John H Armstrong

Resurrection Myths and Resurrection Reality

Since the first century people have developed various explanations (myths) to explain away the historical credibility of the empty tomb on that first Easter morning. These theories, or myths, include:

1. The Swoon Theory

Jesus didn't really die, but only swooned and then recovered in the cool tomb.

2. The No Burial Theory

Jesus wasn't really buried but placed in a common grave and his body was later recovered.

3. The Hallucination Theory

Scores, if not hundreds, of people thought they saw him in his resurrected state but they all hallucinated.

4. The Telepathy Theory

People had mental images of the Christ but he did not really arise.

5. The Seance Theory

People experienced an incorporeal and ephemeral appearance but not a bodily resurrection.

6. The Mistaken Identity Theory

Someone besides Jesus appeared impersonating him.

But none of these can explain how cowards became heroes, or how the early church could prosper and grow and the ancient world be eventually turned upside down by the story of a resurrected messiah.

What really happened to Jesus' body?

The best answer non-Christians have offered is the same one offered by the Jewish authorities in the first century. It is recorded for us in Matthew 28:11-15. We can call it "The Theft Theory." Jesus' body was stolen and thus the resurrection was really a hoax.

In the end this theory is itself plainly a myth since the true Jewish leaders among the Sanhedrin could have produced a body and proven the hoax had they desired to prove their point. Further, the basic idea itself is severely flawed because these men (and women) who would have stolen Jesus' body were in no state of mind to pull this off. They were filled with fear, scattered quite widely and completely doubtful. And how improbable it would have been for all the Roman guards to have slept through an event of such major proportions. And their story, cooked up on the basis of politics and a bride, is rooted in the claim that they slept through all these events.

No, He is risen! He is risen indeed. Our faith is grounded in the testimony not only of the witnesses but in the sure experience of how we expect normal people to respond if Jesus had really risen. It not only takes faith not to believe the biblical account it takes a considerable bias against all common sense and human behavior as we know it.

This is the triumphant day of the Church. We must and will always come back here to root everything we preach and believe in the real stuff of human history. 

Christmas is About Hope for the Whole World

Political columnist and author E. J. Dionne, Jr., who writes for the Washington Post and The New Republic, is not a political writer I always agree with on a number of social issues, at least when it comes to the particular solutions he offers. At the same Dionne sometimes gets the big picture of things in an incredibly clear way. His editorial posting today, Christmas Day 2007, is titled: “The Radical Meaning of Christmas." (The word "radical" is often overused or misused but in this case Dionne is quite right.)

Like E. J. Dionne, Jr., I fear that we have lost “the radical meaning” of the Incarnation in the way we celebrate this season, with all its festivities and fun, and in the way the Church has gone about buying into all this fluff. Without a proper understanding of the birth of Christ the genuinely revolutionary aspect of hope that flooded the world on the day Christ as born is entirely lost on people.

Dionne writes:

Even more than faith and love, I think, hope is closest to the heart of the Christmas story. In an anthropological sense, Christmas celebrates new life and birth, a theme that crosses cultures and traditions. This sense of Christmas has a beauty all its own and embodies a nearly universal quest for renewal.

But in the theological sense as understood by Christians, the holiday is even more radical.

Christianity--drawing on the Jewish scriptures, particularly Isaiah--revolutionized the concept of the divine by putting aside deities who dominated humanity in favor of a God who entered the world in human form.

Thus were authoritarian conceptions swept away in favor of a loving God sympathetic to creation and empathetic toward human suffering. Think about the line from John's Gospel: "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." John was not some 1960s hippie. He was offering something very new and important, a trustworthy God who inspired hope.

I'm not trying to convert anyone here, but I do want to suggest that Christmas might help us see that both Christianity and Judaism are fundamentally progressive traditions. I do not use "progressive" in a narrow political sense. All great religious traditions are, in some ways and necessarily, both progressive and conservative.

But it's quite clear that the Christmas, Easter and Exodus stories are about freedom and liberation. All promise that the distance between God and humanity can be overcome, that deliverance is possible.

Dionne is clearly correct to assert that Christianity and Judaism swept away “authoritarian concepts in favor of a loving God sympathetic to creation and empathetic toward human suffering.” This is the radical Good News. And this changed the entire concept of religion, at least in the West, and thus its wider role in the entire world. The fact that Christians have messed this up a great deal, almost as often as they have gotten it right, doesn’t fundamentally alter the reality itself.

Dionne further writes:
 
The Christian message is frequently drained of this larger meaning and interpreted, often by Christians themselves, as being solely or primarily about personal salvation. But this sells the tradition short.

