ON THE THIRD DAY, HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD
“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.” (1 Corinthians 15:19, RSV)
It is curious to note that this is one of the last posts that I actually wrote when I first mooted the idea of a series based on the Apostles’ Creed. Indeed, for a brief while, the only thing that I had written down on the subject was this one line – “Surely, I must have something of value to say on what is the key doctrine of the entire Christian faith!” – For indeed, as Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthian church [Note 1], without the resurrection, all of our preaching and faith is pointless and futile. Does this reticence betray a lack of faith on my part, or, perhaps more likely, a fear of what it could mean for me if Jesus of Nazareth is really still out there, ready to challenge or overturn my comfort and complacency.
Philip Yancey observes, that “people who discount the resurrection of Jesus tend to portray the disciples in one of two ways; either as gullible rubes with a weakness for ghost stories, or as shrewd conspirators who conceived the resurrection plot as a way to jump-start their new religion.” (The Jesus I Never Knew, pp. 210-211). He argues that the gospel accounts themselves portray the disciples as sceptics when it came to the story of the resurrection, as cowards, hiding away in an upper room) and as so incompetent (if conspiracy really were their aim) as to have women (whose testimony didn’t count in court) as the primary witnesses of the whole event. Let us not also forget that the resurrection was a claim for which almost all of them gave their lives, generally in unpleasant ways.
T. Wright, former Bishop of Durham, further notes (in great detail) in “The Resurrection of the Son of God” that a physical resurrection prior to the final judgement was something in which no-one, neither Jews nor pagans, believed at the time and which thus fulfilled nobody’s expectations. That the resurrection doesn’t fulfill modern people’s expectations either, should perhaps therefore come as no surprise.
So then, what does this mean for us? If Christ is not risen from the dead, then what reason do we have to expect any resurrection? None at all, as far as I can see. Our faith is indeed futile. There is no hope in the end. But if Christ is indeed risen from the dead, then he is alive, ready to call us to follow him both into death [Note 2] and also into new life, to share in his death and resurrection through baptism and repentance, in order that we may, when we see him at last, have no reason to be ashamed or afraid.
(See other posts in this series and check out Edward’s book)
NOTES
[1] It is worth noting that 1 Corinthians 15 is one of the earliest written accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, written well within the lifetime of witnesses to the event.
[2] As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” (The Cost of Discipleship)