Resurrection Proof

Christ is Risen!
He is Risen Indeed!

We live in a time when everything has to be proven; whether true or false, and to be found true or false. Almost 2000 years after the resurrection, this event is still at the center of many debates. But why? After all we have the earliest accounts of the resurrection. In the text from John 20 which I quoted from yesterday, Mary, Peter, and John go to the tomb. Both John and Peter run back witnesses to the resurrection. Mary thinks a little more pragmatically though. She asks the "gardener" where Jesus' body had been placed. She had witnessed Lazarus' resurrection by Jesus, but could not believe that the dead could raise themselves. It became clear that the "gardener" was more then a gardener, but the resurrected Christ. He calls to Mary and she recognizes him, another witness to the resurrection.

To be sure there were horrible things done to the graves of the dead. Bodies were stolen and perhaps even the gardener could have moved the body to another tomb. There have been many theories that even the disciples had moved the body of Christ to make it look as if the resurrection had taken place. There are even some who contend that the resurrection took place in a spiritual form, but not bodily. However, in 2000 years time people are still trying to ration their way around this "problem." After all if the resurrection had taken place then that would prove the authenticity of the Christ. People like John Dominic Crossan, and Marcus Borg are trying to ration away the work of Christ by saying in effect that it is what goes on in one's mind and what they believe as opposed to any kind of truth that happened thousands of years ago. As Jessie Ventura, the "venerable" one-time governor of Minnesota once said, "Religion is for the weak minded, and a crutch for those who find strength in numbers." There is no difference between this kind of thinking that is supported by Crossan, Borg, and re-iterated by Ventura and the old heresy of gnosticism, where head knowledge far out weighs any kind of truth. In effect, if it doesn't make since, it didn't happen.

Just a few weeks ago we were bombarded with another part to this heresy when the film director James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici "claim" to have found the bones of Jesus in a box in Jerusalem. They "claim" to have used the latest in DNA technology to have figured out that these bones were in fact the bones of Jesus. I am no DNA forensic expert, but I do know that in order to find a match in DNA one has to have a known sample. So where did the DNA sample for Jesus come from? They do not say because they do not have an answer. I do have an answer to this question, they can not have the DNA of Jesus because in order to do so they would have to have the DNA from God. People have a hard time believing what can not be proven.

To counter all of these objections we have the Bible. There are accounts in their of people meeting the resurrected Jesus and of personal encounters with him. The Bible nor the church would have survived two-millennia or the horrible persecutions if it were not true. The Bible is the most printed book in the history of the world, there are more fragments of the writings in the Bible then any other ancient book. Of-course in the end, what would be the point of life if Jesus or the resurrection had not occurred? There are countless people who have been martyred for the faith and a church that exists beyond borders and throughout time that has not gone away even though it has been outlawed and persecuted against by people and politics. If anything these all point to the truth of the resurrection and the lengths that people go to defend its authenticity. Mary questioned, but then believed. Thomas doubted, but he too believed. Paul persecuted the early church, but he became a convert for the cause of Christ. Two thousand years later Christ called a young man to ministry, and he too followed. No one who has a call to ministry whether it be in the form of pastoral ministry, youth ministry, worship ministry, visitation ministry, or whatever can attest to the fact that that call has been placed on them by the resurrected Christ, not by human influence or rationing out in one's mind that they have to do this thing. It is a proof of the resurrection. The proof is in the pudding, the resurrection is true!

Christ is Risen!
He is Risen Indeed!

Amen! Alleluia!