A quick look at the evidence should make clear how central this message was. The earliest specific written references to the resurrection are in Paul's letters. In his first letter to the Corinthians, for example, he says that this resurrection faith is "the gospel," the good news. He "received" it when he became a Christian. It is "of first importance. . . that Christ died for our sins. . . . that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day" ( I Cor. 15: 3, 4). But this is not just something Paul has been told. He lists those to whom the risen Christ has appeared, and then says, "He appeared also to me" (v. 8). The experience has been real for Paul himself. This resurrection faith is the Christian faith: "so we preach and so you believed" (v. 11). Put even more strongly, "if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain" (v. 14).
This kind of testimony stands out on almost every page of the New Testament. Christ is risen from the dead! Sing it! Shout it! Let everyone know! Because it changes everything.
We naturally have questions. We want to know as much as we can about such an event. Paul doesn't give us any details. For specifics we have to turn to the concluding chapters in each of the four Gospels ( Mark, ch. 16; Matt., ch. 28; Luke, ch. 24; John, chs. 20; 21), although it is important to remember that the resurrection is presupposed throughout each book. What do we find?
The accounts give overwhelming testimony to the central fact of the resurrection, with differences about some of the details. Any honest person must recognize both these things. On the important matters there is agreement: Christ was not held by the tomb, he was raised from the dead, he appeared to his followers, they became sure of his living presence, and their lives were transformed by him. When you pin down the details you find, naturally enough, less than full agreement. Four writers, long before newspapers, telephones, printed journals, have different recollections and stress different things. They are not sure, for example, just who was at the tomb when the women got there to anoint the body. They are unable to agree as to precisely the kind of body the risen Lord had, so that in some stories he can eat boiled fish with them and in others he can appear and disappear at will.
These facts are pointed out since they often perplex readers of the stories. Why are there even minor disagreements? Let us imagine an unexpected event taking place today.
Two cars collide on the main street of your town in front of the high school.
You see the crash from the grocery store window.
Your cousin sees it from a parked car a block away on the other side of the street.
Members of the tenth-grade class see it from the playground.
An eleventh-grader sees it from a second-story window of the high school.
A policeman sees it from the corner.
A lot of passers-by see the cars just after the collision.
If all these witnesses were haled into court a few months later, any lawyer worth his salt would be suspicious if their stories tallied exactly on every last detail. People simply don't notice things that minutely, or remember them that well. The lawyer would suspect them of getting together to "put one over on him" by concocting a uniform tale.
Now imagine that thirty or fifty years later the witnesses are asked for information about the accident. What would they recall? They would be able to give clear and convincing evidence that there had been an accident. No disagreement there. But on the secondary details, the color of the cars, the speeds at which they were going, and so on, there would be understandable differences.
Now there is a considerable difference between an auto accident and a resurrection from the dead. And there is an element of mystery in the unparalleled character of the resurrection event which can be lost whenever we try to make too neat an analogy to explain it. A resurrection from the dead can never be fully "explained." But over and beyond that, our example can be at least dimly suggestive. When we look again at the resurrection accounts in the Gospels, we can see that the very differences of detail are a tribute to the fact that no one is "putting one over" on us. Four accounts (written by different men in different places in different years) which dovetailed neatly with each other would arouse our suspicions. The very differences underline the integrity of the central claim on which they all agreed-that the cross was not the end, but that God raised Jesus from the dead.
Had the cross been the end, let us remember, the disciples would have dispersed, cynical and disillusioned, and Christianity would never have gotten started. The thing that did get it "started" was the disciples' conviction that God had raised Jesus from the dead, that he was in fellowship with them, and that this world-shaking news had to be proclaimed at whatever cost, since it completely transformed the meaning of life. Since that day, the fundamental note of Christian faith has been not sorrow but joy, not defeat but triumph. And the badge of the Christian has been not a long face but a radiant one.
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