Post 217--Resurrection Evidences

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A Dozen Evidences for the Resurrection of Jesus

BY KENNETH R. SAMPLES - MARCH 27, 2018

Easter 2018 is history. We've celebrated it and we're moving on to other things and other events. In the case of Jesus, we're moving on to His ascension into Heaven, which culminates shortly afterward in the coming of the Holy Spirit.  This is all very true and very significant. 

However, I've been kind of slow on the draw and did not get around to a blog on time. So, today I come across this article on the resurrection of Jesus, evidences for it. I pass it on to you for your meditative consideration.  

                                             =========

                  A Dozen Evidences for the Resurrection of Jesus

                                      By Kenneth R. Samples

1. Jesus’s Empty Tomb

According to the Gospels,1 after Jesus succumbed to death through crucifixion, some of his followers prepared his lifeless body for burial and placed it in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. Three days later the tomb was discovered empty, for Jesus’s body had vanished. The empty tomb is a critical part of the resurrection account, for if Jesus’s body had been recovered, then Christianity would have been falsified right as it had just begun. Since Jesus predicted his resurrection (Mark 8:31; Luke 9:22), if he didn’t rise from the dead, he would be a false prophet.

The report of Jesus’s empty tomb rings true, for the account emerges very early from a number of sources, and there is no good reason to doubt any of the people mentioned in the story. Furthermore, the tomb was owned by a particular person, so there is no good reason to think that Jesus’s followers had mistakenly gone to the wrong tomb. Also, the Jewish and Roman authorities had the resources to search thoroughly for the actual burial place had the empty tomb been a mere problem of mistaken identity.

It should also be recognized that the first alternative naturalistic explanation for the resurrection presupposed the truth of the vacated tomb. The Jewish authorities insisted that the tomb was empty because they planned to tell people that Jesus’s followers had come in the night and stolen the body (Matthew 28:13).

2. Jesus’s Postmortem Appearances

According to the apostle Paul’s letters as well as the four Gospel accounts, Jesus appeared alive after his death on numerous occasions. These appearances of Jesus were reported to be both physical and bodily in nature (he was seen, heard, and touched) and not purely spiritual or ghostlike. The resurrection appearances were also diverse and varied in that Jesus appeared to men and women, to friends and enemies, to single individuals as well as to small and large groups of people, to some persons on a single occasion and to others more than once, during the day and the night, as well as indoors and outdoors.

It is this diverse and varied nature of the appearances that makes it extremely improbable, if not impossible, to account for these encounters in terms of hallucinations. It may have been possible that the women who first encountered Jesus at the tomb succumbed to immense grief and experienced some kind of purely subjective and thus false vision of Jesus. But a purely psychological explanation is extremely implausible in the case of James the brother of Jesus, who was highly suspicious of his brother’s claims and even thought that Jesus suffered from mental delusion. And in the case of Saul of Tarsus, the hallucination theory is flatly impossible. Saul was an enemy of primitive Christianity and sought to imprison and even have Christians executed. Acting in a dismissive and violent manner against the early Christians and their beliefs, there is no way that Saul was susceptible to a false psychological experience.

It is also important to note that if one rejects the miraculous explanation of Jesus’s appearances, then two naturalistic alternative explanations are required—one to explain the empty tomb and another to explain the numerous appearances. But the more complex these alternative theories are, the less likely they are to be true and viable.

3. Short Time Frame between Actual Events and Eyewitness Claims

Support for the factual nature of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead comes from eyewitness testimonies that were reported soon after the events happened. The apostle Paul claims both that he saw the resurrected Christ (Acts 9:1–19; 22:6–16; 26:12–23) and that others witnessed the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3) prior to his personal encounter. Paul asserts in his writings that he received the firsthand testimony from Jesus’s original apostles who were witnesses of Jesus’s resurrection even before him.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he employs a creedal statement about the resurrection that dates to the earliest period of Christianity.2 This creed is believed, even by critical scholars (those who doubt the supernatural), to be part of the original Christian kerygma (“proclamation”—representing the earliest preaching and teaching message of Christianity). This early statement of faith that Paul relays mentions by name two of Jesus’s apostles who said they had seen the resurrected Christ. These two apostles are Peter (one of the original 12 apostles and principal spokesperson of primitive Christianity) and James (the brother of Jesus who was also an early apostolic leader).

Here is that early creedal statement as the apostle Paul wove it into his first Corinthian epistle:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

–1 Corinthians 15:3–7

Paul’s statement gives us a fourfold formula of the primitive Christian proclamation as it relates to Jesus’s death and resurrection:

1. Christ died.
2. He was buried.
3. He was raised.
4. He appeared.

This time frame evidenced in the early creed places the original proclamation by the first apostles about Jesus’s resurrection very near to the time of Jesus’s death and resurrection. This development has led even critical New Testament scholars to be amazed at the early and reliable testimony evident in Paul’s writings. In fact, distinguished New Testament scholar James D. G. Dunn states, “This tradition [of Jesus’s resurrection and appearances], we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’ death.”3

Therefore, given the short interval of time between the early eyewitness testimonies about Jesus’s resurrection and the actual event itself (a mere matter of months), these accounts must be considered historically credible. There was clearly no time for myth, legend, or embellishment to accrue around the initial resurrection reports.

