions, and extending through all of God's creation.

It is the Fulfillment of God's promise proclaimed to us through the ancient Prophets, by Jesus of Nazareth, and though women and men of Prophetic Witness today.

In the sufferings and pain, in the uncertainties and doubts of our experiences in our contemporary world, our Experience of the Resurrection gives us Hope. In our darkness, It gives us Light; in our defeats, It offers us Victory; in our sadness, It gives us Joy. To experiences of violence, the Resurrection brings Peace; to moments of ugliness, It brings Beauty.

When we feel our earth-boundedness, Jesus the Risen Christ liberates us to leap and fly with the agility of Hopkins' Windhover. In death, the Resurrection gives us Life. This Easter, let us sing and proclaim: "Hosanna in the highest ... Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." (Mt 21: 9)