He is not Here, He is Risen

Mark 16:1-8

"When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid."

I wouldn't want to leave the Gospels just yet especially at the denoument of our Lord Jesus Christ's life, death and — indeed the climax of history as we know it — resurrection. I find it fascinating that, among all world religions, a huge part of the truth of Christianity is hinged upon a tangible historical event that is simply too easy to falsify and yet after two milennia, Christendom has dominated the world. Setting aside, for a moment, the complete reliability of the Gospel accounts (+ Biblical inerrancy, which I do regard), historians generally agree on at least three great facts that point to the success of the resurrection hypothesis: (i) Jesus' empty tomb, (ii) his post-mortem appearances and finally, (iii) the origin of his disciples belief in the resurrection - the origin of Christianity itself. One of the earliest of Christian traditions have been captured in a letter of the apostle Paul to the Corinthian Church in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, this tradition is also in his sermon at a synagogue at Pisidian Antioch in Acts 13:28-31 and strikingly parallels the Gospel accounts i.e. Mark 15:37-16:7 that (1) Christ died, (2) he was buried (3) he was raised (4) and he appeared. This points to multiple, independent attestations of these great facts, driving the earliest documentations of these traditions right towards within just five years after Jesus' death, thereby reducing the probability of legend and alteration. Various individuals and groups on different occasions and under varying circumstances experienced appearances of Jesus alive — just take a look at how amazing the apostle Paul's list of eyewitnesses is and examine each. And due to these appearances, the first disciples came sincerely to believe in Jesus' resurrection despite every disposition to the contrary and in the face of cruel deaths i.e. their Messianic expectations, and their Jewish beliefs about the concept of the resurrection at the end of the world. A lot of other hypotheses have been put forward for centuries {swoon or apparent death hypothesis, hallucination hypothesis, conspiracy hypothesis etc.}, in fact, from the very time the disciples began to claim such an astounding event such as the resurrection, rival hypotheses to the first fact (the empty tomb) has been put forward: Remember the Jewish leaders' claim that Jesus' disciples stole the body during the night (Matt 28:11-15) and interestingly the apostle Matthew here adds "and this story has been spread among the Jews to this day" (conspiracy). But when we do a rigorous analysis of these three facts we will see that all these other hypotheses are simply left in the dust by the resurrection which has greater explanatory scope and power, much more plausible with respect to historical context and God's existence; it is less contrived given Jesus' unparalleled life, ministry and personal claims; it is disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs, and it exceeds all the other hypotheses in coherently explaining all these criteria. Philosopher William Lane Craig says "the bewilderment of contemporary scholarship when confronted with the facts of the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith suggests that no better rival is anywhere on the horizon. Once you give up the prejudice against miracles, it's hard to deny that the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation of the facts." And we have dealt with miracles in one of my previous devotions here, so given that too, it is very reasonable to believe that the 'God of Israel' raised Jesus Christ from the dead. This is why Dr. NT Wright, one of the foremost New Testament scholar also said "as an historian, I cannot explain the rise of early Christianity unless Jesus rose again leaving an empty tomb behind him." Make no mistake about it, our Lord and Saviour really did conquer the grave and because He lives, then we shall live also. And we make no qualms about it either:

1 Corinthians 15:14-19

"...And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God... And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied."

~10.09.2014

resources: Craig, William Lane, Reasonable Faith