We had discussed the Resurrection in the last letter and I want to complete this topic with a few additional comments. Obviously, the topic of Jesus’ Resurrection is of paramount importance. We cannot prove it because it lies ‘outside’ the operations of the world but we can certainly look at supporting evidence.

In the previous letter, we had seen that although Christian belief in the Resurrection is not contrary to Jewish beliefs, it still had unique properties that we had considered.

It is such a unique event, that the Resurrection seems hard to grasp and yet, people were ready and willing to die for believing in it. The disciples knew that Jesus was killed and they also knew that people do not come back from the dead. They were aware of dreams and visions and hallucinations and ghosts. But they ascribed their experiences to none of these. In all of this they could go back to the incontrovertible evidence that the tomb was empty and they experienced and saw Jesus’ presence and not just individually, but also as a group.

Some have tried to claim that the disciples were going through a grieving process and thus were prone to hopeful visions but this will not hold water as well. It seems that many attempts to explain away the reality of the Resurrection end up as desperate but poorly substantiated efforts to deny the Resurrection.

It is also interesting to consider the Jewish burial practices of the time. Most corpses were buried in a two step process. The body was wrapped in a cloth, with many spices to counteract the smell that results from the decomposition of the flesh. This wrapped body was then placed on a rock ledge in a rock tomb. There was no burial similar to the practices within our culture.

Then, when all of the flesh had decomposed, the bones would be collected and placed into an ossuary, a box for bones. And this ossuary would be stored in the back of the tomb or some other convenient place.

What all of this shows is that if Jesus’ body were still in the tomb, then it could very easily have been produced. But this did not happen, supporting the fact that the tomb was indeed empty.

The overriding doubt though is that resurrection goes contrary to everything that we know about our world. When people die they do not come back – it is an irreversible process and we therefore have a very difficult time dealing with Jesus’ Resurrection in trying to somehow understand how it could take place.

Before we get to that point, it is important to realize that all ‘naturalistic’ explanation are unsatisfactory. Many have attempted to explain away the Resurrection, but they all have flaws.

One of the earliest in the last century was to claim that Jesus did not really die on the cross – he swooned and revived in the cool tomb. Roman soldiers were very well adept at killing and making sure that the victim was indeed dead. Moreover, if they failed in the task of executing a prisoner, they were bound to forfeit their own lives and it was therefore important for them personally that the person was indeed dead. Interestingly as well, is that no Jewish sources made any claim that Jesus had not been executed. The theory that Jesus survived the execution has too many holes in it to be accepted in any serious manner.

There are inklings of the Jewish attempt to discredit Jesus’ Resurrection by claiming that while the guards slept, the disciples came and stole the body (there’s a hint of this in Matthew’s Gospel). The natural question that arises is; if the guards were asleep, how did they know that the disciples stole the body?

One of the important pieces of evidence that supports the reality of Jesus’ Resurrection is the psychology of the disciples. They were afraid during Jesus’ arrest and execution and some of them went as far as to deny knowing Jesus in order not to be arrested and tried by the Romans. And yet, there is such an abrupt and total about-face where they willingly go to be martyred and most of them were to die agonizing deaths, that it is hard to explain this factor away. Something profound and life-changing occurred in their lives to produce almost unrecognizable disciples, willing to die for Christ.

But no matter how many naturalistic explanations are offered and how many are refuted, the nagging question behind all this is: what really happened?

We’re going to start our exploration of this matter by considering one of the major objections that Jews had to Jesus being the Messiah. Look at how matters stand at present. Nothing has really changed. With the coming of the Messiah the world was to be instantly transformed from the one that is presently there. This is a challenge that is often heard even now.

But an answer to this is already given in the Gospels. John the Baptist sends his disciples with a question for Jesus – are you the one we have been waiting for? Jesus’ answer is to say to them – look at what is happening: the blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised. What the Jews were waiting for the Messiah to accomplish was achieved by Jesus in his healing ministry but it was not on the scale of common Jewish expectations.

The universal and widespread change that the Jews were expecting was happening but on a different scale. Their expectations were being addressed through Jesus but in a preliminary manner that pointed to a participatory action inaugurating the coming of the New Creation.

Jesus was also showing the people, through words and particularly through deeds, that he was fulfilling the function that was allotted to Yahweh. It was hard for Jews and even the disciples to understand what this meant but the apostles started to comprehend more fully after the Resurrection of Jesus.

One of the most important and frequently repeated teachings of Jesus was the imminent coming of the New Creation, the Kingdom of God. This new creation would have laws of operation that would be different from the ones that we are used to in the world that we inhabit presently (just think back to the Sermon on the Mount). And this is where we run into a problem.

We try to apply our old laws of nature to a new nature, a new creation. By sticking to our old concepts we fail to appreciate what the new creation brings to us and this, of course, brings puzzlement to us. When someone attempts to show that Jesus’ Resurrection can somehow be proven using the laws of our world, we are really doing a disservice. We do need to look at the evidence suggesting that the Resurrection had occurred and engage in a historical discussion, but we must continually keep in mind that the topic we are dealing with cannot be totally encompassed by the old laws of nature.

This is where Jesus call to his disciples is important. He calls on them to be co-workers bringing in more and more of the New Creation. How is this achieved? Through loving God and loving man; through serving your neighbor; through sharing of your wealth; through forgiveness and bearing no hatred. These were the ways to actualize the Resurrection in our lives and to allow its light to be cast on those we come into contact with.

As I have stated in previous letters, we crave certainty but this is rarely available for us in a meaningful and lasting manner. We must live in faith which is not just some intellectual position taken by us, but a change in the way we live, the way we behave, and the way we perceive the world around us.

There is a telling story about Emil Zola, one of the pre-eminent authors of nineteenth century France. Zola was a sceptic and he set out to discredit what he saw as the superstitious beliefs of people. He went to Lourdes to show that the healings achieved there were fraudulent and had no basis in reality. He witnessed a young girl suffering from tuberculosis and lupus, with running sores on her legs, enter the waters at Lourdes. When she came out she was freed from tuberculosis and her lupus had disappeared. Her sores were healed. And yet, Zola even seeing this, could not accept it and still doubted. He visited the girl, now a woman, sixteen years later, and she was still free from her diseases.

We sometimes think that if we were to be offered definitive proof, it would change matters for us. Maybe, and then, maybe not.

Faith is a gift offered to us which, because of our free will, we are free to either accept or reject. No amount of coercive evidence will convince us of the truth and reality of the Resurrection. We will attain the truth of this momentous event in history by living according to the task we were given – to bring the resurrection as a reality into our own lives through love of others. Others will then have a chance to believe as we will also.

Sincerely,
Bar-Abbas