4. Extraordinary Transformation of the Apostles

Today’s skeptics of Jesus’s resurrection sometimes state that religious people are too quick to accept reports about miracles. Those who doubt the miraculous often insist that miracle claims aren’t usually sufficiently questioned. But was this the case among Jesus’s apostles concerning the resurrection?

The New Testament describes a remarkable and enduring transformation of 11 of Jesus’s disciples. These frightened, defeated cowards after Jesus’s crucifixion soon became bold preachers and, in some cases, martyrs. They grew courageous enough to stand against hostile Jews and Romans, even in the face of torture and martyrdom. Such amazing transformation deserves an adequate explanation, for human character and conduct does not change easily or often. Because the apostles fled and denied knowing Jesus after he was arrested, their courage in the face of persecution seems even more astonishing. The disciples attributed the strength of their newfound character to their direct, personal encounter with the resurrected Jesus. In Jesus Christ’s resurrection, the apostles found their existential reason to live—and die.

According to the earliest reports concerning Jesus’s resurrection, three of the men Jesus appeared to were either initially highly skeptical of the truth of the resurrection or adamantly opposed to Jesus’s claims of being the Messiah. Those three were Thomas, James, and Saul (who would become Paul), all of whom were predisposed to dismiss the truth of the resurrection. Since Paul’s conversion will be addressed later, let’s consider the stunning impact Jesus’s resurrection had on Thomas and James.

Thomas the Doubter

While Thomas was one of the original 12 apostles, he was not among the first of Jesus’s followers to see the risen Christ. Upon hearing the report from his fellow disciples concerning Jesus’s bodily resurrection, he doubted its truth. The Gospel of John conveys Thomas’s skepticism: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).

Though a follower of Jesus, Thomas was highly skeptical and needed direct, empirical evidence of Jesus’s actual bodily resurrection before he would believe the claim of his fellow disciples. Thomas demanded evidence of a concrete, empirical nature. He demonstrated tough-mindedness when it came to claims of the miraculous, even when the testimony came from his close friends and associates. Yet according to John’s Gospel, Thomas soon had an encounter with the resurrected Jesus that more than satisfied his doubts:

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

–John 20:26–28

If the resurrection was merely a concocted mythical story, it is highly unlikely that it would include the claim that one of the original 12 disciples seriously questioned Jesus’s resurrection.

James the Family Skeptic

The Gospels convey that prior to the resurrection, Jesus’s brothers were highly dismissive of his messianic claims (see Mark 6:3–4 and John 7:5). In fact, Jesus’s family viewed him as suffering from mental delusion (Mark 3:21, 31–35). Yet the early creed that Paul had been given by the apostles (which included James) reported that Jesus had appeared to his brother James (1 Corinthians 15:7). James then became one of the critical leaders of the early Christian church, even holding unique authority at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:12–21). Sources in church history convey that James was later martyred for his belief in Jesus Christ.

What accounts for James’s amazing change of heart from undoubtedly being deeply embarrassed by his brother’s claims to becoming a distinguished leader in the early church, and finally to even undergoing martyrdom? The resurrection seems to best account for this radical transformation in James’s understanding and perspective. James claimed to have seen his brother alive after his public execution, and that event changed everything.

So it appears that Thomas and James seriously questioned the actual truth of Jesus’s resurrection, the way skeptics demand.

5. The Greatest Religious Conversion Ever

Some people have had dramatic religious conversions. In fact, my three favorite Christian thinkers outside of the biblical authors—St. Augustine, Blaise Pascal, and C. S. Lewis—all experienced amazing life-changing conversions to Christianity. But there is one person whose conversion to the Christian faith changed the world forever. That individual said that his spiritual transformation was due to encountering the resurrected Jesus Christ.

Saul of Tarsus was a respected, first-century Hebrew scholar of the Torah (the Law), a member of the Jewish party of the Pharisees, and a Roman citizen (Acts 21:37–22:3). Fervent in his devotion to God and in his intent to protect ancient Judaism from what he perceived as false and heretical teaching, he became the central adversary of the primitive Christian church. Saul expressed his impassioned hostility toward Christians by having them arrested and inciting physical persecution and execution of believers, including Stephen (Acts 7:54–8:3; Galatians 1:13–14). Traveling on the road to Damascus to further persecute the church (ca. AD 31–33), Saul underwent an extraordinary life-changing experience. According to his claim, Saul saw and spoke with the resurrected Jesus (Acts 9:1–30; 22:5–13). Following his dramatic conversion to the movement he once hated, he took on the Gentile name “Paul” and became the greatest advocate of the newfound Christian faith. After Jesus Christ himself, many scholars view the apostle Paul as the second most important figure in the history of Christianity. Paul went on to become the faith’s greatest missionary, theologian, and apologist as well as the inspired author of 13 New Testament books.

