Easter Saturday

     It's the second day of the Triduum, the quiet day. I just read an article in which a Lutheran pastor suggested that Jesus was simply resting in the tomb. Others would see this as the day during which Jesus descended into hell and preached to the souls of the dead. For most of us this is the day of Easter expectation. I want to talk about the resurrection of Jesus. There are two questions I want to deal with. Did the resurrection take place? If it did, what was the resurrected Jesus like? (i.e. was he any different from the way he had been on earth).

    Since the rise of modern critical Biblical scholarship in the late 18th century, there have been many scholars who have disputed the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Here are some of their reasons:

1. People don't rise from the dead. When the brain waves go flat, that's it.

2. The gospel accounts of the resurrection of Jesus are inconsistent, contain numerous contradictions, and none of the four have any witness to Jesus actually rising from the dead.

3. There was some event which convinced some of Jesus' followers that he had risen from the dead. These followers of Jesus then convinced others. Stories developed of Jesus' sightings. 

4. The story of the Ascension developed. It convinced Jesus' followers that his resurrection appearances on earth were limited to 40 days. After that there was no need for followers to make up any additional resurrection appearances

    Her are some reasons for believing that Jesus did rise from the dead. I’m listing the first four as rebuttals to the four I reasons for not believing that I listed above.

1.     The resurrection of Jesus was a unique event, an event that occurs only once in history. Both historians and scientists are dependent upon the repetition of events in order to quantify them. Moreover, it was an event that happened 2,000 years ago. We do not have access to the resurrected body of Jesus. We cannot analyze it. We cannot try to find whether Jesus had some kind of resurrection genome or resurrection enzyme that enabled him to rise from death.

2.    a. There are, to be sure, numerous contradictions in the four gospel accounts of the resurrection appearances of Jesus. I don’t have space to go into all of them here. I can say that the inconsistencies and contradictions demonstrate that the four gospel writers were not in cahoots with each other. If they were they would have gotten their stories to match.
b. No one saw the resurrection take place. They saw only that the tomb was empty on Sunday morning. If the story were made up, surely the creators of it would want to show someone witnessing the actual resurrection, not just the empty tomb aftermath.

c. While the gospels were inconsistent as to which women were present at the empty tomb on Sunday morning, all of the gospels have women as the first witnesses to the empty tomb. Women were not considered reliable witnesses in Roman antiquity. If the story were made up, it would have been made up with men as the first witnesses.

3. Yes, there was some event that convinced the followers of Jesus that he had risen. That event was the resurrection. It’s harder for me to believe that the followers of Jesus would have fallen for such a big lie than to believe that it wasn’t a lie at all. Thomas indicates the skepticism some of the followers had until they got direct proof.

4. Although the Ascension does provide a convenient out for non-believers, the story could have gone on without the Ascension, as indeed it does in Mark, Matthew, Paul, and others.

If the story of the resurrection were a fabrication, it would certainly be the greatest fraud in history. Billions of people, including billions who have lived since the rise of science and the eighteenth century enlightenment believe that the bodily resurrection of Jesus happened. I might add to that number quite a few million scientists, a number of whom are members of our church.

As usual, it takes me more words to convey a message than I think it will. I’ll talk about the resurrected body of Jesus on Tuesday.

Christ is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed!

Happy Easter!

Faithfully,

Christian