If there’s no resurrection, nothing else makes sense. The demands of holiness, the call to turn the other cheek, the yearning for something greater than this life has to offer — none of it makes any sense. The sinless life, astonishing teaching, unbelievable miracles, gruesome death — none of it makes any sense.
We’re open to debate about Jesus. Was He a wise and moral teacher or one of many prophets sent from God? Was He a lunatic or criminally insane? Was He consumed with a messiah complex? Everyone can have an opinion, and everyone’s opinion is equally valid.
Unless there’s a resurrection.
In fact, if there’s no resurrection, the earliest disciples had it right. Go home. Go fishing. Go back to doing whatever it was you were doing before. Let’s call it a day. Close the book. Mourn for a little while the dream you had of things being different. Then eat, drink and be merry. Go ahead and slap your boss if he’s bothering you. Run your credit card debt up as high as they’ll let you. Steal something. Give in to every whim and indulge every desire.
Unless there’s a resurrection.
Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, today’s most famous trio of atheists, are or were right. Religion ought to be outlawed. It’s nothing but a source of misery and ignorance. We’re either the most lame-brained gullible fools, or we’re the victims of the most carefully guarded conspiracy theory ever concocted. They’re right in saying religious people have something desperately wrong with us, we’re sick and ought to be either cured or eradicated altogether.
Unless there’s a resurrection.
All the promises, all the laws, all the waiting, all the discipline — it’s all a bunch of nonsense, they’re all just silly manmade rituals designed to keep people in their place. Keeping clean, maintaining your purity, abstinence, fasting, self-control — these are just some humanly devised method of preserving order in society.
Unless there’s a resurrection.
If there’s no resurrection, what in the world are we doing? We’re the most nitwitted people on the planet. Life is what you make it. It’s every man for himself. It’s dog-eat-dog out there. You get what you deserve, and you better do unto others before they have a chance to do unto you. Be nice to those who will repay you. Forgive with strings attached. Take care of Numero Uno, and climb that corporate ladder by hook or by crook, stepping on whomever you have to in order to get that brass ring (whatever that is). Whoever dies with the most toys wins.
Unless there’s a resurrection.
Let’s be clear about this. We’re not talking about a metaphorical, allegorical, symbolic resurrection here. We’re talking a real-life, flesh-and-blood body that used to be dead but is now upright and walking and talking and conscious. Resurrection.
Without that, the life of Jesus doesn’t make any sense. And neither does yours. It may be an interesting read for a while, but the ending will be terrible. You die. That’s all. Your existence was nothing in the grand scheme of things. You will eventually be forgotten by history. Life is utterly meaningless.
Unless there’s a resurrection.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, Your death and resurrection are the foundation of my faith, the source of my meaning, hope and purpose, the wellspring of my salvation, the assurance of Your truth and the basis of my eternal life with You. Life without the resurrection would be a brief episode between nonexistence and oblivion. There would be no long-term, abiding, transcendent hope. Human life and history would be a tragedy of epic proportions. Without Your resurrection, Your life would have been a terrible waste of extraordinary human potential. We would still be in our sins and there would be no real hope as we hurtle toward bodily decay and death. But thanks be to God that You were declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead through the power of the Holy Spirit.
In Jesus’s name, Amen
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