What caused Paul’s conversion—arguably the greatest religious conversion ever? To understand the true impact of this conversion, let’s consider what may be the modern equivalent of Paul’s first-century conversion to Christianity. Imagine the British prime minister and statesman Winston Churchill becoming a member of the Nazi party. Or the American president Ronald Reagan embracing Soviet communism. Or German Führer Adolf Hitler converting to the religion of Judaism. Whatever equivalent one rightly accepts, Paul’s conversion to Christianity was an absolutely astounding event.

But how is this extraordinary change of allegiance to be explained? According to Paul himself, the incredible transformation of one of Western civilization’s most influential religious leaders and thinkers was due to the appearance of the resurrected Christ. The conversion of the apostle Paul, not to mention his life and accomplishments, seems truly inexplicable apart from the fact of the resurrection.

It seems the only thing that could have possibly changed Saul’s incredibly negative opinion about primitive Christianity was for him to encounter its leader, Jesus of Nazareth, raised from the dead.

6. Emergence of the Historic Christian Church

Does every historic movement emerge from a specific cause? If so, what caused the Christian religion to come into being? What initiated this religious movement that within 300 years dominated the entire Roman Empire and over the course of two millennia dominated all of Western civilization? In a very short time span, Christianity developed a distinct cultural and theological identity apart from that of traditional Judaism. According to the New Testament, the unique religion of Christianity came into being directly because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The extraordinary historical emergence of the Christian church needs an adequate explanation. According to the Christian Scriptures, the apostles turned the world upside down with the truth of the resurrection, and the historic church emerged. This is why many have called the historic Christian church “the community of the resurrection.”

But if the resurrection didn’t cause the emergence of Christianity, what did? There seems to be no other adequate natural explanation. Thus, the heart of historic Christianity is found in the remarkable happenings of Easter Sunday.

7. Emergence of Sunday as a Day of Worship

The Hebrew people worshiped on the Sabbath, which is the seventh day of the week (measured from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday). Nevertheless, the early Christian church (which was viewed initially as a sect of Judaism) gradually changed the day of their worship from the seventh to the first day of the week (see Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2; “the Lord’s Day,” Revelation 1:10). For the early Christian church, Sunday uniquely commemorated Jesus’s resurrection from the dead.

Sustained reflection on Christ’s resurrection to immortal life transformed Christian worship, uniquely influencing the formulation of the sacraments of the early church (baptism and communion), and thus it distinguished the Christian faith in its theology and practice from traditional Judaism. Apart from the resurrection, no reason existed for early Christians (as a sect of Judaism) to view Sunday (the first day of the week) as having any enduring theological or ceremonial significance. The resurrection of Jesus therefore set historic Christianity apart from the Judaism of its day. That same truth of resurrected life sets the faith apart from all other religions through the centuries.

So the happening of Easter Sunday—Jesus’s resurrection—explains two things well: (1) why the Christian religion emerged as a historical movement and (2) why Christians worship on a different day of the week than the Jews. And, in turn, both of these historical elements support the factual nature of Jesus’s resurrection.

8. Plentiful Early References to Jesus’s Resurrection in the Apostle Paul’s Letters

Some critics of Christianity have asserted that the four canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) appear too long after the events of Jesus’s life to carry credible testimony. There is also the concern that there are too few claims of Jesus’s resurrection made by the early eyewitnesses.

While I addressed the short time span between the events of Jesus’s life and the eyewitnesses’ claims in my third point of evidence, a little more explanation is helpful here. First, the four Gospels are much closer in time to Jesus’s life than are other ancient testimonies to both religious figures (Gautama Buddha, Confucius) and secular figures (Socrates, Caesar).

Second, not only are Paul’s references to the resurrection early (considerably earlier than the four Gospel accounts), but they are abundant in nature. Paul’s epistles contain numerous references to and descriptions of Jesus’s resurrection.

Third, some of Paul’s statements about the resurrection reflect primitive Christian creeds and hymns (see Philippians 2 and Colossians 1) that date much earlier than even his earliest written letters. For example, Paul’s earliest epistles were written about 20 years after Jesus’s resurrection. But the creeds and hymns that he wove into his writings were being recited and sung by Jewish Christians back to within a few months or years of Jesus’s resurrection.

9. The New Testament Accounts of Jesus’s Resurrection Do Not Resemble Later Apocryphal Stories

The accounts of Jesus’s resurrection came from eyewitnesses and close associates of eyewitnesses. The recollections of these witnesses involve descriptions of historical, factual events. And the narrative of Jesus’s resurrection involves his physical body being raised and empirically examined, not merely rising as a spirit as in later apocryphal stories of subjective religious visions.

The apostolic reports of Jesus’s resurrection are early, plentiful, and very different than other so-called resurrection accounts.

10. No Tomb Was Ever Venerated as the Burial Place of Jesus

The burial places of famous people were often venerated in the ancient world. However, Jesus Christ is arguably the most famous person in all of history, and yet no grave or tomb was ever said to have permanently contained his body. According to his apostles, Jesus’s tomb is empty for his body has been raised. The unique Christian truth-claim is that the one-of-a-kind Jesus, the very Son of God, conquered death.

