Why do people get so upset when we say that the resurrection is a symbol?
Why do people say we are only pretending to be Christians if we do not take symbols literally and historically? Why do they say, “If a body did not physically rise from the grave, no one should care who Jesus actually was or what he actually taught?”
No one accused Einstein of not believing in physics when he said reality could only be expressed in symbols. No one asked him to believe that E=MC2 actually existed somewhere in space, or said that he was a hypocrite for insisting that such symbols do not actually happen as events, but represent instead that deep dynamic by which events themselves happen.
This Easter may we not believe in the symbols of our faith, thus turning them into idols. May we believe through them into life itself, and into the universal love for which they stand.