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March 23, 2008
The Difficulty of Belief and Unbelief
a sermon on Luke
24.36-49 for Easter Sunday
by David C. Mauldin Westminster Presbyterian Church,
Mobile, Alabama
The Resurrection of Jesus is the greatest conundrum ever to face
humanity. It confronts believer and unbeliever alike with fantastic
possibilities that defy explanation. The mind boggles. To borrow a biblical
phrase, the resurrection is a stone of stumbling. You cannot look at it
seriously and walk away with all your preconceived ideas intact. Something has
to give. You are forced to make important decisions about what you really
believe and why. Why is the Resurrection such a difficult riddle? Because
believing it requires a whole way of looking at the world that is different from
the “what-you-see-is-all-there-is” assumption we all have inherited from our
culture; but to not believe it leaves us with unsolvable historical problems
requiring bizarre explanations. Allow me to explain. If Jesus rose from the
dead, then we have answers to our most profound questions: Does God exist? Which
is stronger, good or evil? Does life have meaning? Does history go anywhere—does
it have a plot? Is death the end? The resurrection comes loaded with freight. If
you believe it happened, you will spend a lifetime unloading all the meaning. If
it is true, it determines how we look at the world, what it means to be human,
and how we live our lives. And that’s only the beginning. If it is true, then
the saint who gives her life in service to others is right, and the hedonist who
says we are here by chance so do whatever you want is wrong. The resurrection of
Jesus only fits into a worldview that allows for God’s action. If it happened,
then there is a God and he does act in time and space. He has a hand in our
world. Resurrection is impossible without that because as we all know, and as
the ancients knew before us, the dead stay dead. When we talk about the
resurrection of Jesus, we are not talking about a unique exception to this rule
of nature. Clearly we are talking about an act of God. In fact, when the
apostles preached the resurrection, they didn’t often say, “Jesus rose.” They
said, “God raised Jesus” or “Jesus was raised.” If you believe in the
resurrection then, your worldview has to be big enough for God. If it isn’t, the
resurrection becomes impossible, and you will have to find alternative
explanations for the appearances of Jesus, the empty tomb, and the rise and
shape of Christianity. And that leads us into the other side of the problem.
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If Jesus did not rise from the dead, the problems are every bit as difficult.
Deny the resurrection of Jesus and you will be left holding an intractable
historical riddle that has defied explanation for 2,000 years. Here’s a generous
sampling of what you face. First, the appearances of Jesus. Jesus’ followers
claimed to have seen him alive after his death by crucifixion. There were not
one or two witnesses, but hundreds. Paul cites a traditional list in 1
Corinthians 15, which already by the time he was writing had become something
like a creed in the early church. We will use it as our creed later in the
service this morning. Paul says it was passed on to him as a set tradition, and
this would have been very early on, within just a few years of Jesus’ death.
This creed does not even mention the women. Given the low status of women in
that time and place, it is amazing that the gospels admit the first witnesses
were women. Why say so if it were not considered true? I find it significant
that most scholarship today takes the appearances seriously. Even among
Christianity’s most ardent opponents there is the admission that something
happened to the disciples. Obviously something happened. That much is
undeniable. What happened is the big question. Those who would deny the
resurrection must invent a plausible alternative to actual appearances. You can
find all kinds of wild theories: The disciples hallucinated. But so many people
over many weeks? Both a friend like Peter and an enemy like Paul? And why when
they did not expect the resurrection? And if they did think they saw him, why
not claim they had seen his ghost, which would have been a credible belief that
made sense to people in their day? Why claim Jesus was resurrected, which meant
only one thing—he was bodily alive again after his death? Another theory
speculates that Jesus may have had a twin brother. What, that no one knew about?
And people mistook him for Jesus, wounds and all? And they concluded that Jesus
was the risen Lord of Life and Son of God? Yes, something happened to the
disciples, something that changed them from cowards into martyrs. If not the
resurrection, then what? Second, the empty tomb. If Jesus were not raised, how
did the tomb come to be empty? The burial of Jesus is an event for which we have
more historical evidence than nearly anything else that happened in the ancient
world. We have multiple early sources that independently state Jesus was buried.
Yet when his followers began preaching resurrection, no corpse was produced to
refute them. Instead, an alternative theory was put forward: the body had been
stolen. But by whom? And why? This was the very first alternative theory, and it
is still the one most often resorted to today. At one time, say 60 to 100 years
ago, the empty tomb was seen by the scholarly community as an embarrassing myth
or legend. Today it is widely accepted, even among those who deny the
resurrection. Once again, as at the birth of Christianity, the empty tomb is not
denied; an alternative explanation is sought. Sought, but not found.