11. A Crucified Messiah Would Have Been Viewed by All Jewish Christians as Cursed by God

If Jesus had been merely crucified with no resurrection to follow, then he would have been viewed by all Jews as a false prophet who was obviously cursed by the Lord God Yahweh. Yet the viability of Christianity as a true faith was buttressed by Jesus’s resurrection. In other words, Jesus’s glorious resurrection from the dead made sense of his ignominious death. The resurrection that followed turned Jesus’s crucifixion into a divine atonement.

12. All the Alternative Naturalistic Explanations for the Resurrection of Jesus Prove False

If the events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus didn’t involve the supernatural, then there should be a viable natural explanation to account for the data. Yet none of the many naturalistic alternative theories hold water.4 On careful inspection, all of them prove false or inadequate. So the fact that all of the natural explanations fail serves as one more evidence of the truth of Jesus’s resurrection.

I invite you to read through and study these 12 brief evidences for Jesus’s resurrection multiple times. Consult the scholarly resources listed below for more information and context. Grow in your knowledge of the resurrection. Consider sharing this list with other Christians who have doubts, and be ready to talk about this evidence with nonbelievers and skeptics.

If Jesus Christ actually rose from the dead—and there is plenty of good evidence that he did—then all of his followers who know him as Lord and Savior will also rise to eternal life on the last day.

If Jesus actually conquered death, then there is no news that is more important for all human beings to hear and to reflect upon. Easter really matters.

(Originally posted in seven parts in March and April 2017: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.)

Reflections: Your Turn

What do you consider to be the strongest evidence for Jesus’s resurrection? How would you order the evidence in making a cumulative case? Visit Reflections on WordPress to comment with your response.

Resources

• I address the resurrection of Jesus in two of my books: Without a Doubt: Answering the 20 Toughest Faith Questions (see chapter 10) and 7 Truths That Changed the World: Discovering Christianity’s Most Dangerous Ideas (see chapters 1 and 2).
• I also recommend The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona and Knowing the Truth about the Resurrection: Our Response to the Empty Tomb by William Lane Craig.
• A further recommended source is N. T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God.

Endnotes

1. The four New Testament Gospels and various New Testament Epistles convey the historic Christian narrative concerning Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection (see Matthew 26:47–28:20; Mark 14:43–16:8; Luke 22:47–24:53; John 18:1–21:25; Acts 9:1–19; 1 Corinthians 15:1–58).
2. For more about these primitive Jewish-Christian creeds, see Ralph P. Martin, New Testament Foundations: A Guide for Christian Students, vol. 2 (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1999), 268.
3. James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 855.
4. For a list and critique of the common naturalistic explanations for Jesus’s resurrection, see Kenneth Samples, “Objections Examined,” chap. 2 in 7 Truths That Changed the World: Discovering Christianity’s Most Dangerous Ideas (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012).

Post 215--Financial Nakedness

I reminded myself the other day that I really want to get Canadian stuff on this blog. I re-started on 214 and I hope I'm now on a Canuck roll. Today it's Arnold Machel, a resident of White Rock, BC.  The town lies just north of the Canadian-USA border. So I am just squeezing by--assuming Machel is not an American citizen!

I am not all that familiar with the magazine in which Machel's article appears, namely The Light Magazine of March 2018. So, whether today's feature is part of a regular column in The Light or just a one-time article I do not know, but that does not really matter.

I write or, rather, pass on an article on a subject that really seems foreign to me--yes, and yet Canadian! Financial openness and honesty between married couples. The subjects seems somewhat foreign to me, for my wife and I share everything financial. We only have joint bank accounts and we only have joint emails, so that we have full access to all our finances and dealings. We also have one single mailing address. All this means we cannot hide anything from each other; we both have access to everything.

The article indicates that one-third of married Canadian couples keep financial secrets from each other or engage in "financial infidelity."  I'm glad it's only one-third, but that is still a lot and, I suspect, it is on the increase, since marital ties are losing their strength as divorce increases. Financial secrets and infidelity, it seems to me, are indications of marital secrets and infidelity; they are indications of weak marital ties.  When your ties are weak; if your "I do" is merely a ceremonial symbol without any serious intention behind it, then you will probably hesitate to share everything, including finance, for you never know what tomorrow will bring.  My wife and my "I do" were taken seriously as vows before God and we had decided that, come what may, we will work our way through without the threat of divorce. So, we have no reason to be secretive about our finances. It is truly liberating when you don't have to hide stuff. 

I plan another financial topic for Post 217,for 216 is reserved for a topic related to Good Friday and Easter. That topic is closely related to naked finance, for if you believe in the events celebrated this weekend, then chances that you have separate finance are slim, since your marriage is built on the Rock named Jesus. 

So, introducing Arnold Machel!

                            Getting financially naked

by Arnold Machel CFP

“…and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.”

– Luke 16:10 (NIV)

It’s been all over the news lately and it’s been dubbed “financial infidelity”.  An online poll found that 36% of Canadians have lied about a financial matter to a romantic partner and 34% keep financial secrets from them.  The most common form of deception was secretly running up a credit card bill.  Other answers were “lied about income”, “made a major purchase without telling me” and “went bankrupt without informing me”.

A small number of these infractions are likely simply due to a misunderstanding and/or poor communication.  For example, a “major purchase” could mean something different to husband and wife. But you have to work pretty hard at concealing growing credit card debt or bankruptcy, so I’ll go out on a limb here and say that in the vast majority of these circumstances a spouse is actively involved in deceit.

