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Easter and the renewal of all

29 Mar 2011

This coming Easter billions of people will gather to celebrate the historical, biblical and eternal resurrection of Jesus.

Yet not all will join in on the fun.

Noted atheist Christopher Hitchens was interviewed by Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell.  She said: “The religion you cite in your book God is not Great are generally the fundamentalist faiths of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?”

To which Hitchens said: “I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and, by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”

It’s quite a sad irony, that an outspoken atheist grasps the central tenet of Christianity better than a church minister.  Yet tragically the church is full of “religious” folk who know nothing of the gospel, and defame Jesus.

It is important to be reminded at this time of year that Easter is when believers gather to pay special notice of the execution of Jesus (Good Friday) and his triumph over the grave on the third day (Easter Sunday).
John Stott famously said: “Christianity is in its very essence a resurrection religion.  The concept of resurrection lies at its heart.  If you remove it, Christianity is destroyed.”

I do believe in the resurrection.  I believe Jesus rose spiritually, physically and eternally.  I believe there is also an abundance of evidence to believe in this historical fact.   As Thomas Arnold, a history professor at Oxford University says: “No one fact, in the history of mankind is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, than the fact that Christ died and rose from the dead.”

I also believe Jesus’ resurrection has massive implications for how we view our lives, how we understand God, where we find happiness, and what life will be like in the age to come.

The tragedies over the past few months have shown us just how fragile human life and our world really is.  As we hear news of yet another devastation, and count the endless lives lost – we are caused to cry out with tears of anguish, “No! 

This is not right.  There must be another way.  There must be more.  There must be a new and better day.”

In the resurrection we see that in Jesus there is a new day.  

In the resurrection we see that this world is not how it should be.  In the resurrection we see that Jesus is and will make all things new.  In the resurrection we see the hope of all creation.  In the resurrection we see that from death we will see life.  We will be new.  All will be new.  And in Him, it will all be glorious.  

In the final chapters of Revelation (last book in the bible) it says, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  

This Easter you are invited to look back at what God accomplished in Christ from death – and look forward to what will be for all who are in him.  

City on a Hill is hosting two combined services on the Easter weekend.  On Good Friday (10am – Arrow, 488 Swanston St.), and Easter Sunday (4pm - Arrow, 488 Swanston St).  All are welcome.

For more information visit –  cityonahill.com.au

Comments

• Sam at 5:34pm on 30/03/11

  “No one fact, in the history of mankind is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, than the fact that Christ died and rose from the dead.”

  Eh? What evidence? Eye witnesses? No. Photographs? No. Physical evidence? No.

  Not even the Bible agrees with itself…

  Maybe it didn’t really happen?

• John Toner at 12:46am on 31/03/11

  Right on Sam.  As it so happens, I happen to be dying of brain cancer and regularly receive notice from well-meaning christians who are “praying for me;” people are who are obviously unaware of the power of prayer, which is approximately zero.

  I usually politely accept their gesture, but occasionally make note of the fact that “nothing fails like prayer.”  All the “evidence” comes from biblical writings of unknown authors many years after the so-called fact.  And among the more vacuous arguments put forth as evidence that there is a god is the simple fact that the majority of humans believe there is. If you’re an American, the number that believe this to be a biblical ‘truth’ soars to some 80 or 90 percent of the population.  Ergo, we can’t all be wrong! 

  Well, yes, you can.  A cursory glance at human history and the near-universal acceptance of gods and their concomitant belief systems reveals that the majority has not only been wrong, and that the holy bible is a conspicuously obvious work of fiction that is not only historically and scientifically wrong, but dangerously, insanely, cruelly, intellectually, scientifically, and factually wrong, and remains so today because it is never corrected to conform to reality.  Consider such disparate biblical “truths” as the once-universal belief which held that the earth is flat and of recent origin; that it is the center of the universe; of slavery; of women’s rights (or more accurately non-rights); minority non-rights; homosexual non-rights; workers non-rights; animal torture and sacrifice; and human torture and sacrifice, which was found to be a particularly suitable treatment for witches, heretics, atheists and apostates.

  Yes, but although the holy bible conspicuously wrong, I am not offended by the wishful thinking of its believers because some things are so stupid they fail to offend: the faithful stupidly pray to god to cure my cancer, seemingly unaware that the god they pray to is the same omnipotent god that “created” my cancer in the first place.  What would they say to that god in their prayer?  “Dear god, please change your mind and admit that the cancer you gave to John in your infinite wisdom was a mistake and make it go away.”

  I like to think that we are today at something of a reality tipping point, with increasing numbers of people embracing critical thinking and its offshoot, the scientific method, rather than the mythological gods of the bible for answers. And I can’t help but wonder what will become of all those magnificent temples built to worship the make-believe gods when the majority finally figures things out. Perhaps make science labs out of them?  Libraries?  Theaters?  Saint Patrick’s hotel and restaurant?  Or how about the Mormon Tabernacle Brewery, where “One Is Not Enough”, and where marriage was once “between a man and a woman, and a woman, and a woman, and a woman,” according to Bishop Mitt Romney.

• Kieran at 8:39am on 31/03/11

  There’s hardly any evidence for Jesus existing at all. The Romans, notoriously meticulous keepers of records, don’t mention him (extremely remarkably so, if any of his alleged miraculous deeds occurred). The gospels were all written 30-80 years after his alleged life, so are hardly eyewitness accounts. We’ve all seen how wrong the Herald Sun can be one day after something happens - how many errors can creep in after thirty years?

• pjb/ at 11:49am on 02/04/11

  The author wrote:

  “In the resurrection we see that this world is not how it should be.”

