Click to hide HTML preview
þÿ
reflections on Resurrection Sunday, March 31, 2002
In an age of catastrophe, war and terror, who
Thankfully, there's both good internal and
can believe in a God who remains aloof?
external evidence for accepting the earliest
Without the cross and empty tomb of Jesus, I
Christian sources as trustworthy. The Gospel
would find it much more difficult if not
writers benefit us with four digests of Jesus'
impossible to believe in the biblical God.
life and times. Josephus and others acknow -
ledge and confirm key factors. Whenever our
It's considered a mistake for my Muslim
contemporaries allow these ancient testimo-
friend to doubt the mercy of Allah. Yet Jesus
nies fair footing, Jesus still demonstrates his
cries at his extremity, "My God, my God, why
loving leadership. Some of the most unlikely
have you forsaken me?" Even in his resur-
moderns have come around to his way of
rected flesh he bears the marks that tangibly
thinking and living, even at the risk of
demonstrate the mercy of the Almighty.
seeming pre-modern. (C.S. Lewis called
Abraham's sworn Shield allowed himself to
himself a "dinosaur," though his faith and
be disgraced. At the cross, God showed
apologetic were significantly modern.)
himself unashamed to love the unlovely, to
satisfy himself by sacrificing himself to
Others -- modern, post-modern or whatnot
rescue the undeserving.
-- don't care as much about the basis of
Christians' truth claims as about the function
Some object to the "slaughterhouse religion"
of those claims. "If the Jesus story (whatever
in Christians' obsession with the bloody
its historical value) gives you a lift, that's
details of Jesus' martyrdom. Was it really
great. If it gives you cause to mess with my
necessary? Couldn't God come up with a
plans, it's hate." Suspicion of subtexts runs
solution to the human dilemma that didn't
higher than ever. The cure often starts with
involve such gruesome suffering? But which
experiencing the presence and power of God
God do we have in mind? The one revealed in
through a faithful Christian community,
the real world of the Bible, or a tame deity of
which leads at some point to an examination
our own imagination? And we underestimate
of its origins.
the cost of reconstituting genuinely human
life in the midst of our warping existence.
As always, believers long to live out an
embodied apologetic for the faith while
Modern people considering Jesus usually
directing others to the (literally) incredible
want to examine the historical evidence.
news of the Suffering God revealed so clearly
Most Jesus-followers too want to know the
and finally by Jesus. He does not triumph by
evidence for or against Jesus' existence,
bombs or market forces. He relentlessly and
teachings, trial, death and resurrection. Some
disarmingly gives his life away to those who
Christians may dismiss scholarship, but if all
find they can finally trust him and his cross-
truth is God's truth we have no excuse for
work once and for all.
skipping our hom ework.
John Egleston
Peoria, Illinois
Click to see HTML preview
