FOR US!  FOR REAL!

“God raised him on the third day & allowed him to appear … to us who were chosen by God as witnesses….” --- Acts 10: 40-41a

 

 

          As a rule, the older generations believe most of what they were taught from the Bible.  Their kids, the Boomers, question what they were taught from the Bible.  The next younger generation believes less of what the Bible teaches. 

 

          Unbelief has received lots of media attention.  In my lifetime, the “God is dead” movement made Time magazine’s cover.  Some time later, the media was hot on publicizing the work of the “Jesus Seminar.”  Each year, you may recall, that group voted out of the gospels certain things Jesus said or did, based on their opinions.  He didn’t really perform this miracle or say certain lines in the Lord’s Prayer, they pronounced.  Then, attention switched to the bogus archeological claims, every-thing from finding a cave belonging to John the Baptist to Jesus’ bones.  It was shoddy research, but given plenty of play by editors, publishers, & producers.  Lately, books by prominent atheists & agnostics, like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, & Christopher Hitchens, have garnered the affections of an adoring media.  It’s popular stuff, but really nothing new.

 

          The fact is that you don’t endure as a major world faith for 2000 years without having faced difficult questions &, then, providing reasoned & thoughtful responses to them.[1]  The lightweight critiques posed today are nothing new, compared to the weightier challenges of centuries past.  What is new is that these criticisms are more widespread & get lots of publicity.

 

          One of the most popular attacks on Christianity is leveled at our single most important event, today’s celebration: the resurrection.  If opponents can take down this one, they’ve got us.  The frame their criticism this way:  “Who actually knows someone who came back to life after being dead for three days?”[2]  We all answer, “No one!” and the critic walks away saying, “See!  The Bible is merely propagating a hoax.  Your so-called holy scriptures are nothing more than pious myths that you gullibly choose to believe.”  Ugh!

 

          There are a few problems with that simplistic analysis.

 

          First, one cannot assume that just because the holy books of other faiths contain unproven myths & legends, that the Bible does, too.  Archeology has served to bolster scripture’s historic claims.  Year after year, archeologists make new finds that support the Bible.  Events & locations that remained hidden for millennia have been located & substantiated.  Saying the Bible is false is not true.

 

          Second, how does one explain the hundreds of eyewitnesses to Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection?  Granted, no one was in the famed tomb to see Jesus arise.  What we do have is their testimony to the empty tomb & the things which their eyes saw Jesus do in the ensuing 40 days.[3]

 

          Those witnesses -- both specific individuals & groups -- are well-documented.   We have their names: Peter, John, the two Mary’s & friends, Cleopas & his friend, Thomas, the disciples, Paul, & even one single group of 500.[4]  If we were to hear the testimony of all those eyewitnesses during a criminal trial, giving each one only 15 minutes on the stand (& the real average is 2 hours!)[5], it would take one solid month (129 hrs.) of continous testimony.[6]  Pretty convincing!

 

          Sir Edward Clarke, a British High Court judge who conducted a thorough legal analysis of Jesus’ resurrection noted: “To me, the evidence is conclusive, & over & over again in the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling.  As a lawyer, I accept the gospel evidence unreservedly as the testimony of truthful men to facts that they were able to substantiate.”[7]

 

          “But,” the skeptic retorts, “how do we know the gospel’s authors are telling the truth?”

 

          How?  Because no one ever successfully refuted them.  First of all, scholars believe that the accounts of the resurrection were written within two to eight years after the event, then compiled into gospels & letters within a generation of Jesus’ earthly life.[8]  This is to say that there were plenty of persons around who could expose & report, if Christians had fabricated lies.  The Roman government, which viewed Christianity as an illegal religion, as well as the Jewish leaders, who saw this fledgling faith as heretical competition, (both) wanted to destroy it.  It was in their vested interest to prove Christians lied.  Those forces had nothing, however, by which they could factually rebut the resurrection claims.   That’s why Rome had to resort to strong-arm tactics like persecution & death for Christians.  There are no known historical documents which successfully refute the Christian claims of Jesus’ resurrection.

 

          As to some sort of Christian conspiracy, forget it.  Jesus’ followers were a persecuted minority lacking the wherewithal to mount any conspiracy.  There is no credible evidence that this poor sect could secretly subvert the powerful Roman government by pulling off a hoax of such magnitude.  Get real! 

 

          Of course, any good lawyer knows that even eyewitnesses do not always supply reliable testimony.  That’s why physical (circumstantial) evidence, like DNA, is often the clincher in a criminal case, eyewitnesses or not.