I’ve seen first hand the devastating results of this type of behaviour.  Years ago, I met with a nice young couple and worked with them for a few years as they raised kids and struggled financially.  The wife, addicted to gambling, started hiding withdrawals from their bank account from her husband.  She admitted to it when he discovered it and challenged her, but it was too late.  They tried to get through it, but failed.  Ultimately it caused the destruction of their marriage.  My guess is that it was the deceit more than the addiction that caused the failure.

As Christians we have no excuse for this kind of deceit.  Yes – we screw up.  Yes – we fail.  But honesty with our spouses must be held in the highest regard.  And when we’re honest and contrite, it’s surprising how much grace is afforded to us.

One way to avoid getting there in the first place might be to have regular financial discussions.  Couples often find it challenging to talk about sensitive subjects such as sex and money.  The wife cries.  The guy doesn’t know how to react.  They fight and feel like they’re not getting anywhere and sometimes that may be the case – they may not be getting anywhere.  Regardless of how difficult it can be, it’s important to have those deeper conversations.  In some cases professional counselling may be needed.

There are often issues in a marriage that we will never resolve and we may need to accept that we will forever be on opposite sides of.  But that never justifies deceit.  In fact, having regular discussions makes it easier to fess up early on if there ever is even a hint of something that might lead to deceit.

More often though, regular discussion does help us move forward and to find common areas of agreement.  It builds our relationships when we work together to resolve problems and/or respectfully discuss topics to try to find common ground.

Personally, my wife and I have found it relationship building to discuss our future goals, be they short, medium or long term.  Visioning our future life together helps reinforce our commitment to one another and helps ensure that we are rowing in the same direction… at least most of the time.  It’s not something that we do formally and it’s not specifically about money.  It’s just something that, over the years, we’ve developed a habit of doing and tends to help us direct our finances.

We talk about places we want to travel to, organizations we want to support, legacies we want to create. It’s not like either one of us rubber-stamps the other’s vision.  Sometimes we disagree.  Sometimes one of us has to give in to the other.  And sometimes alternate visions just sit there – waiting – and we have to accept the possibility that they will sit there waiting forever.  The important thing is that the relationship is more important than any issue.  And honesty is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship.

Valentine’s Day is over, but if you are one of the many Canadians hiding things (financial or otherwise) from your spouse, consider giving them another Valentine’s gift: honesty and repentance.  Get financially naked with your spouse.  It won’t be easy.  And there’s a good chance that it will make your marriage harder in the short term.  But keep being honest; keep talking about the deeper issues – and your marriage will be stronger for it in the long run.

Arnold Machel, CFP(r) lives, works and worships in the White Rock/South Surrey area.  He attends Gracepoint Community Church where he serves on the Leadership Team.  He is a Certified Financial Planner with IPC Investment Corporation and Visionvest Financial Planning & Services.  Questions and comments can be directed to him at dr.rrsp@visionvest.ca or through his website at www.visionvest.ca  Please note that all comments are of a general nature and should not be relied upon as individual advice.  The views and opinions expressed in this commentary may not necessarily reflect those of IPC Investment Corporation.   While every attempt is made to ensure accuracy, facts and figures are not guaranteed.

Post 163--The Empty Tomb

The Empty Tomb

My guest writer for easter is Father Raymond J. de Souza, quite a mouthful. When you read below about the positions he holds you have more than a mouthful. I appreciate these reflections on the empty tomb and hope you will as well.

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This Easter will look different at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the large church built over both the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. Last month, the recent restoration of the Edicule – the chapel built over the burial place of Christ and locus of the Resurrection – was completed. It was the first significant restoration work since 1810.

The structure had become unstable during the period of the British Mandate in Palestine. In 1947, just before their authority expired, the British erected steel girders around the Edicule to prevent it from collapsing. For 70 years, the most important pilgrim site for Christians looked like a ramshackle construction site.

The blackened Edicule has now been restored to its original cream and rose colouring, almost luminous in what remains a dark church. The ugly girders are gone, having rendered their necessary service for seven decades.

All of which makes the church modestly more beautiful – and less embarrassing – to visit. Regardless, though, of the structural soundness of the Edicule, what remains remarkable is that is built to mark an absence. There is nothing inside.

Everything rather depends upon that, as St. Paul insisted: “And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.”