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Third, the rise and shape of Christianity. I am talking not only about how
Jesus’ disciples became great preachers and martyrs and about the rapid spread
of Christianity around the Roman world and beyond, though these are significant.
I am thinking about specific Christian beliefs and practices that make no sense
at all apart from the resurrection of Jesus. Here are a few examples. Why did
Jesus’ followers insist that he was the Messiah even though he did not do the
things every Messianic Jew expected the Messiah to do? When a would-be Messiah
was crucified, that meant he was not the real thing. They could have looked for
another Messiah, maybe Peter or James the brother of Jesus who came to lead the
Jerusalem church. They could have given up on finding the Messiah. They could
have concluded Jesus was a fraud or that he had been a prophet and thus met a
true prophet’s all too common fate. What made no sense was for them to go on
insisting Jesus is the Messiah. Why did they use the word resurrection, which
again meant a body alive again after death? They could have said Jesus’ soul was
taken up to heaven. That might have made sense. It was an option on the table in
the ancient world. They might have said they saw his ghost, another option on
the table. One option not on the table was resurrection. No one in the pagan
world believed in resurrection. Many Jews did not. The ones who did, the
Pharisees and like minded Jews, believed that at the end of history God would
judge the world. He would either raise all the dead and reward the righteous and
punish the wicked, or he would raise just the righteous to a happy new world. No
one had ever conceived the idea that one person would be resurrected right in
the middle of history. A Pharisee who heard the apostles preaching the
resurrection of Jesus would probably have argued based on this expectation.
“What? You say the resurrection has occurred?! Obviously it hasn’t. The world is
still full of evil, injustice, suffering, and death. I don’t see any lions
snuggling up to lambs.” Jesus followers shared this expectation, and they were
initially as confused as could be when Jesus appeared to them. Yet based on
their experiences they insisted on saying Jesus was resurrected. Why change
their beliefs and expectations so quickly, and in this precise direction, if
Jesus were not raised? My last example is, in my opinion, the most compelling.
Why did Jesus’ followers begin, immediately after he was crucified, to worship
him as God? Jesus band of disciples were all Jews. Jews, then as now, were
devout monotheists. Pagans worshiped many gods. The average pagan had no trouble
worshiping the Roman emperor. But Jews did. They rioted and rebelled every time
the temple was disrespected by the presence of Roman symbols. Because of their
stubborn convictions, Jews were officially exempt from emperor worship, and they
were the only ones. No first century Jew would ever worship another human being
as God. And yet, shortly after his humiliating death on a cross—and bear in mind
that according to Deuteronomy anyone hung from a tree was considered cursed by
God—his friends began to call him not just the Messiah, not just the world’s
true Lord, but also to
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worship him as the God of Israel. How could they make that kind of shift without
a clutch? They had to have one, and the most reasonable is the resurrection of
Jesus. Apart from the resurrection, how could we account for the early belief,
universal in Christianity, in the divinity of Jesus? This is just a sampling of
the more troublesome problems. I think by now you can see what I am talking
about. Believe in the resurrection, and you end up with a distinctly Christian
worldview and way of life. Deny it, and you have a historical mess on your hands
that just doesn’t wash off. In my studies, I devour the work not only of those
who defend the resurrection, but also of those who attack it. I marvel how time
and time again, those who argue against the resurrection fall back on the same
argument: “Well, things like that just don’t happen, so it didn’t happen.” Call
this a bias against miracles: “We know everything happens through natural
processes. Anything else is patently ridiculous. So we can dismiss the
resurrection, regardless of any evidence. No matter how compelling it might
seem, it never outweighs the fact that miracles do not and therefore cannot
occur.” I have great sympathy for the skeptic who just cannot believe. We
should. Something like the resurrection is hard to swallow. It’s like trying to
get down one of those giant size vitamins. Against this argument, I simply
appeal to humility. You have never seen a miracle. You feel confident explaining
what you have seen in terms of natural causes. That’s fine. But how can you be
certain—100% absolutely certain—that there is no God? If you are willing to
allow even the possibility of God, you must also be willing to allow for the
possibility that he might actually do something unusual that you would not
expect. If you admit that you do not have the exhaustive knowledge of the
universe necessary to be 100% certain, then you have opened the door just enough
to allow the supernatural in. And at that point, you have to take the evidence
seriously. I admit, the mind boggles. In our scripture reading we find the
disciples all mixed up. The scene is Jesus appearance to them on the first
Easter evening. Initially they are terrified. They think they are seeing a
ghost. Jesus is very sympathetic. He knows he is blowing their minds and they
will need some help to adjust. I trust Jesus is always sympathetic toward those
who struggle with doubt. He perceives they are frightened and doubting what
their own eyes are seeing, so he invites them to handle him. “It is I myself.
