After he was crucified, Jesus appeared alive first to the women who had come to attend his dead body and then to the other disciples. Jesus, who had turned their ideas of a messiah upside down, now shook up their ideas of death. In the 40 days Jesus appeared to his disciples after the resurrection, I suspect there was a lot of rethinking about this kingdom of God Jesus talked about.
What happens after the resurrection? Are we supposed to wait for the second coming or is this a call to participate in God's work now? What makes the resurrection so key to our Christian faith?
Discuss.
Here’s some more fodder for conversation: I know there are some folks have trouble believing the resurrection actually happened. It’s hard for them to get beyond medical science, biology, and experience, which tells us that someone who was truly dead doesn't just rise up and become alive again. The key question for me isn't whether it happened but what does it mean to those of us who believe it happened.
What do we do about the resurrection? How do we respond to what seems impossible unless you believe nothing is impossible with God? The early church took Jesus’ teachings on the kingdom of God to heart as they gathered in fellowship and grew (Acts 2-4). But they didn’t really begin fulfilling Jesus’ call to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28) until they were persecuted and scattered (Acts 8). And, even then, they struggled to recognize that, when Jesus said “all nations,” that included the Gentiles as well as Jews (Acts 10-11, 15). It's evident that the early disciples were still learning what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God. Even today, we’re still learning and still debating what it means to be a disciple of a risen Lord.
Some Christians distill the gospel down to accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior and waiting for the second coming to set things straight. For them, everything in the Bible points solely to Jesus’ act of salvation and emphasis on anything else detracts from that. The emphasis is on being prepared (holy, moral) for the second coming. Other Christians see it as a call to action – to reach out to others and do whatever we can to correct injustices in the world. Their emphasis is on continuing Jesus' ministry on earth. Even among those who discount the resurrection, some believe Jesus set an example for living.
In Christian Piatt's book Banned Questions About Jesus, Mark Van Steenwyk contrasts believing Jesus was a good teacher while discounting the resurrection with believing in the resurrection but minimizing Jesus’ life and teachings:
“Jesus had a lot to say about how to live in the here and now. Without the resurrection, we’d be left with a deeply challenging way to live our lives; a way that calls us to love our enemies, pursue justice, and seek peace. But we’d labor not knowing if we will be vindicated in our struggle. We’d go through life feeling the weight of our sins and the injustices of the world. That would be hard, but we could do far worse.
“It would be worse for us to gain hope in the resurrection of Jesus and use it as an excuse for inaction. Because Jesus has defeated death, he is the true Lord of the whole world. Therefore we, his followers, have a job to do; we must act as his heralds, announcing his lordship to the entire world. Jesus is raised, therefore God’s new world has begun, and therefore we are invited to be not only beneficiaries of that new world but participants in making it happen.” [p. 35]
Elsewhere in the book, R.M. Keelan Downton writes:
“There is something important in the idea that Jesus came for me, but in a culture that’s already so focused on ‘me,’ we probably need a little more focus on Jesus as the Messiah or Christ who came to challenge the apparent order of the world and invite us to join in the process of revealing the true order of the world by proclaiming and embodying it.” [p. 11]
How does the resurrection shape your faith? How does it frame our call as Christians? Is the resurrection solely about God’s triumph over sin and death or does it include an invitation to participate in Jesus’ ministry on earth now? Where do we get the concept that we’re supposed to wait for the second coming for God to wipe the slate of this world clean?
I saw a couple of folks put this on their Facebook page:
ReplyDelete"Sometimes I want to ask God why He allows poverty, famine and injustice in the world when he could do something about it, but I'm afraid He just might ask me the same question."
That's the kind of thing I believe Van Steenwyk is talking about when he says we shouldn't use the hope of resurrection as an excuse for inaction. Just because we know it's God's grace and not our works that give us hope doesn't excuse us from reaching out to those in need (as Jesus did).
If you are looking for something on whether the resurrection actually occurred and why it is key to Christian faith, here's a link to a post on the Jesus Creed blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/04/09/the-reality-of-the-resurrection-rjs/
It includes a reference to Tim Keller’s book "The Reason for God" and to some videos by N.T. Wright on why the resurrection matters.
To me, the resurrection is both about God’s power over death and a call to live out the gospel now. In Matt 28:20, the resurrected Jesus tells the disciples to "observe everything I have commanded you”. Much of what He commanded them had to do with healing the sick, feeding the hungry, etc. Then in Mark 16:15-18, the resurrected Jesus tells them to, among other things, lay hands on and heal the sick. The strongest evidence to me, though is in John 21:15,16, and 17 where the resurrected Jesus tells Peter at the end of each verse respectively, to “Feed my lambs”, “Shepherd my sheep” and “Feed my sheep”.
ReplyDeleteAs for the second coming, the early church and certainly the apostle Paul were expecting the second coming soon. Of course, if you had seen the resurrection or had an experience like Paul’s, along with their Jewish background and with the Romans still opressing you, an immediate second coming would seem much more likely. 2,000 years later we have a different perspective. Although some Christians make a big deal out of the second coming, just as a practical matter, I don’t. There’s not much I can do about the second coming; I can do everything about trying to live out the gospel now.
I think that the resurrection is the central event in Christianity. It is the one thing that if it is true, it removes all doubt of Jesus’ divinity. Otherwise, the miracles He performed could be written off as happenstance or tricks and Jesus could be considered just another one of history’s finest wise men, teachers, and leaders.
ReplyDeleteTo me, in all of apologetics, the resurrection is one of the most easily defensible aspects of Christianity. Keller and Wright quite effectively lay out the reasoning as you have pointed out. That question about why God allows poverty, famine and injustice in the world when he could do something about it, is however, the toughest question in apologetics that I know of. We’ve discussed it on this blog before, and I’ve personally resolved it, but convincing others is difficult.
I think that Mark Van Steenwyk quoted above has missed the point. It’s not either/or believe in the resurrection or do good things. We’re supposed to love God AND love our neighbor. One flows logically from the other, but the first and according to Jesus, the most important thing is to love God. I strongly disagree with him that you could do worse than doing good but not believe in the resurrection. If you don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus then how could you truly love God? However, I doubt that Van Steenwyk would debate the criticality of doing both, so maybe our disagreement isn’t so big.
ReplyDeleteI think he has more of an issue with those who claim the hope of the resurrection and then use it as an excuse to do nothing in the face of current injustices and suffering of others. He views Jesus resurrection as initiating God's new world and that is an invitation for us to participate in it, not just sit back and reap the benefits of it. From what little I've read of him (all in Christian Piatt's Banned Questions books), I'd say that he believes that loving others is a logical reaction to loving God (or it could be that I'm reading my own bias into that).
DeleteYour question "If you don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus then how could you truly love God?" has me thinking. First off, maybe that should be a question for discussion all on it's own (not this week because I have to get the topic in for the bulletin early, but maybe next week). A lot of questions and thoughts bouncing around in my head on that right now. More later.