Editor’s note: This was first published on April 16, 2003. It has been updated.

Unless it can be read as metaphorical — of what ought to happen to me, that I ought to die and resurrect, die to my ego and resurrect to my divinity — it doesn’t work.

Joseph Campbell

 

Easter is our annual celebration of resurrection, whether you celebrate it outside in nature or inside in church. But what does the Resurrection mean? Was it a historical event or just a metaphor?

Just a metaphor? The late Joseph Campbell, popular scholar and advocate of mythology, would say that reveals a basic misunderstanding of the power of myth and metaphor. Anyone who habitually puts the word “just” or “only” in front of “a metaphor” is incapable of comprehending the spiritual “truth” contained within.

Jesus spoke almost entirely in metaphor. At the Last Supper, which Christians mark on Holy Thursday, he held up bread and wine and said, “This is my body. This is my blood.” He was the ultimate metaphorist.

Many Christians will tell you the Resurrection of Jesus doesn’t mean anything unless it actually happened. Campbell would say that whether it really happened or not, it doesn’t “mean” anything unless it becomes an active metaphor, or catalyst, in our lives today (Jesus would use metaphors like “yeast” or “living water”). The Resurrection is a mythological mirror that tells us we need to “die” in some fashion in order to come fully alive.

But what must die? Terrorism? The cult of celebrity? Drug addiction? The Republican Party? Fossil-fuel-based capitalism? White privilege? Multinational corporations? Economic inequality? War?

And what must die within each of us? Materialism? Greed? Rage? Competition? Power lust? Possessiveness? Territoriality? Fear? Violence? Arrogance? The need for control?

The sun dies and is reborn every day. How many metaphorical deaths must we die? Many Christians will tell you they have died and been reborn, and they love to tell the rest of us that we must do the same. But what if their rebirth simply turns into yet another tomb of convenience, a way to hide from the raw exhilaration of serial rebirth if that is what life requires of us?

Dreams evaporate. Skins shed. The chrysalis converts. Metaphors transform.

How many times must we die before life finally emerges from our tomb? Which deaths will bring us to life? And once we identify what needs to die, how exactly do we go about it?

Seasons cycle. Winter never fails to turn into spring, but every year it feels like a miracle. Earth’s annual eastering raises big questions, the toughest to answer: Is there life after death? If we live as if there is, does it liberate us to lead a happier, more fulfilled life here and now or does our lack of belief undercut our ability to do so? If we live as if there isn’t, is this life diminished or is it all the sweeter for its precious impermanence? Until we answer those questions, most of us are simply dancing in the dark, as the song says, waltzing in the wonder of why we’re here.

Our great metaphorist said, “The kingdom of heaven is upon you.” Is heaven all around us? Are we so blind that we can’t see we never really left the Garden of Eden? Did we “leave” only in the darkness of our limited minds? Have we missed the metaphor altogether? If eternal life is upon us, maybe it means we are only truly alive in the eternal now. 

Whatever the Resurrection metaphor means, it has the power to change the way we live, but judging by the pervasiveness of fear, ignorance and inhumanity to our fellow man, it doesn’t seem to be working. And that means death has not yet been conquered — at least by us.

Joseph Campbell said — as do most religious traditions — that we must die to our ego and rise again to our divinity.

That would be a resurrection worth celebrating.

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