Easter commemorates and celebrates a historical
event unlike any other: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. But
what is the significance of the resurrection? Can we know that it really
happened?
The four Gospels of the New Testament all report
that Jesus predicted his death, burial, and resurrection. He was born to die.
All of his wondrous teachings, healings, exorcisms, and transforming
relationships with all manner of people—from fishermen to tax collectors to
prostitutes to revolutionaries—would be incomplete without his crucifixion and
resurrection. Shortly before his death, "Jesus began to explain to his
disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of
the elders, chief priest and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed
and on the third day be raised to life" (Matthew 16:21). Peter resisted
this grim fact, but Jesus rebuked him. There was no other way (vs. 22-23). For,
as Jesus had taught, he "did not come to be served, but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28).
And give his life he did, on an unspeakably cruel
Roman cross—impaled for all to see before two common criminals. We call this
day Good Friday because it was good for us; but it was dreadful for Jesus.
Before I became a follower of Christ, I always associated this day with the
Alaskan earthquake on Good Friday, 1964, one of the largest quakes ever in North America . I was there in Anchorage
All seemed to be lost. The one who had boldly
claimed to be "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), the
prophet who had announced that "God so loved the world that he sent his
one and only son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal
life" (John 3:16)—this man now had died. The man who had raised the dead
was dead.
On the first day of the week, two women, both named
Mary, came to visit the tomb of their master. They had stayed with him as he
died; now they visited his tomb in grief. Yet instead of mourning a death, they
celebrated a resurrection announced by an angel, who rolled back the stone
sealing the tomb and charged them to look at its empty contents. He then told
them to tell Jesus' disciples of the resurrection and to go to Galilee where they would see him. As they scurried away,
Jesus himself met them, greeted them, and received their surprised worship
(Matthew 27:8-9). He directed them, "Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers
to go to Galilee ; there they will see me"
(v. 10).
The rest is history, and it changed history forever.
The fact that women were the first witnesses to the resurrection puts the lie
to the notion that the idea of Jesus' resurrection was concocted at a later
point to add drama to his life. Women were not taken to be trustworthy
witnesses in courts of law at that time (although Jesus always respected them).
If someone had wanted to create a pious fraud, they never would have included
the two Marys in their story. Moreover, all four Gospels testify to the factual
reality of the resurrection. They were written by eyewitnesses (Matthew and
John) or those who consulted eyewitnesses (Luke and Mark); they were people in
the know, not writers of myths and legends (see Luke 1:1-4; 1 Peter 1:16).
After the resurrection, the gospel of the risen
Jesus was quickly proclaimed in the very area where he was crucified. This
upstart Jesus movement would have been easily refuted by someone producing the
corpse of Christ, which both the Jewish establishment and the Roman government
had a vested interest in doing, since this new movement threatened the
religious and political status quo. But we have no historical record of any
such thing having occurred. On the contrary, the Jesus movement grew and
rapidly spread. Christian Jews changed the day of worship from Saturday to
Sunday, in honor of Jesus' resurrection. Pious Jews would never do such a thing
on their own initiative, because it would set them against their own tradition
and their countrymen. Nor would they have ceased offering the prescribed
sacrifices their Scriptures required had not Jesus proven himself to be the
final sacrifice for sin, the lamb of God (see John 1:29 and The Book of
Hebrews). The resurrection best accounts for this change in their day of
worship, their manner of worship, and the transformation at the core of their
lives. Moreover, the two key rituals of the earliest church—communion and the
baptism—both presuppose the historicity of the resurrection and both are very
difficult to explain without it.
The Apostle Paul, a man revolutionized through an
encounter with the risen Christ (Acts 9), taught that "if Christ has not
been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (1 Corinthians
15:14). Paul listed many witnesses of the risen Christ, some of whom were still
living when he wrote (1 Corinthians 15:3-8), and confidently affirmed that
"Christ has indeed been raised from the dead" (v. 20). He also
proclaimed that Jesus "through the Spirit of holiness was declared with
power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead" (Romans
1:4).
Easter is the core of Christian faith and life.
Without the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, there is no gospel message, no
future hope, and no new life in Christ. But with the resurrection at its center,
Christianity stands unique and alone in the world. No other religion is based
on the historical resurrection of its divine founder. When Jesus announced,
"I am the resurrection and the life" (John 10:25), he meant it—and he
demonstrated it. Let us, then, leave our dead ways and follow him today and
into eternity.
·
Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D., is Professor of
Philosophy at Denver Seminary and the author of On Jesus and Jesus in an Age
of Controversy.
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