Did Jesus really rise?

March 2005 parish magazine Did Jesus Rise? Must we be held to the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ? Is it not enough to describe the Easter event as a wonderful metaphor? Certainly there are books written that put forward such theories. With only 10 minutes thought we realise that we are in dreamland if we think like that. Just think!

Here are 12 men whose world has ended. One of them is already dead. Another has publicly denied that he had ever met Jesus. Yet another takes the mother of the crucified leader home to look after her. It looks like an obvious end-of-story. One of the group had forecast disaster all along (John 11:16).

It only takes the confusion of a night arrest to cause the 12 to disintegrate completely (Matthew 26:56). What caused them to come together again so that their enemies would describe them as "these men who have turned the world upside down" (Acts 17:6)? A metaphor? Beautiful picture language? As well as the empty tomb, there are the changed disciples that have to be explained.

We hear from time to time of someone who has come back from a near-death experience, even after being nailed down in a coffin! But how long does the excitement last? I can remember such an event. A man had "died", and then made the comeback. It just squeezed into the BBC World at One news programme. ! never saw it in any paper. And the man's name? I soon forgot it.

If Jesus Christ had not clearly - and unequivocally - been raised bodily as the permanent conqueror of death on behalf of the human race, we would never have heard of him. The demoralised movement would have fizzled out. For a while, memories of a carpenter-healer would have persisted around Galilee; then "The Jesus Event" would have ended up like The Theudas Event (Acts 5.36), washed over like a child's sandcastle on the beach by the tides of history.

Look at 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, where, in a single unbroken sentence, Christ is the subject of four verbs: He died, was buried, was raised, and appeared. What was raised was what was buried? Do the metaphor theorists think Jesus actually died? Yes. Was buried? Sure. Was raised on the third day. No - that's metaphorical. Appeared? No, that's metaphorical too. So within a single sentence, Paul switches from factual language to metaphorical language?

From The Top 100 Questions - biblical answers to popular questions by Richard Bewes (Christian Focus)

Did Jesus Really Rise? I wonder what other readers, particularly townsfolk, thought about Did Jesus Rise? (by Richard Bewes) in the March issue of [the Leatherhead Parish Magazine].

Like Alice in Through the Looking Glass, I'm afraid I just can't believe "six impossible things before breakfast". Yet, I am strangely drawn to the figure of Jesus - the man who taught his followers to love others (even enemies) as themselves - and who paid the ultimate price for that love.

I truly believe that Jesus showed us how to "have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10). As for impossible things, I do indeed take those as metaphor - and poetry!

For many years I kept my scepticism to myself though, happily, I have now found others of like disposition - including many ministers and one or two bishops. They can be found through networks such as Sea of Faith and the Progressive Christian Network. Thanks to these new friends, I have learned that "the truth that sets you free" lies not in believing in Jesus as "fact" but in responding to Jesus with love (John 8:31-32). For me, Jesus is simply a kind of metaphor for love - the ultimate exemplar of "love in action" or the "personification of love"'.

There are even one or two churches, which generously welcome people like me. One such church in Norfolk bravely appointed an openly "sceptical" vicar some years ago - and it has grown! That church welcomes all with a Notice declaring: "This is an Open and Affirming Church" and giving the following assurances (amongst others):
- You are welcome whatever your beliefs, even if you find organised religion irrelevant.
- You are welcome as an equal partner, and we look forward to the ideas and experiences that you can bring.
- We think that the way we treat one another is more important than the doctrines we hold.
- We think that religion must be concemed with injustice and suffering, and see ourselves as a community helping to build a better world, bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers.

So how do members of St Mary and St Nicholas want townsfolk to see their Parish Church? As a club for people who seem to believe impossible things ? Or as "An Open and Affirming Church" - rooted in love ?

Oh, did Jesus really rise? Of course He did! That's the very point of the story - love conquers all. Our "faith" is simply "belief in love". Only a story? Yes. The greatest ever told. The story of life eternal. Our story! Paul Hamilton (01372 379028)

Please send any contribution you would like to make to this discussion to the Parish Magazine Editor for publication, anonymously if you prefer. Malcolm Clark, 2 Howard Close, Leatherhead, Surrey KT22 8PH tel 01372 386355 malcolm.clarkATukgateway.net (replace AT with @ before sending)

from the May 2005 magazine
Did Jesus Really Rise?
I found Paul Hamilton s article about "Did Jesus really rise?" very interesting and also comforting to feel that others have real doubts about certain miraculous occurrences. I am sure he is right in thinking that far and away the most important thing for all Christians is to respond to Jesus with love and to try to live our lives on that basis, whatever our doubts or convictions may be.

