The Resurrection ... did it REALLY happen?

Sometime around Holy Week and Easter this question inevitably comes up: "Did Jesus really rise from the dead?" Obviously, today the idea seems rather ludicrous... I mean really!? Any of you seen anyone come back from the dead lately?

I've heard some educated answers ranging from the "memory of Christ remaining so vital after his death that Jesus' followers experienced him as truly living," to books written in an attempt to 'prove' Jesus' bodily resurrection. I have a problem with both of those approaches.

The Resurrection event is made more palatable to contemporary scientific minds if we label it a metaphor, a spiritual, memory, or some other intangible experience. And yet, when we go back to Scripture the various authors go to great lengths to give us their evidence for Jesus actually, bodily, dying and returning to life. We have accounts of Jesus touching people, eating and drinking, conversing, walking, and showing off his scars. In addition the disciples never encounter Jesus' dead body anywhere. All these narratives are offered to us as demonstrations of Christ's final miracle, his Resurrection. And according to these accounts, the Resurrection wasn't about seeing ghosts or hallucinations or a metaphoric, metaphysical experience. For the authors, Jesus Resurrection was a returning to bodily life.

Now it may be true that these are falsified accounts. Perhaps the authors are lying to us. Maybe this is a conspiracy, a hoax, or a con. Those are all valid critiques - ones that many have believed over the centuries. If the character of the Biblical witnesses cannot be trusted, then we can dismiss their accounts and move on.

If, however, their character is not in question, if we trust them to actually tell us as best they can what they have seen and heard themselves and from others, then we have a different problem. If we don't believe what they tell us, then we are assuming they are well-meaning dolts. Perhaps they are unintelligent, but that would appear highly unlikely. The writings they have given us are considered classic world literature. Classic world literature doesn't come from the unintelligent.

So we're left with the problem: we have either unscrupulous, crafty, rascals who are purposefully deceiving us or we have intelligent witnesses authentically describing an event that actually happened. 

Logic reaches a stalemate here. (Which is why it's futile to try to prove the Resurrection beyond any intellectual doubt.) Neither conspiracy nor idiocy appear reasonably acceptable. So we're left with an intellectual leap of faith. So what shall we believe?

            

The Resurrected Life: Living Life a New Way

The celebration of Christ's Resurrection is not simply remembering a miracle that happened to Jesus. In celebrating Easter, we proclaim that existence has fundamentally changed. The cosmos has shifted. Life is no longer limited by death.

For Christians, this understanding informs our whole identity - our thinking, our self-image, our choices, our decisions, and our perspectives. We don't have "all the time in the world." Our time on earth is relatively short. Our time here, in this life is a gift. But it's a gift meant to be given away, especially since we have all eternity afterwards.

From a resurrection point of view, Jesus' teachings make a great deal more sense. Living in fear seems obsolete when we know how our earthly story ends. (It ends in restoration and resurrection.) Living selfishly seems unfathomable when we have such a short time on this earth to share with those who have such great need. (We know all needs will be met in God's perfect time, especially in the hereafter.) Power, fame, and riches are so fleeting, especially when they are based on a corrupt culture that is dying away. (Christ tells us to base our lives on eternal values that will never fade.)

In the next 50 days (Yes, that's right. The Church celebrates Easter for 50 whole days!) we'll be anchoring ourselves in the Resurrected identity. We'll be unlearning the lessons of mortality and learning to think and act as God's immortal children, for that is what we are, in this life and the next.