First fruits

I am rereading a wonderful book during the Great Fifty Days (of Easter) - it's not exactly a book of devotions, though it does have passages from scripture and interesting excerpts from a variety of sources for each day. Here's one from today, which is Tuesday of the First Week of Easter:

It is impossible to understand what Jesus' rising from the dead is about if we think of it as the resuscitation of a dead man. He is not described as starting life over again. He did not mythically represent new vegetation after the rains of winter are over, or human life perpetually coming forth from the dark womb of the earth. He was, for the Jews who first believed in him, the "first-fruits" of a harvest of all the dead. If you had the faith of the Pharisees, his appearance would have startled you, but it would not have surprised you. You would have been stunned chiefly that he was alone. That he was risen in the body was something that ultimately you could cope with.

It seems strange, at this distance of years, to try to re-create a world we have such sparse information about. We cannot reconstruct ancient Jewish religious thought and make it ours. We can save ourselves a lot of headaches, though, if we realize how much preparedness there was in those times for the notion of being raised from the dead... After an initial shock no less than ours, pharisaic Jews like Peter and James would think, "God's reign has begun! But where are the others?"

From Jesus in Focus: A Life in Its Setting, by Gerard S. Sloyan, copyright 1983. Published by Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic CT