Touch me and see.” Presumably they do so, and then we get to verse 41. I love
this line: “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering …”
They are so confused they don’t know what to think or feel! They are filled with
joy. Jesus has been raised! He is alive! At the same time, they just can’t
believe it. It is too good to be true! And at the same time their minds are
racing, trying to figure out what in the world is going on and what it means.
They knew Jesus. They had traveled with him and seen and heard all that he
did—far more than we have recorded for us in the gospels. They knew he was dead.
Now here he was, with them again, alive, with flesh
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and bones. They saw him and touched him and heard him. And the whole thing just
blew them away. Fear and joy, doubt and belief, hope and perplexity—all jumbled
up together. Eventually doubt gave way to faith, fear gave way to joy, and
confusion gave way to belief that with the resurrection of Jesus God had kept
his promises and a new world was on the way. This is precisely what Jesus wanted
them to understand. First, that his death and resurrection were the culmination
of God’s plan and fulfillment of God’s promises. Our passage says he “opened
their minds to understand the scriptures.” Second, that God’s plan had entered
its final phase, and their part was to proclaim this to all nations. They were
his witnesses. He would send his Spirit to give them power because they had a
big job to do. This passage is suggestive, I think, of how we make that move
from fear and doubt to faith and power. How do we get past the conundrum, so
that instead of a puzzle, the Resurrection becomes for us Good News? The answer
is: an encounter with the risen Jesus. Of all the things the resurrection means,
the most obvious and most basic is, Jesus is alive. And because he is alive, we
can know him. Christians testify to the presence and power of the risen Jesus in
their lives. I do. I speak from experience when I say that sometimes, the
presence of Jesus can be felt today. And sometimes, you can know him in worship,
particularly in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. And sometimes you find his
strength sustaining you. Or you discover, to your amazement, love or forgiveness
in your heart that you did not know was there because you didn’t put it there.
At the end of our passage Jesus alluded to the Holy Spirit, which is how he
keeps his promise to be with us today. We do not see him and handle him as those
first disciples did. I am not an eyewitness like they were. Yet my own
experience has confirmed for me what historical investigation points to: Jesus
is alive. Sorting through the historical and theological issues is very
important. You need to know what you believe and why you believe it. You need
good reasons for it. I never set experience against reason. It would be crazy to
do so, because my mind, heart, body, and spirit are not isolated; I am one
person, and all those make me who I am. The evidence and the experience go
together. Yet the experience is so necessary. It is not enough to sit back,
detached, and reach the conclusion that you are more than confident, on
historical grounds, that Jesus was raised from the dead. You need to know him.
You need to understand why he died, what he offers, and then you need to trust
and receive him. Until you do, the resurrection is a brilliant and beautiful but
frustrating riddle. Once you meet the risen Jesus, however, it becomes truth
upon which to build your life. … No, it becomes much more than that. Knowing him
brings strength, hope, joy, and life itself. He has promised that all who
receive him will someday be raised as he was. They will share his Father and his
glory. His Father
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becomes your Father. The life he enjoys now will become your life. Death is not
the end. And as I have hinted, the resurrection means so much more than this.
Every week I spell out more of the implications as I preach the scriptures. My
prayer for you is that you will know Christ and the power of his resurrection.
In your life, doubt will give way to faith. Fear will give way to hope.
Confusion will give way to joy. Anger, despair, bitterness, and insecurity will
give way to love. I pray that you will believe, and believing you will embrace
all that the resurrection means for how you look at the world and how you live
your life. Jesus Christ is risen indeed! He lives and reigns today, and he
offers you abundant life now and eternal life in the world to come. Praise be to
God who has done such marvelous things! … And do not forget, what Jesus said
near the end of our passage applies to you also: “You are witnesses of these
things.” Amen. rev_mauldin@yahoo.com
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