As the angel said that first Easter morning: “He is not here.”
The only lasting place mortal man has on this earth is the grave. We speak of the abundant resources of the planet as our common home, but the earth only provides for our life for some decades. For the longest part, what the earth gives to us is a burial place. It is more a cemetery for the dead than a home for the living.
So we have busily set about making our common cemetery decorous. We make the headstones. We landscape the grounds. We mark the graves: “Here lies….”
The Edicule in Jerusalem marks what used to be a grave, but has long ceased to be: “Here He does not lie…”
For those great personages whose lives are remembered beyond the circle of their own relatives, we fashion more impressive monuments, memorials that in time are themselves forgotten. Yet what is inside remains relentlessly egalitarian. Decomposing corpses are more similar than different, no matter the previous station in life.
The formative event of the Chosen People is the Exodus, when Moses led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt by the signs and wonders of the Lord God. By the time of Jesus, did the Jews still carry with them the handed-down memory of the tombs of the Pharaohs? Were there stories told about the great tombs built, the architecture so advanced that even today it remains a mystery of how they were built?
Ancient Egypt was wise. Its people knew that all that really lasts is the tomb, so they set about building grand tombs stuffed full of all that a dead man awaiting life could possibly need.
What Egypt did not – could not – realize, was that what man really needed was not a better tomb, but to leave the tomb altogether. When Israel came up out of Egypt, did they realize that the pilgrimage of salvation history is away from the massive tombs of the pyramids toward the empty tomb of Calvary?
The archaeologists who worked on the restoration of the Edicule removed, at one point, the marble slab covering the burial site itself. It was a rare time in archaeology where the expectation was to find nothing. There was fill material and other detritus of the ages, but nothing of Jesus.
Everything rather depends upon that, as St. Paul insisted: “And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.”
The alternative to the empty tomb is to return to the busy work of grave building, the proper task of man absent the Resurrection. The Edicule is the reminder that man was created for life, not to spend his life building graves.
About the Incarnation we are accustomed to say that the eternal Son of the Father became a man like us in all things but sin. In His passion and death, He who had no sin was made sin, as it were, for our sake. Yet He was not touched by sin, and so had no need of what we need, the resting place of the grave.
He descended to the grave, but life cannot remain there, any more than a corpse belongs among the living. So the one who came to be present with us gives us the gift of a great absence, the empty tomb. It is the presence (absence?) already given in history of that day when all the tombs shall be empty.
We were not made for this world, and so the only enduring offer of this world – a grave, more or less comfortable, more or less grand – is not for us. We do not need what the world can enduringly give; we need rather, to not need that grave.
The Edicule marks the place where we began not to need it anymore.

A blessed Easter to all!
=======

Father Raymond J. de Souza is the Editor-in-Chief of Convivium, chaplain at Newman House (the Roman Catholic centre at Queen's University), a parish priest, and a Cardus senior fellow, in addition to writing for the National Post and The Catholic Register. His columns can be found at www.convivium.ca.

Post 161--Vimy Pride Can Never Diminish the Pain

Today is Maundy Thursday, the day on which Christians begin the weekend that ends with Easter, the day we celebrate Christi's resurrection.  This being a blog devoted to the Christian faith, this post should really be about that tremendously important historical event.  However, it happens to be the day that I read Joe O'Connor's report about the Vimy Ridge memorial week, when Canada remembers, mourns and celebrates the supreme sacrifice thousands of Canadian soldiers made at Vimy Ridge in France. It was such an important event that it has been  credited with the birth of the Canadian nation. 

I don't get a chance/time to write a post every day or even regularly, but I will try to treat you to some meditation on the Good Friday--Easter axis before the weekend is over. However, as a Christian writer I cannot simply ignore such an important and sad event for and in our nation. Actually the Good Friday--Easter axis has this in common with the Vimy story: they both include a very sad part and very joyful one.  For Vimy, the sad part is the death of thousands of young Canadian men; the happy part is that it represents a young nation coming out of the closet of obscurity onto the world stage. We Canadians are proud of that.  So, death leading to a new life.

Similarly, the sad part of the Christian story is the death of Christ through crucifixion for the sinfulness of the human race, including yours and mine. The celebration is about the resurrection of Christ: Death does not have the final word; it is not the real end, except of just a phase. And that resurrection spelled the beginning of a new awakening emerging from Jerusalem into pretty well all the nations of the world.  Here, too, death leading to a new life. 

But for today, the Vimy story as Joe O'Connor tells it in the "National Post in the Vancouver Sun (April 10, 2017). I decided to leave the newspaper's reference to "related stories" down below in place for your further edification.

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Willie McGregor was sitting in a tent, sipping on bottled water and peeling an orange. It was going to be a long day, the 94-year-old Albertan said, as the hot April sun beat down on Vimy. The last time McGregor was in France was June 1944. He landed on the beaches of Normandy — as an army medic — and saw things that no person should ever see.

“There are times when I’ll think about the war every night,” McGregor says. “I was asked after I came back if I wanted to work in a hospital and I said, ‘No, I’ve seen enough blood.’

“I went into farming. I have had a good life.”

On Sunday, McGregor was here, at Vimy, positioned in the shade near the soaring Canadian Memorial. “It is an honour,” he said. The 25,000 other Canadians who came, many wearing red and white, would agree. A 21-gun salute was fired, replica biplanes flew past, bagpipes played, a minute of silence was observed. Prime ministers, presidents and future kings gave speeches. Justin Trudeau elicited roars from the crowd, speaking of “the burden they bore, the country they made;” the Prince of Wales intoned, “this was Canada at its best;” while François Hollande said the “message of Vimy was to stand united.”

Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images

But Vimy, at its core, is for the Canadian people: a memorial to 3,598 farmers, city boys and fishermen, killed taking a ridge that no other nation could take. The land is a gift from France, paid for in Canadian blood. Walter Allward’s soaring monument exudes an aura of permanence.