I am sure that all members of our church want others to see us as an "open and affirming church" (whatever that implies!) rather than a club for people to believe impossible things. Faith is surely a journey and we are all at different stages on the journey. We should welcome anyone at any stage on the journey - even if they have not yet actually set out! Linda Heath

from the May 2005 magazine
Faith, Hope and Love
In answer to Paul Hamilton's question in the April Magazine, who would not agree that we want our Church to be "rooted in love"? St Paul tells us that "Love is the greatest", but if we read his description of love in I Corinthians 13 we find that this is not as simple as it sounds: while some of the things we may think of as love are not mentioned, his summing up, "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things; love never ends", is more than daunting.

Some of us find that we cannot even start unless we believe that Jesus showed God's love for us, and that he says, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another". It may be hard to believe that God loves us when we see how wayward and horrible the human race can be, but when we are faced by the horrors that are still being perpetrated in the world, or tragedy in our own lives, we need the hope and the trust that only He can give us. Metaphors and poetry can help, but they are not enough.

If we can even begin to learn to love as Jesus loves us we shall indeed become open and affirming, for, as St. Paul says, "love is not arrogant or rude". How much we all need this grace. Christine Bryant

from the May 2005 magazine
Did Jesus Really Rise?
In the March magazine, Richard Bewes claimed real physical resurrection for Jesus, with which Paul Hamilton disagreed in the April issue. I go along with what Paul Hamilton says except in one respect; I am prepared to allow that the apparently impossible may have happened. I cannot believe because someone says I should, but neither can I reject something because it does not seem possible.

If I had lived 200 years ago I would not have believed in the existence of electricity or the possibility of cars, radio, television, computers or aeroplanes. Who knows what present impossibility will be seen as normal 200 years hence?

We are surrounded by mystery, enigma and the apparently impossible. Humankind is not omniscient, there are many things we do not know or cannot explain. Life itself looks to be impossible; it sprang, no one knows how, from inanimate matter millions of years ago. Darwin explained how life developed but not how it started; that is still a mystery. We do not even fully understand how our own bodies work. Thousands of chemical, physical and electrical processes occur in our bodies daily, more or less without mishap, for many years, sometimes for more than 100 years. Although that would appear to be beyond possibility we know it does happen, our existence proves it. The apparently impossible does happen.

The universe in which we exist is said to be expanding, but into what, or into where, is it expanding? It all started, scientists say, with a "big bang". School science tells us that energy is neither created nor destroyed; that being so, from where did all the energy come for that unimaginably gigantic bang? Scientists say the motion of the stars and galaxies can only be accounted for by the existence of "dark matter" - stuff that has mass but cannot be seen in the way that ordinary matter can be seen. As much as 90% of the universe consists of "dark matter"; no one knows what it is, its presence is only inferred by observation of the way stars move.

The resurrection might be like that. Almost everyone accepts that Jesus did exist and was crucified because there is, we are told, enough independent evidence of it. The Gospels relate how bewildered and afraid the disciples were following Jesus crucifixion, meeting behind locked doors. Peter and a few others returned to their fishing (John 21 v 3).

Something changed twelve ordinary disciples into eleven extraordinary Apostles. And Judas was suddenly so overcome with remorse that he hanged himself. Gamaliel (Acts 5 v 38, 39) cautioned the Council and the Senate of the Jews that if the infant Church was only the idea of a few men it would soon fizzle out as others had done.

However, if God had inspired the Church it would flourish. It did flourish and is doing so yet in the world as a whole, even if not in England at the moment. We can infer that something amazing must have happened to those frightened Apostles to enable them to establish the Church.

What happened is a mystery about which the Gospels are not clear. Mary mistook the risen Jesus for the gardener; those on the road to Emmaus failed to recognise Him; He was able to pass through locked doors etc. I do not know what happened but it has to have been more real than metaphor. I am content to call it resurrection, although I do not know what I mean, exactly, in saying that. Editor, Malcolm Clark