Last month, Pope Benedict XVI issued a fascinating encyclical on the idea of Christian hope in which he explicitly disputed the idea of "the Christian project as a selfish search for salvation which rejects the idea of serving others." Drawing on the theologian Henri de Lubac, Benedict argued that "salvation has always been considered a 'social' reality."

German theologian Jurgen Moltmann concludes that: "The kingdom of peace comes through a child and liberation is bestowed on the people who become as children: disarmingly defenseless, disarming through their defenselessness, and making others defenseless because they themselves are so disarming."

One of the most pressing issues of our time is for conservative and evangelical Christians to understand that Christian salvation really is a “social reality.” What does the faith that we have received from the Incarnate Christ mean for the world, for our culture, and for civilization at large? Because we have done such a bad job of explaining all of this in the past one hundred or so years does not excuse serious effort on our part to correct this faulty understanding in the years ahead. We are only being faithful to the true spirit and meaning of Christmas if we act in this manner.

Remember What Christmas Is All About

A friend forwarded me one of those kinds of emails that you see now and then, especially at this time of the year, and I thought it would be worth sharing on this blog spot since it has so much correspondence with my earlier blog on Christmas.

My Dear Children,

It has come to my attention that many you are upset that folks are taking my name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate my birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival, although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate my birth, just GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Now, having said that let me go on. If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santa's and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all my followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can remember me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching, explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks should be. If you have forgotten that one, look up John 15: 1 - 8.

If you want to give me a present in remembrance of my birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it:

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way my birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing George complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of my birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.

5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless?  Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile; it could make the difference.

7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary—especially one who takes my love and Good News to those who have never heard my name.

9. Here's a good one. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them, buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally, if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in my presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of mine.

Don't forget; I am God and can take care of myself. Just love me and do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and do remember,

I love you,

Jesus

Who is Jesus the Christ?

You would think that the primary question before people during this season of the year would be: "Who is Jesus of Nazareth?" Not so. For many Christians the battle right now is all about saving the culture from giving up the Christmas greetings once used in all our stores. This business of keeping Jesus linked with commerce is big news the past few Christmas seasons.

I almost never watch Bill O'Reilly but I caught a segment last night on the "Christmas Culture Wars." What a total waste of time this debate is in the end. I was bothering my wife throughout by yelling at the television more than a few times. "What difference does it make if Dick's Sporting Goods features a Christmas theme on their Web site?" Give me a break. And since Nordstrom's has given in to the "Christian" pressure to restore "Merry Christmas" to their ads should we now shop there? Come on folks. The culture has moved away from putting Christmas into all their ads and promotions. Get over it. I think we should be glad if truth be known. I go to Advent services to sing Advent hymns and to hear "Merry Christmas" greetings, not to Dick's.

Don't get me wrong. I still say "Merry Christmas" to people in general. In some ways it opens more doors for conversation now than it did when it was popular and innocuous. What bugs me is that Christians spend so much time on this kind of silly issue. Focus on the Family, as always, is one of the key the leaders in this effort. Their talking head was the voice on O'Reilly's program last night armed with all their research. They spent time doing this extensive research to get this message out to millions who want to save Christmas in America. I will tell you what this does in the end. It sounds skeptical I know but the real truth is that it raises more money from nervous Christians for ministries than anything else. "Hot button" issues raise bucks. (I learned this, to my chagrin, from listening to the very people who run these kinds of ministries tell me so.)

Question: Why do Christians give millions of dollars to such a "ministry" when this is what they do with it? (I know, they do a lot more stuff that is truly good, which I am thankful for really.)

In the end this is really about rescuing Christendom, as a cultural presence, not about missions and Advent. These folks do not have a theology of the church or the gospel that adequately understands culture or mission so they continue to raise millions of dollars for causes like saving Christmas greetings in the commercial marketplaces of our time. What has this to do with the real Jesus? Frankly, this stuff makes it harder for me to evangelize in the end.

While I am at it I did much enjoy an article in The Spectator, a British magazine of significance. It is really about Christmas much more than the O'Reilly stuff of last night. The editors of this magazine decided to ask prominent people, including many clergy and biblical scholars, if they believed in the virginal conception of Jesus? The answers are both revealing and sobering. This ought to be what Christian ministries really talk about, not about whether we are saying "Merry Christmas" at Nordstroms or Dick's, or whether their Web sites feature a Christmas theme or not.

Why not start a conversation about the real Jesus, with a real non-Christian, and thus do something useful over the next two weeks. Save your money and invest your life. There's a novel idea.