In northern France and nearby Belgium, the war — even 100 years after Vimy — is not viewed at a distance, but up close. people hear that you are a Canadian and some smile with surprise. Every village has a cenotaph. Every other field, it seems, a cemetery.

Kurt DeBacker was born in Ypres, Belgium, the site of the world’s first gas attack, a town pulverized during four years of fighting, a place full of Canadian ghosts.

DENIS CHARLET/AFP/Getty Images

“I grew up in the world’s largest graveyard,” DeBacker says.

When DeBacker was a kid — he is 46 now — his mother would tell him to watch out for the rusty bits in the garden, shrapnel pieces that he and his pals dug up by the bucket and traded in at the museum for Snickers bars. He was 13 when his school principal appeared at the class door and asked his friend, Laurent, to step outside.

“Laurent didn’t return to school for two weeks,” DeBacker says. “His father was a sugar beet farm. He ploughed over an old shell and was killed when it exploded.

“My friends, we grew up playing in the Commonwealth cemeteries — we were respectful of them — but the grass there was always so soft and green.”

That grass was once mud. Deep and thick, and full of the dead, about 50 per cent of whom were never identified. What sometimes gets forgotten in the memory wars — in the tribal custom of honouring our dead — is that the Germans were boys, too. With moms and dads and brothers and sisters and stories and dreams that died in the mud. In this land of bones, it is hard to find a place more lonesome than a German cemetery.

Christian Hartman/AFP/Getty Images

I went to a German  cemetery and it was very emotional for me,” says Heike Hemlin, a German-born public servant who moved to Canada 25 years ago. Hemlin grew up in a culture of silence, when being German meant being ashamed of what your grandparents and great-grandparents had done. “We were the bad guys,” she says.

Commonwealth cemeteries are full of light, colourful flowers, manicured grass and white marble headstones. German crosses are black. The men are buried in mass graves. There are no flowers. Germany rents the land — in perpetuity, relying on groups of schoolchildren and volunteer donations to maintain their burial sites. It is punishment, everlasting, for starting the war, and it is part of the tragedy of it.

The pain is everywhere: John Kelsall’s father, Sam, fought at Vimy. Sam would often tell the story of a farm boy in his unit from Saskatchewan. When a hand grenade landed in a trench full of men, the boy pounced it — sacrificing himself for his friends.

“My father would tell that story with tears in his eyes,” Kelsall says.

Peter Robinson’s great-grandfather, Pte. Edward J. Clement, survived Vimy, but was killed three months later near Arras. His widow, Elizabeth, lived for another seven decades.

“I saw what his death caused,” Robinson says. “Sadness, anger, financial strain — not least because the politicians of the day were so indifferent to the widows’ plight.”

Related

·         ‘We must believe it: Never again’: Trudeau commemorates 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge

·         Vimy Ridge database: Search the names of ancestors who died in the historic First World War battle

·         A century later, Canadians are still searching for traces of the 44 missing soldiers of Vimy

Six days ago, Gen. (ret.) Rick Hillier addressed a crowd of Vimy pilgrims on a boat gliding up the Seine River and told them how, if they were proud of being Canadian now — if their hearts beat red — that their hearts would be bursting come Sunday, April 9th. There is pride, indeed, great big chests full of it, being here, on this day, and listening to stories about our great-great-grandparents’ generation, dying, living, fighting like lions to the everlasting gratitude of the French.

But pride, perhaps, isn’t the correct word at Vimy, with its soaring monument, and with the politicians on-hand to give speeches on the 100th anniversary of an event where nothing needed to be said.

Words can’t capture the magnitude of the place. Look east, away from the monument, over the Douai Plain, and what you see is beauty: farmers’ fields, rich and green in the April afternoon light. Walk around the base of the monument, however, and the meaning of Vimy is clear. It is carved into the stone — 11,285 names of the Canadians who died in France and whose bodies were never found.

“We haven’t learned a thing, have we?” Willie McGregor said, his voice full of wonder. “I think of this world, and it is still a terrible mess.”

Post 102 Conversion in Christianity

Today’s subject is a follow-up to that of Post 100, but Isaiah 56 intruded—for a valid, though not necessary, reason. Consider it an extra gift, even if an intrusion. So, in view of their related subjects this one is really the follow-up to Post 100.

At the beginning of Post 100…. 100?  Wow, that’s worth a celebration for me. I have started three other blogs at different times and never made it up to a hundred. In fact, I always stopped—perhaps “dropped” is a better word here--far short of it. I was always preoccupied with major writing projects that squeezed out any time I thought I had for blogs.  So, I would simply drop them by not publishing any more posts.  But they are still there and people are still accessing them. One of these days, I should summarize what each was/is about. This time I was able to stick with it and made it up to 100, 101 in fact! No, with the last intrusion, 102!—the very one you’re reading right now. I’m proud of myself for having made it thus far and, not the least, grateful to God for giving me the stamina to carry it through.

