THE PERENNIAL TOPIC OF SEASONAL DEBATE: THE RESURRECTION
Easter Day is rapidly approaching, so it is not a surprise that parishioners here and elsewhere are intensely focused on the central event in Christian history, the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Without this signature reality, of course, there would be no Christianity. At this time of year, I find my own focus shifts inevitably to the question of the historicity of the Resurrection. In important ways, this remains the most critical question facing us as Christians, and its prominence continues to be a restraint both for those who claim to be people of faith and those just beginning to consider making a commitment to it. That it remains a major stumbling block for many people in our own time is a particular challenge for those of us in ordained ministry.
So, I think the topic is worthy of further exploration. In my own life, beyond the Gospels themselves, there are two books which have played an important role in strengthening my faith: The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright (see source note at the end of this essay) and John Dominic Crossan and N.T. Wright: The Resurrection of Jesus: The Crossan-Wright Dialogue (more info in the final notes). I find Wright’s argument in favor of the historicity of the resurrection persuasive for a number of reasons: I trust his scholarship, of course, because his intellectual credentials are impeccable (and anyone of his caliber who can write an 800-page analysis of this topic is to be taken seriously), but beyond this I recognize that he speaks not only as a lay expert but also as an ordained priest in the Church of England and therefore brings another important perspective to bear on the subject (he’s actually worked directly with parishioners and been confronted by their very real concerns).
Although the disciples themselves found the reality of the resurrection challenging, it has become even more so in our own time because we are living in the wake of the Enlightenment of the 18th century which revolutionized thinking about matters of this kind to such an extent that we can say that we inhabit a world that has been utterly transformed—- altered to its core by the development of science and scientific thinking. Science makes us particularly skeptical, especially in matters one could term spiritual rather than “concrete” (i.e., material we can actually grasp, touch, manipulate and examine with our senses). Thus, when I come upon a work such as Wright’s, I’m intrigued because I know that he shares that scientific outlook to an extraordinary degree; he and I live in the same transformed world.
Let me see if I can explain Wright’s argument sufficiently well to get you to ponder it in a serious way. I shall, of course, be simplifying it in order to make it accessible in a relatively simple essay. But here it is:
The Easter stories in the gospels provide a “strange portrait of Jesus who is definitely embodied but whose body has unprecedented, indeed hitherto unimagined properties…. it is impossible to explain these pictures as fictional projections from early Christian theology. We must search for an alternative explanation. The best one available is that it was the appearances of Jesus that precipitated this transformation in the understanding of resurrection. The language of ‘resurrection’, and the specific modifications within Jewish resurrection belief which we have seen in early Christianity could only have occurred…if the early Christians believed they had clear evidence, against all their own and everyone else’s expectations, both of continuity between the Jesus who died and the Jesus who was now alive and of a transformation in his mode of embodiment. Appearances of this living Jesus would have provided such evidence. Nothing else could have done.”
Wright continues: “we are left with the conclusion that the combination of empty tomb and appearances of the living Jesus forms a set of circumstances which is itself both necessary and sufficient for the rise of early Christian belief. Without these phenomena, we cannot explain why this belief came into existence and took the shape that it did. With them, we can explain it exactly and precisely.” Wright continues: “if the body of Jesus of Nazareth had remained in the tomb there would have been no early Christian belief of the sort we have discovered……the specific faith of the earliest Christians could not have been generated by a set of circumstances in which an empty tomb did not play a part…(therefore) the empty tomb is a necessary condition.” Additionally, “the post-Resurrection appearances seem to be a kind of necessary supplement to the discovery of the empty tomb; they provide the extra element which turns the first insufficient condition (the empty tomb) into a sufficient one.”
This is the basic thrust of Wright’s argument. But I would say it is buttressed by the unlikelihood that a group of ardent disciples so recently driven into despair by the death of their leader could have been so utterly transformed (in any way other than by the bodily resurrection of their Lord) as to become his principal advocates to all parts of the known world which is the essential story related in the Acts of the Apostles, the second chapter of Luke’s testimony.
In the end, however, what I find most compelling are the stories of the post-crucifixion appearances of the risen Christ in the New Testament itself. In John’s gospel, for example, we find the story of Thomas initially doubting that the other disciples have actually encountered the risen Lord. He does not acknowledge him until a stranger enters the closed room where the disciples are meeting and encourages Thomas to place his hand in the wounds which he bears on his body as a result of scourging and being crucified; the invitation alone is enough to convince Thomas that he is in the presence of the Lord. The second account is from Luke (24: 13-35) and concerns the story of two followers of Jesus on the road to Emmaus after the crucifixion who are joined by a stranger they don’t recognize until he is made known to them over a meal. I think how we respond to these stories is an indication of the extent to which we find them compelling and credible. In my experience, these stories still grip us (I see this not only in my own personal experience but in that of the many people I know who are people of faith) no matter how many times we read or hear them, because the written witness itself transports us back to the very time when the appearances occurred and were recorded. They simply strike us as authentic.
May Easter this year provide you with a new level of acceptance, recognition and belief in support of both your faith experience and your deepest hopes.
Yours,
Fr. Greg
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N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Fortress Press, Minneapolis 2003.
(Wright is one of the leading New Testament scholars in the world. An Anglican priest and former Bishop of Durham, he has authored 70 books. Graduate of Oxford and also research professor of New Testament and early Christianity at St. Mary’s College, St. Andrew’s University in Scotland.)
John Dominic Crossan and N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of Jesus: The Crossan-Wright Dialogue, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2006.
(Crossan is an Irish-American New Testament scholar and authority in early Christian history. A former Catholic priest, he is emeritus Professor at DePaul University, Chicago.)