Your Kinda Basic Sorta Standard Easter Post

I suppose I should write something about Easter and resurrection and stuff since it is that time of year. I recently heard another pastor say that the person/revelation of Jesus as the Christ was so powerful that for the disciples his presence was always felt even after Jesus’ death. So in a sense that Christ’s presence is always felt he rose again. A real resurrection probably did not occur.

Hmm…

How does one preach such an idea on Easter? Does one preach that the idea of Jesus beat death and the values of Jesus were continued past his life? Instead of saying, “Christ is risen,” we can yell, “the presence of Christ continues with us,” and the response will be, “in such a way that we are led to believe that Christ rose from the dead.” Powerful stuff.

I was raised in a liberal context, studied liberal theology, and understand this line of thinking but I cannot follow that path. Such an idea, to me, takes power out of the resurrection and does not make Jesus that much more different than other greats in our history. Beyond that, such a way of looking at the resurrection does not put power in God’s hands. This is power of hope over despair and forgiveness over sin. Now I am not ascribing to an atonement theology (gasp!), but instead one that assures me that no matter how much I fall, God will not let me go. God can break through any barrier I produce in my life.

So for me, in order to embrace the hope, grace, and life, Christ did rise, he had to rise from the dead.

Now I do not believe that faith and truth need always intersect; I turn to the Bible as an authoritative source of my faith but I do not believe everything in the Bible to be true (double gasp!). So I do not know if the resurrection of Jesus really happened, but that is not important. What really happened and what I believe may or may not be the same thing. What I believe is that Christ did rise from the dead and I won’t waste my time with archeological digs, historical documents, and the like. I’m not a Biblical scholar, I’m a theologian and my place is in the realm of ideas. What I will spend my time on is thinking what the resurrection means to me, to others, to churches; what does it mean that Christ did raise from the dead. My liberal friend is looking for a way to connect truth with faith assuming a resurrection is not possible – this is not a healthy road to walk.

I know, this truth and faith dichotomy does not make much sense, but the truth is I cannot prove God exists, I cannot prove that there is grace, I cannot prove that Jesus is God incarnate, so I need to rest in faith in order to hold to these beliefs.

So by now I should have ticked off the liberals, shocked the conservatives, and confused the empiricists and the realists. Truth is held by the community my friends, sit with that and have a happy Easter.