 

          Over the years, critics have tried to break the lock which the Bible has on truth.  They’ve failed miserably.  The prominent philosophical atheist, Anthony Flew, debated Christian apologist, Gary Habermas in the late 1980’s.[9]

 

                    The results were decidedly one-sided.  Of the five independent

          philosophers from various colleges & universities who served as judges

          of the debate’s content, four concluded that Habermas had won.  One

          called the contest a draw.  None cast a ballot for Flew.[10]

 

          Wrote one judge, “I conclude that the historical evidence… is strong enough to lead reasonable minds to conclude that Christ did indeed rise from the dead…. Habermas does end up providing ‘highly probable evidence’ for … the resurrection ‘with no plausible naturalistic evidence against it.’”[11] 

 

          Not only did those judges admit that it was time for them to take the resurrection seriously, but Anthony Flew, himself, twenty years later, abandoned his atheism & became a believer in God! 

 

          What for me, however, is most convincing, is how these supernaturally miraculous events so profoundly, & forever, changed this rag-tag, motley crew of flawed & failed human beings called Jesus’ apostles.  Peter was an impetuous coward who, under pressure, denied ever knowing Jesus.  Paul was the leading persecutor of Christ’s followers.  Thomas doubted Jesus’ return to life until he could perceive his teacher using his own five senses.  Yet, after they had their post-resurrection encounters with the risen Christ, they did 180’s.  Peter & Paul became the leading figures of the early Christian movement.  A real & resur-rected Christ overcame Thomas’ doubts, such that he took the faith to evangelize India.  I could go on.  Each & every disciple went to his death professing the reality of the resurrection & then endowed to us, with the Holy Spirit’s assistance, the faith we have today.

 

          Many of us seated here on Easter, acknowledge the blessings of the Christian faith.  We see its good & helpful qualities.  We embrace the value of forgiveness & removal of guilt.  We know its teachings, from the Ten Commandments to the Sermon on the Mount, have made for a moral, civil society.  We realize it provides hope & justice to the downtrodden & oppressed in various ministries, like hospitals, orphanages, & homeless shelters.  Its truths are eternal.  And even though many of us who profess to be Christian have botched a good thing now & again over the centuries, our bad actions & attitudes are no reflection on a loving & merciful Savior.  On balance, the Christian faith is a good thing, a blessing.  Reasonable & charitable persons can see that fact, however, we’re not asking for a sound verdict & fair treatment.  This faith is not fantasy, wishful thinking, & panacea of palliative platitudes to make us feel good.

 

Christ is about a changed life.  To see his life & teachings as great & help-ful is important, but as God Son’s, resurrection, & the total transformation that comes from it, are what he desires for each of us.  Faith is not just going through the motions or blindly accepting popular dogma.

 

What I’m saying is that when we appreciate Christianity’s teachings, but dismiss the resurrection as mere legendary material, we may still end up being good people.  For some folks, that’s fine, but for God it’s not enough.  He wants more than just good, obedient little (& big!) boys & girls.  Jesus wasn’t painfully executed, didn’t descend to hell, & get resurrected as a fun way to spend a long weekend!  When we take to heart the resurrection, it is not only Jesus’ life that ends up forever changed, but our lives, too.  That’s what Christ’s resurrection is all about!  It’s for us!  He does it for us!  For real!

 

          Let us pray….

 

                                                Copyright 2010 by G.D.Knerr at Lansdale, Pa.  All rights reserved.


[1] 1st Peter 3:15-16

[2] Jesus was dead approximately 36 hours, not three days.  The gospels state that he died around 3 pm Friday & rose early Sunday morning.  Beginning with Friday & ending on Sunday, Sunday is the 3rd day.

[3] Addressing allegations that Jesus never really died, or his body was stolen, see The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, pp. 195-262.

[4] See Matthew 28, Luke 24, & John 20-21, & 1st Corinthians 15:5-8

[5] Kent Conway, Esq. (a lawyer at Christ UMC).  This accounts for direct, cross- & re-direct examinations.

[6] Lee Strobel in The Case for Easter, Zondervan, 1998, p. 76.

[7] As reported by Michael Green in Christ Is Risen: So What? Kent, England: Sovereign World, 1995. p. 34.

[8] Mark’s gospel was written around 70 CE.  Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians was earlier, circa 53-54 CE.

[9] See Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate by Flew & Habermas, Harper & Row, 1987.

[10] Strobel, p. 61

[11] Strobel, p. 61