Earlier this week I was reflecting on what Holy Week was like about twenty years ago at Faith Church. We had Maundy Thursday service on Thursday nights, then Good Friday morning we had the Cross Walk, including a big wooden cross with the wheels that we would take turns placing on our shoulder and walking it down the sidewalk along Lincoln Highway. Then we’d return for Good Friday service in the evening. Saturday was the Egg Hunt. Sunday morning was the Sunrise Service that we did together with two local churches. One of those two has a cemetery, so we had the sunrise service there, similarly to how on that original Easter morning 2000 years ago, Jesus rose from a grave. Then we would return to Faith Church for a breakfast, and stay for Easter worship. It was a marathon of church events, with seven separate events that required a lot of people to do a lot of work. My wife would joke that we needed to install a shower at the church, because our family of six was basically living here for the week.
I mention those events to illustration how we Christians can make big deal about Easter. Even in recent years when we have Maundy Thursday, the CV Ministerium Community Good Friday service, and Easter worship, we still have lost of celebration. And for good reason. Jesus died and after nearly 48 hours he came back to life. Dead people do not come back to life.
If Jesus didn’t actually come back to life, then we have a problem.
One of the earliest Christian writers, Paul, talked about this. He wrote,
“If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:14–17.
Paul is not talking about a theoretical resurrection, or a spiritual resurrection. He is talking about a human body that is dead and comes back to life. A miracle. A supernatural occurrence.
That kind of physical resurrection is why we Christians celebrate Easter. We believe that Jesus is God who became flesh, who took on a human body, who lived for thirty-three years in that human body. We believe that Jesus, the God Man, had a real human body, and that real human body died. His heart stop beating, his breathing stopped, his brain stopped functioning. He was really and truly dead.
But there are plenty of people throughout the ages who suggest that the human bodily physical resurrection of Jesus is impossible. In fact we read about what might be the earliest account of people who disagreed with the resurrection in the hours after it happened.
Turn to Matthew chapter 28, verse 11,
“While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.”
That story is first of four arguments against the resurrection of Jesus that we’ll study this week. Is it believable that the disciples stole the body, thus making it appear that Jesus had risen from the dead? We’ll talk about that in tomorrow’s post.
Photo by Fr. Daniel Ciucci on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 