The Real Challenge of Easter
Good Friday confronts us with the horrors of the cross as we see an innocent man die. The injustice of Jesus’ trial and execution is plain to see. This means that even for those who don’t accept the message of Christianity, there can still be recognition – or even admiration – for the love demonstrated on the cross: ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (John 15:13).
Easter Sunday confronts us with something else that is far more difficult to comprehend: ‘On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.’ (Luke 24:1-3). That Sunday morning gives us a tomb without a body; a dead person no longer where he was left.
Explanations
All sorts of explanations have been offered to explain why the tomb was empty. Maybe the body was stolen? Maybe the cool air of the tomb revived Jesus? Maybe He didn’t really die? Maybe the women went back to the wrong tomb? None of these explanations can withstand genuine scrutiny. The story of Jesus’ suffering and death is too well attested, and the impact on His followers too transformational to be dismissed. Much more could be said but if you want to read more, then a good starting point is Lee Strobel’s book ‘The Case for Christ’.
The need for people to invent a plethora of sketchy explanations highlights an underlying need to avoid the truth. Typically in our culture, while the self-sacrificial, unjust death of Jesus can be understood to some degree (think of the sacrifice in war of the few to save the many), the idea of a person rising from the dead is simply incomprehensible and unacceptable to a rational way of thinking. It also highlights that in our rationalistic, humanistic culture we have no room for the God of the Bible.
Beyond credibility
The apostle Paul draws attention to this minimising of God. When on trial for his faith he talked about the resurrected Jesus, and stated it this way in his defence to King Agrippa, ‘Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?’ (Acts 26:8). It’s an excellent question and he hits the nail on the head!
What if we believed in an all-powerful God who created the universe out of nothing?
What if we believed in a miracle-working God who is able to override the laws of nature?
What if we believed in a living and active God who is constantly working out His sovereign purposes?
What if we believed in an all-sufficient God who sustains all things by His powerful word?
Surely if we believed in that sort of God Him giving life to a dead person would be no trouble! For that sort of God even death itself is not powerful enough to thwart His plans. For that sort of God it is not incredible that He raises the dead!
Paul’s assertion is that if the God of the Bible exists then it shouldn’t be any surprise that He can make a dead person live. This is the real challenge of Easter: Is your God the God of the Bible? If He is then it will not appear incredible that He raised Jesus from the dead and the tomb was empty. This, in turn, will lead to an acceptance that each of us needs a Saviour who is able to conquer sin and death and that we can find such a person in the perfect Son of God, the crucified and resurrected man Jesus Christ. If His tomb is empty then we have hope!
