Up from the grave?

I have a friend who believes we did not set foot on the moon.  Ever.  Before he challenged me to reevaluate, I'd never given it any thought.  I trusted the photos.  I trusted the testimonies.  Surely someone would have blown the ruse had there been one.  I thought the suspicion a bit daffy and continued to trust. 

While the veracity of the moon landing has never had any bearing on my comings and goings, it had a huge impact on the other dudes that landed on the lifeless rock.  Either they became partners to the lie or they actually went there.  Mythbusters took on the moon landing a few years back.  Bottom line, Neil and all his rocket-riding bros. danced along the lunar landscape.

Another point of history begs examination.  A few weeks ago, Christendom celebrated an event that would stir the soul if it were mere fiction.  The Creator of a realm so loved that realm that after his minions so botched everything at every turn, he had to step in to right the mess.  He sent his equal.  He sent his Son.  The rabble hoped the Son would clean up the corruption and overthrow the oppressors.  Instead, the Son spoke of getting cleaned up from the inside out, and he pointed to his execution as the means by which that cleansing would come.  His followers didn't follow what he was saying.

The oppressors had nothing for this upstart and seized him.  The folks who fell in behind him fell away when things seemed to be returning to normal.  When they butchered the Son beyond recognition, the movement died an equally hopeless death. 

Or did it?  Three days later, the one disfigured in so horrifying a fashion, rose from the dead.  His pure blood had been shed that the soured sin of man's rebellion might be atoned for, that justice be meted out.

Then a most peculiar thing happened.  That band of followers that had fallen away and that was a few hours from returning to their homes and putting this embarrassing past behind them became the most extraordinary advocates -- for what? -- for the Son rising from the dead as proof that the broken relationship between the people and the Creator of the realm had been restored!  Love divine, all loves excelling.

But is it a fiction or did it play out in history?  This event, far more significant than the moon landing, deserves the scrutiny of every person for our existence hangs in its balance.

Kris Komarnitsky (among a myriad of others) dismisses the event.  Compelled, as all should be, to examine the event, he concluded,

When I study the evidence, the answer seems to be just what Bishop (John Shelby) Spong suggested -- a ground burial, probably in the Kidron or Hinnom valley, with nobody attending except for an indifferent burial crew who only cared to mark the site with chalk or a pile of loose rocks to warn of uncleanness. As Jesus' dejected followers made the journey back to their homes in Galilee, instead of a discovered empty tomb, the founding event of Christianity may have simply been "the discovery of a new and positive way in which to speak of Jesus' death and of Jesus after his death, that is, a new way of perceiving Jesus." This may have been the event of Easter.

Kris offers no overwhelming reasons for rejecting the histories included in the Bible.   Another writer, Jewish PhD Ed Gurowitz, also had to examine the resurrection himself.  Why?  He states,

Unfortunately as I study theology, and particularly the works of Christian theologians I respect, from C.S. Lewis to Walter Wink, say, there is an issue I cannot avoid so easily. This is the issue of what these theologians call "the Christ event," the resurrection and post-resurrection activities attributed to Jesus in all the Gospels and by Paul in his account of the event on the road to Damascus.

He goes on to wrestle, saying,

...both as a psychologist and as a student of history I cannot escape the thought that something must have happened. Like the parallels between the story of the Biblical flood and other myths, e.g., Gilgamesh, the similarities are too great to be coincidental. Oh sure, we can say that the Gospel writers colluded, but that's a bit too Oliver Stone for my taste. There is too much evidence in a comparative reading of the Gospels that the writers did not always give the same account of events and often blatantly disagreed - why collude in this one area?

And in full disclosure, Dr. Gurowitz does not come away a knee-bending Christian (here).  With the enormous amount of evidence that exists for Jesus rising from the dead--from the testimony of the apostles in Acts (2:29-32, 13:28-32 for starters) to the testimony of the gospel writers to the earliest creed given to Paul within a half-dozen years of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-8) to the glut of circumstantial evidence--the resurrection of Jesus Christ demands a look by 21st century man.  But that's not what drives my post today.

1960 years ago, Paul emphasized to the church of Corinth (just west of Athens along Greece's isthmus) the centrality of Jesus' resurrection.  The most rational Greeks struggled with the supernaturality of the resurrection, but Paul, a few verses after the creed cited above, listed some insurmountable problems if the resurrection is a mere fairy tale.  Consider

• If there is no resurrection, then Christ could not have been raised (15:13).  Stands to reason.
• If Christ hasn't been raised, Paul's preaching is foolish (v. 14).  During the early days of the church, the apostles appealed over and over again to the resurrection as the defining point of what they proclaimed.  God restored the broken relationship between God and man and to prove the point, he raised the sacrifice from the dead.  If Jesus is not alive, lots of men are blowing hot air on Sunday mornings across the globe.
• If Christ hasn't been raised, your "faith" is stupid (v. 14).  If Jesus is not alive today, the billions who have ordered their lives believing him to be alive have believed a lie.  They're betting their future on a ruse, a deceit, a falsehood.
• If Christ hasn't been raised, then Paul is misrepresenting God (v. 15).  So, too, the millions who have proclaimed the resurrection.  Actually, Muslims declare that Christians misrepresent God by asserting Christ raised from the dead (among other things).
• He emphasizes for a second time that if the dead are not raised and will not be raised, then Christ himself could not have been raised (v. 16).
• If Christ hasn't been raised, you are still at odds with God (v. 17).  Why?  Read Romans.  All of it.  Jesus bore in his flesh the penalty due to all humanity for its collective and individual rebellion against a holy and righteous God.  The resurrection puts the exclamation point on God's just satisfaction.  If Jesus is dead, there has been no satisfaction.  Man still stands in rebellion against God.
• Many hope to see their loved ones again someday.  A painful fact:  If they did not know Christ as Savior, you will not see them again.  Another painful fact:  If they did know Christ as Savior and you don't, you will not see them again.  Paul emphasized that if Christ hasn't been raised, those who have died in Christ are worm food (v. 18).
• Lastly, if Christ hasn't been raised from the dead, Christians are the stupidest people in the world and deserving of pity (v. 19). 

Harsh words.  Paul knew and understood the ramifications of what he proclaimed.  He proclaimed that which he had seen and heard.  He also understood how stupid "Christianity" would be if Jesus had become one with the dust of the earth.  That's why v. 20 is so profound.

BUT IN FACT Christ has been raised from the dead...

"In fact."  Just like the moon landing.  The evidence staggers the mind.  Paul's recognition of the implications if Jesus had not been raised is hard to get around, too.

Not believing the moon landing has no bearing upon your life today.  My friend functions just fine in society.  His tomorrow does not depend upon the Sea of Tranquility.  Not believing in the resurrection has serious implications.  Being wrong on that point might not seem to have any bearing upon your 5 p.m. Tuesday, unless of course you don't see 5 p.m. Tuesday. 

Leaves one to wonder why so many refuse to examine the evidence, or if they do, why they still choose to believe Christ is dead?