by Celia Hales
Just the other day I heard a report on public radio about cutting-edge quantum physics. I thought of Jesus. Let me explain.
Quantum physics has long postulated that a subatomic particle can go from one place in space to another without crossing the intervening distance. Our reason cannot understand this. Yet the laws of the universe seem to bear it out as truth. The recent report that I heard has some physicists declaring that this little-understood law has been proved to apply to larger objects, atomic particles still invisible to the naked eye, but much large than previously “proven.” The scientist on the radio program then went on to speculate that this emerging law could even be applied to human beings by their own decision.
This is hard stuff. Yet could physics be catching up with the New Testament?
To a discerning eye, there are peculiarities in the eyewitness testimony of the early believers. Mary Magdalene did not recognize Jesus, presuming him to be the gardener. Later Jesus walks with two men along a road, explaining many mysteries, but only at the conclusion do they recognize him. And then he disappeared from their sight. Jesus breaks bread and eats with others, and only then is he recognized. The disciples are gathered in a closed room when suddenly Jesus is seen in their midst. Thomas touches his wounds, and believes.
Earlier, even at the point of seeing an angel in the empty tomb, Jesus’s women followers note that the burial clothes have not been disturbed.
Certainly there seem to be curious features of the risen Christ that suggest a resurrection with unusual qualities. Perhaps quantum physics will one day pave the way for the most skeptical among us to wonder if higher laws were being involved for a man both divine and human. The Gospel eyewitness accounts seem certainly to suggest to me that the physical body of Jesus underwent fundamental change after his death on the cross.
Perhaps we have failed to talk about these troubling issues because they may seem to be a litmus test for our faith. But we cannot leave our minds outside the door of the church.
Perhaps in this year our scientists are finally giving us a theory that would explain the laws of the universe that Jesus evoked. Perhaps, like Thomas, we do not have to doubt so much any longer. And can any of us say that we have always accepted the Gospel accounts of the resurrection without question?
MIRACLES EACH DAY 