Volume 27, No. 13                                                       
March 31, 2002

Rising to the Challenge

   When it comes to the resurrection, skeptics and believers agree on one thing:   the tomb of Jesus is an empty symbol.

   For Christians, the vacant venue of God’s final victory is a stirring emblem of his love and power.  It confirms the conquest of sin, death and despair, giving us rock-solid evidence that we, too, will stage a glorious comeback from the grip of the grave.

   But when unbelievers hear such talk of bodily resurrection, it leaves them as cold as a corpse.  For them, the tomb is empty all right -- empty of meaning, if we insist on making a miracle out of a story that, to them, is fable or sheer fabrication.   And not all the skeptics are outside the church.  To the many Christians today who don’t believe in miracles, the resurrection of Jesus is entirely symbolic.

   Anglican bishop Richard Holloway, the former leader of Scotland’s Episcopal Church, thinks it’s naive to believe God wants a personal relationship with his creatures.  The radical cleric doesn’t believe in supernatural events, either, and that includes the resurrection.  In an interview with Associated Press, Holloway said the most important thing about the Easter story was not Jesus, but the way his followers deserted him then “somewhere found the courage to proclaim the meaning of his life.”  

   Holloway believes the resurrection is simply a sign of “the human possibility of transformation”, a symbol of how individuals or entire societies can change.  Redefining the resurrection as “the refusal to be imprisoned any longer by history”, or situations of powerlessness, the bishop says the Easter message is best represented by the victory over South African apartheid, or the gains made by the American civil rights movement.  In other words, the bishop believes the resurrection isn’t about coming back, it’s about going forward, because Jesus stayed down and stayed dead.  The goal is progress, not paradise, so this world is the be all and – more importantly – the end all.

   Without ever saying the words, many of us think like that.  Or we live like that.  We act like Jesus is still safely tucked away where He can’t make waves, or demands.  Then crisis comes.  When helplessness and heartache set in, we tenders of the new tomb are the first to roll away the stone, pleading with Jesus to come to life – our life.

   But He’s not where we left him.  Just as Satan at the sepulcher took his best shot and came up empty, our neglect and arrogance can’t keep Jesus down.  

   Good thing, too, because all that talk of moral and social progress is no comfort in the critical care unit;  no consolation at the funeral home.  Despite what bishop Holloway says, it’s impossible for followers of Christ to “proclaim the meaning of his life” without proclaiming the meaning of his death, which God used to take away our sin, open the gates of grace, and demonstrate that if His Son could rise from the dead, so could we.  “And if Christ wasn’t raised,” says Paul, “then all our preaching is useless, and so is your trust in God.  If we’ve hope in Christ only for this life, we’re the most miserable people in the world.” (1 Corinthians 15:14, 19).  

   But if the resurrection truly is our guarantee God will one day rob our graves, we can have it all -- transformation and transfiguration.  We can live in the Spirit’s power, careful not to rebury Jesus in crypts of our own making.  So, on one level, we agree with the skeptics on the issue of the Easter tomb.  Leave Jesus out of it.

By Rick Gamble, published in Cross Current, the weekly newsletter of the Followers of Christ congregation in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.  Reprint at will in not-for-profit publications.