An Easter Message
The Reverend Ross Hathway considers the evidence for the Resurrection
Have you seen the robotic Easter Bunny that is currently being advertised? I wonder how long it will be before we see a dog try to eat one on YouTube?
The word "Easter" is believed to come from the word "Eastre", which is the Anglo-Saxon name for the Teutonic (pre-Germanic) goddess of Spring and fertility. Her festival was celebrated on the day of the spring equinox. Many of the traditions used in her worship survive to this day. The Easter Bunny, a symbol of fertility, the Easter egg, painted with bright colours to represent the sunlight of spring, and the giving of baskets filled with treats are just a few of the traditions that survive.
As with other Christian festivals that took over pagan celebrations the consequences are a ‘mixed bag’. Not wanting to be an Aussie ‘wowser’ [ definition: Australian, informal: a puritanical or censorious person] I am convinced that the pagan ‘flummery’ obscures the beauty, profundity and wonder of the greatest event in history.
In my younger days I officiated at a wedding and the groom was a criminal barrister.
I distinctly remember chatting to the bride and groom in the local pub after the wedding practise. I was amazed to find that he had read the four Gospel accounts of the Resurrection of Christ. More, he said these four descriptions resonated with his experience of court witnesses. Four different perspectives of what had taken place - not all exactly the same - like the testimony of eye witnesses at a set of traffic lights after a collision. When I asked him if he therefore believed the Resurrection of Christ was true, he quickly changed the subject. Was it that the implications were too confronting for him? I thought it imprudent to ask further. He did say that he expected his body would be of the biosphere after he died. The atmosphere went downhill from there, in spite of the beer!
Mind and heart. After all that is what we are.
I love poetry and good literature, but I find so much of it has a deep sense of futility. Maybe it sells better like bad news!
The book of Ecclesiastes in the Old testament takes this attitude to task.
“God has made everything beautiful in its own time and he has also set eternity in the hearts of men and women, but they cannot begin to fathom what God has done from beginning to end”. Ecclesiastes 3:11.
Elsewhere King Hezekiah voiced one of the great cries of the human heart. Is everything simply going to fade and go to waste? Is death the end?
(Hezekiah) “In the prime of my life must I go through the gates of death and be robbed of the rest of my years? For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise. The living, the living – they praise you as I am doing today”. Isaiah 38:10,18. (Ross’ note- there has to be more).
Then there is classical Greek: From Hippolytus on Euripides, (Greek Playwright C5 BC).
'...and so we are sick for life, and cling
on earth to this nameless and shining thing.
For other life is a fountain sealed,
And the deeps below us are unrevealed
And we drift on legends for ever',
Atheist philosopher of the last century. Bertrand Russell,
'There is darkness without and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendour no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment and then nothing.'
In stark contrast the Apostle Paul 450 years after Euripides and 1900 before Russell (about 57 AD-24 years after Christ’s resurrection) wrote with the certainty of one who had met the risen Christ.
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people the most to be pitied. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:16-19).
I admit, that we would not be human if we were not sometimes assailed by fear of death and uncertainty of what is beyond.
But then I find that I cling not so much to Paul's powerful rhetoric, but to the picture of Jesus, raised from the dead and recognisably himself. Without wanting to go too far down a rabbit hole, the Trinity of God and the interrelationship of the universe makes absolute sense to me.
The previously mentioned King Hezekiah did not have our certainty. But, when he did reach heaven as a faithful servant of the living God, how great must have been his joy and surprise to join in the praises of his Saviour. We find our deepest joy in praising our maker and inviting others to join us. This is what I’m inviting my readers to do.
And yet of all Christian beliefs with which atheists disagree, the one that seems to generate real and deep rage is the belief in eternal life - the offer of pie in the sky by and by - and the corollary belief that the eternal life that some choose to believe is a most miserable one (check out the writings of Richard Dawkins. Daniel Dennet et al).
I finish with a simple summary to support this.
A tomb with a view. Are you curious? Examination of the Gospels gives good grounds. E.g. Why were the grave clothes folded & neatly left behind?
What about the guards? They knew that failure in their duty to keep the tomb sealed would cost them their lives and it did.
The witnesses. There is no butterfly without an empty cocoon, but there is more to a butterfly than an empty cocoon. Some disciples believed on the evidence of the empty tomb, others only when they saw Christ alive. The witnesses had nothing to gain materially from claiming Christ was risen from the tomb.
Changed lives. The implications of the resurrection seal the meaning of the cross. If there is no punishment for our rebellion against our Creator who gives us life, then Christ did not have to die on the Cross as a substitute for our sins. But again, the lives of the disciples and many more were changed. Nothing except the living Christ can explain these things. E.g. Peter moved from denial to boldly proclaiming Christ. He endured punishments and beatings even death
Conclusion. No cross without the resurrection.
If you wish to follow this further then I suggest this blog.