  Hm. So you’re saying that god is responsible for an imperfect creation?  In
  other words, god says “ok, I’m going to create a world full of evil, unimaginable
  tragedies, pointless deaths, etc etc etc, and sit back and see if these gullible
  humans can figure out the path to eternal, corporeal salvation.  And I’ll give
  them a hint - i’ll send my beloved son, and have him tortured beyond human
  imagining so that these imbecilic humans will have ‘proof’ that there really is
  a god - ME - sitting in this place called heaven and observing the mess that goes
  on below.”  Come on - it truly does not pass the giggle test.  What is so hard about
  seeing the truth of the matter, which is that early man created god - make that gods - millions of them - because of two reasons: 1) they were terrified of death, and 2) they needed some way to explain natural disasters such as storms, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, lightening, thunder, plagues, and on and on.  They were TERRIFIED of these things, and had to come up with a way to explain them.  Enter religion. And from there it spread exponentially, and in the meantime, became the causing of more bloodshed and innocent deaths than ANYTHING in history.

• Guy Mason at 3:22pm on 03/04/11

  Hey guys,

  Thanks for your comments/questions.  Thought it would be good to discuss.  I’ll post first a response to Sam. 

  @Sam - Good questions.  Jesus was all for people exploring evidence.  I believe when it comes to the resurrection their are many sign posts that suggest it’s a historically reliable event.  Jesus is not interested in blind faith. Most Christians (not all) have sought the evidence and found it takes more faith to deny the resurrection than believe.  Here are some quick observations. 

  1. ‘The empty tomb’ (this was a fact recognised by the religious opponents to Jesus - and thus they came up with a theory that his body was stolen.  Had they found the body they could have/would have presented it and ended Christianity - but they never did.

  2. ‘the many witnesses’

  In 1 Corinthians 15, it says that Jesus appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to as more than five hundred brothers, most of whom are still alive. 

  Paul (an eye witness) was inviting anyone with doubts to go and talk with other eye witnesses.  That’s a bold thing to say if its not true. 
  In addition, what’s fascinating about the gospel accounts is that they each state that the first eyewitness to the resurrection were women.  At the time women’s low social status meant that their testimony stood for nothing in a court of law.  There was no possible advantage to the church to recount that all the first witness’ were women.  It could have only undermined the credibility.  The only possible explanation is that its true.

  Now some might say, well maybe people saw Jesus, but maybe they were hallucinating? 

  This is problematic because hallucinating is a private, not a public experience.  Whereas we’re told that Jesus appeared publicly to more than 500 people.  In addition, Jesus appeared at various time, in various locations, hallucinations are generally restricted to individual times and places.  And besides, it wasn’t as if people just saw Jesus….they spoke with Jesus, they spent time with Jesus, they ate with Jesus.

  What about the idea, that it was merely a spirit….not a hullicnation but the spirit of Jesus…people have seen ghosts before, maybe Jesus came back as a ghost…

  The problem with this idea, is that Jesus himself proved this wrong….when one of his disciples was doubting he came to him and said…put your hand in my side…feel me….feel the scars…

  Jesus rose not merely spiritual, but also physically.  He was given a new body.  This by the way is another challenge for sceptics.  The greeks considered all that was phycial to be evil, the goal of life was to escape the body…Jesus raising with a body is far more problematic…

  3. ‘the tomb was not enshrined’ - in those days the tombs of holy men where memorialised.  In the day of Jesus, no less than 50 were enshrined as places of worship.  This was not the case with Jesus.  This was because his followers knew he wasn’t there.

  4. ‘their was no time for myth/folklore’ - the earliest creeds/scriptures speak of his resurrection. 

  5. ‘Incentive’ - we must consider the motive.  If it was made up by the early church - for what end?  The early church got no money, no fame.  In most cases they were ridiculed, beaten, ostracised, and killed.  If we deny the resurrection we have to say they did this knowing they were dying for a lie. 

  6. transformation - we must also note the transformation of the disciples.  At Jesus death - almost all the disciples left Jesus.  Peter denied him three times.  How then do we account for the radical transformation three days later?  Peter is not denying Jesus, but standing and proclaiming the resurrection.

  In addition, this included unlikely converts.  Among them was James …Jesus’ brother….who might of understandably had a few issues believing the idea that his big brother was God…. A lot of us have big brothers who think their God, but we know their not so we don’t worship them right?

  Yet following the resurrection what happened?  James believe he is God…he believes he has conquered sin and death…and he worshipped him…and became a Church pastor…

  Furthermore, Jesus’ own mother, worshipped him as God…. if anyone were to know that Jesus was in fact a sinner a con artist, a liar, Mary a pios and holy women would have been the first to know…and yet she to was so convinced of the deity of her son…..that she worshiped him with all the other followers of the early church…

  And if that were not enough….even some of Jesus’ most fiercest opponents…were convinced by his resurrection…Saul,  a violent persecutor who made a living out of killing Christians…he despised Jesus…yet upon being confronted by the risen Lord Jesus….he was absolutely transformed…he went from being a murder of Christians…to one of the most committed Christian missionaries the world has ever seen…He has written almost half of the letters that appear in the NT, which consistently testifying that Jesus Christ is God…

  BF Westcott says, ‘taking all these evidences together….it is not too much to say that there is no historical incident better or more variously supported than the resurrection of Jesus.’ 

  There is much more to be said…..but thought I’d get the ball rolling. 

  (In addition to reading the New Testament - you might like to read ‘the case for Christ’ (Lee Strobel), or ‘The Dawkins Dellusion (McGrath), or The Reason for God (Tim Keller)

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