The reason for the current situation is that I have no more major writing projects going that require a lot of serious research, energy and time. So, now I can relax a little and have more time for writing posts. Now this is one of my major writing projects.  So, celebrate? Yes, by all means. Treat yourself to a McDonald double cheese.  You won’t be out much!  If you find yourself in my neighbourhood, I will even buy you one. Now, how’s that for generosity?  Do I sound like a Dutchman? Of course, if a McDonald double cheese is not your kind of thing, I’m not sure where we’d go. I can’t afford more than $1.85 or so per reader! And then only if you don’t all come at once!

That said, back to Post 100. I wrote there that I would write about conversion in both Christianity and Islam, but ended up writing only about Islam’s view, Nigerian Islam, to be more specific. Some people, especially Asian and Arab Muslims, apparently don’t take Nigerian Islam seriously or consider it important. I make that statement on basis of their uninterested reaction when I tell them about my Christian-Muslim series about Nigeria. But that’s for another blog some day. (Why am I so easily diverted today from the announced topic?  Is it because “conversion” and “reversion” rhyme so well with “diversion”  that it becomes a perfect fit?)

The WCC conference in Post 98 demanded that Christians, along with others, drop their “obsession” with conversion. Stronger than that, actually: They are to “heal” themselves of that obsession! Apparently, it is a sickness to desire someone to convert. Psychologists, here’s your excuse to add another psychological problem to your official list of diseases and specialists. What shall we call this new specialty? How about  “conversionitus?” I have a history of coining new words and consider myself good at it. Another “–itus” term I once coined is “change-itus,” referring to the interminable decades of administrative changes to which my church has subjected its staff, especially its overseas missionaries like me. (If you’re curious, you may go to my memoirs, Every Square Inch, vol. 2, p. 148, on the Boeriana page of my website < www.SocialTheology.com >.)

At the same time, WCC always maintains that genuine inter-religious dialogue—and that was the essence of that conference—requires that no one feels threatened or that any religion should give up part of their core. Those requirements to drop that “obsession” and to retain your core are not easy bed partners. Both Christianity and Islam regard conversion (or reversion) as part of their core. You eliminate that part and you end up with a distorted, truncated, shriveled up version of the religion. It is no longer true to itself. One great missionary statesman of a century ago, Karl Kumm, whose legacy consists of millions of Christians in northern Nigeria and for whom I have the greatest admiration, wrote that the church must obey the Great Commission to go and make disciples or it must perish. Obeying that Commission is its life blood.

That Commission of Matthew 28, Jesus’ parting shot in Matthew, simply cannot be wished away. And, having been a professional missionary throughout my career, I feel put on the defensive. Did I misdirect my life, waste my time?  Should I have done something more constructive?  Were all the books and articles I published and all the lecturing I did—and they were many; just check out my website—useless or, worse, damaging to inter-religious dialogue and to everything else?

Indeed not! That Muslims could go along with that demand, I understand somewhat. See Post 100.  But that Christians should have gone along with that, is in some ways amazing to me.  However, knowing the WCC mentality somewhat, it is not totally surprising to me, for there always has been a lot of wishy-washy thinking in that organization, not to say liberalist thinking, that has been quick to play down the uniqueness of the Christian message and opt for a “soft” egalitarian view of all religions.

But I hasten to pre-empt a conclusion on your part that I totally dislike, disagree with or even condemn WCC. I have argued on the Boeriana page of my website that my church, the Christian Reformed Church, should join WCC, both to learn from it and to contribute to its programmes out of our own tradition; We have much to give—and much to learn. Over the decades, I have cooperated with WCC from my Nigerian perch at various fronts and have generally appreciated their input. But especially in the dialogue section, there has been that negative aspect, even though there, too, I cooperated with them appreciatively.  

But it does not fit well for Christians to drop their “conversion obsession,” or to “heal” themselves from it. Conversion to Christ is not a missionary obsession; it is the greatest gift I can offer to people. Bringing people to believe in Christ is the most liberating thing you can do. Just ask anyone who has made the transition. I am not suggesting that I need to prevent them from going to hell. I frankly cannot conceive of all of the world’s non-Christians going to hell. That would render the Kingdom of God a dismally failed enterprise.  All these billions to hell? Sorry, I simply cannot accept that.  It neither fits my concept of a large, gracious and generous God nor my view of the scope of Christ’s accomplishments.  He did enough to cover all or, at least, by far most of us.

I don’t know about the Hitlers and Stalins among us or the oppressive religious leaders of Jesus’ own day, but I’m glad I don’t have to make those decisions. If it were my responsibility, I might have no compunction about assigning our Hitlers and Stalins c.s. to hell. But move away and “heal” myself from urging folk to repent or convert is hardly an obsession that Christians can drop at will without the church itself perishing, shriveling up into a dry creek. I would rather argue that the Christian church is increasingly in need of healing from lack of interest in conversion! 

Oops! I’m already quite far beyond my maximum goal of 750 words. I haven’t finished the job. See you in 103.

In the meantime, today, the day of this posting, we are both mourning and rejoicing the crucifixion of Christ. It’s Good Friday, an ambiguous day for us. But the resurrection is just around the corner and that’s what it’s all about. So, Happy Easter to all of you. The Lord has risen!—the traditional Christian Easter greeting, to which the usual response is “He is risen indeed!”