The picture is the famous “Duck-Rabbit” bistable image. A bistable image is simply one which can lead to one of two precepts. Although most people can switch between the competing percepts of either a duck or rabbit, it can’t really be seen as some kind of intermediate or mixed figure. There are a number of such figures, widely used in psychology experiments and at dinner parties (and occasionally in blogs). It demonstrates that what you see is not determined entirely by what you see (i.e. the image that is at the back of your eye), but is affected by what you know. When Peter and Susanne Brugger asked a large group of experimental participants in October what they perceived, they were likely to say “bird”; at Easter participants were more likely to say “bunny”. This was found for both young and old participants even although, presumably, the older participants had no strong beliefs about Easter bunnies. Nevertheless, just the notion of the Easter bunny lurking somewhere in the cognitive background was sufficient to bias what their participants saw.
It seems fairly likely that if you start with something that we all regard as absolutely and immutably true, something that is believed essentially by all of us, something that has been believed almost as long as there have been people to believe anything, such a belief (which is probably thought of as knowledge) is likely to have a rather oversized effect on how we interpret what our eyes tell us. Believing is likely to be seeing rather than the other way around. But given what a fractious, disagreeable bunch human beings tend to be, what could we possibly all agree on? Well, how about that dead people stay dead? Suppose you had seen your best friend die, what would your expectations be? Surely you would not, indeed could not, expect to see them alive again (in the sense we normally mean when we say “alive”)? This is not to deny that very often people report hallucinations of recently departed loved ones. Indeed such hallucinations have long been the subject of study. But while such experiences are often regarded as important, rather than dismissed by those who experience them, and are often an important aspect of grieving, they rarely if ever lead to claims that the loved one in question is no longer dead.
Now consider the situation where the death in question is relatively sudden, brutal and unjust, and where the deceased is a significant public figure (and their death is likewise significantly public). And that after death, normal burial rites are carried out (if only in a rushed and partial way), and no-one is in any doubt about the “deadness” of the deceased. How are they likely to be regarded, at least with reference to their physical remains and existence? Note that I am making a distinction between their physical existence (ie in the normal sense of being alive) and their possible continuing influence in terms of their previous statements, philosophy or teaching. While there might be some ongoing existence of, and interest in, the latter, the former has clearly ended. At least that would be the normal, almost universal expectation, and therefore that is what everyone would see. Indeed to claim something different would entail encountering overwhelming scepticism. If one were to come to believe the assertion that the deceased was now alive, to persuade anyone else of this would require extraordinary and copious evidence. And precisely because of the normal expectation, even the evidence would be seen in a particular way, leading to the “normal” conclusion. It would be a really hard sell. Would such an effort even be worth making?
And yet last weekend, and particularly last Sunday, many of us were celebrating precisely such an extraordinary and unlikely event. Not one that happened recently either, but one which occurred (if it occurred) a long time ago, but has been remembered and celebrated ever since. How come? Well, there is evidence of course, in the form (for us) of written documentation. That’s not just in terms of the Gospel accounts, which detail the rising of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. Paul probably wrote his first Corinthian letter in the mid-50’s AD, about ten years before Mark wrote his Gospel account (probably the first of the four to be written) and about fifteen to twenty years after the event in question. It is clear from what he writes in 1 Cor 15, that it was broadly believed not only that Jesus had quite literally returned from the dead, but that he had then been seen by a group of his first followers, and then by a large number of others who were still alive at the time of writing. He then goes on to demonstrate why Jesus resurrection is so central to the Gospel that he (Paul) preached, the same Gospel that is preached today. He is insistent that he is not talking about some kind of mere “spiritual” event, or some shared experience, or the enduring legacy of an important teacher. He was rather claiming that the unlikely, the normally impossible, had happed and that it was pivotal. It was a claim that cost him respect and honour among various groups (not least his own people, the Jews), and eventually cost him his life.
What Paul was doing in part was reporting what had been the consistent earlier report of Jesus’ intimates. Having found Jesus’ burial place to be bodiless on the third day after His very public death, it seems very unlikely that Peter and others would have made the outrageous claim that He had actually returned from the dead were it not actually true. Peter had not reached his conclusion on the basis of some mystical experience, nor had he reached it quickly and easily. He had initially had seen an empty tomb, but saw an empty tomb, not the site of a resurrection. He and his friends “knew” that dead people stay dead. And they did not jump to the conclusion that Jesus was alive. One of Jesus female followers, on actually seeing Jesus (such is the claim), assumed not that it was Jesus, but that she was seeing someone else. Two other early disciples, who had also heard of the empty tomb, did not imagine that this meant Jesus was alive. So strong was the effect of their knowledge that He was dead, that even as He walked alongside them they didn’t see Him, but some other stranger (arguably another clear instance of the duck/rabbit effect). But they, and Peter and Mary, along with Paul and many others were convinced by prolonged exposure to the risen Jesus, a risen Jesus who ate with them, walked and talked with them. Jesus too was well aware of how difficult His new post-resurrection life was to believe.
But His return to life was not just believed as an isolated fact. How could it be? Such a thing, if true, would entail a fundamental alteration of not just how we think, but how we live and everything else in between. For if Jesus was alive, if He is alive (something that He Himself had claimed would happen), if he was correct in making such an outrageous prediction, then everything else He claimed and said would need to be re-evaluated in the light of the singular fact of His resurrection. This is precisely what seems to have so impacted those early followers. A dead Jesus is just another minor rabbi, and one who was guilty of lies and distortions (like His claim that He was going to rise from the dead). A risen Jesus is who He says He is, and demands our worship (the conclusion that “doubting” Thomas reached upon seeing Him) and commitment. Lies rarely evoke in the liars the kind of commitment that marked those early witnesses of the living, risen, Jesus.
This particular piece of knowledge, that Jesus is alive, once accepted and responded to appropriately (once “believed” in Bible terms) then affects everything else that we see. Nothing can ever be quite the same again.
