The Resurrection is Real: Otherwise, What is the Purpose? -by Lowell Peterson

Here is a very significant article for our times, written by Lowell Peterson, my good friend since college days. He is a great writer and gives us an important lesson. With so many strange "voices" in the air these days, Lowell calls us back to simply believing the Bible, that it is a true and accurate historical account of who Jesus is and what He did for us.    --Billy Long 

Do I actually believe in the literal Resurrection of Jesus Christ? Am I gullible enough to think that this itinerant preacher really defied all laws of science and common sense to come strolling out of a sealed tomb after being declared dead, following the savagely brutal execution of crucifixion and lying in grave clothes over the weekend? My God in heaven! I believe nothing else! Nothing else matters! Not my own existence, not this sad, pathetic world where confused, lost people slaughter each other for the fun of it, where children are enslaved into human trafficking, where “the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity"! 

 I love my friends. There are some guys I have hung around with for over 40 years, ever since our college days, who have grown more “sophisticated” with age and more cynical about theological dogma. Some have embraced the warm, fuzzy collegiality of Bishop Spong who would tell us that the more fabulous Bible stories are exactly that – something much akin to fairy tales that include an inspiring moral. The essential thing is the moral; the story is just an effective way of communicating and remembering the moral. So, in Christianity, the vitally indispensable thing is the Sermon on the Mount, the lessons Jesus gave us to motivate ethical living and loving our fellow man. All the rest of it, whoppers like a Virgin Birth, healing miracles, substitutionary atonement, literal Resurrection, all that stuff, is just a medium for telling the story. Belief in all that sideshow fluff is optional so long as you get the real gist of the tale – be a wonderful, kind, compassionate human being. 

 But then, why would this same Jesus throw in the line that, without Him, we can do nothing? Why would the predominant message of the entire Old Testament be that we fickle, vacillating, self-centered human beings aren’t capable of living out the law of doing good without the supernatural assistance of a living Savior? Why would the writer of a third of the New Testament and one of the most profoundly effective writer/preachers of all time not merely suggest but vehemently insist that, if God did not, quite literally, raise Jesus from the dead, then all else is vanity? Where is there any victory in just trying to be a decent human being against the tide of moral depravity “if we have placed our hope in Christ for this life only”? And why would St. John, the very epitome of the message of a love that conquers all, bother getting himself exiled to Patmos for the benefit of merely a pleasant story such as the one he tells in the 21st chapter of his gospel: Early in the morning, on the day after this merely metaphorical Resurrection that symbolizes the hope of inner rejuvenation, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not recognize it was Jesus. He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?" "No," they answered. He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved [this same John] said to Peter [who later suffered his own crucifixion in defense of such fairy tales as this], "It is the Lord!" And Peter got so overly enthused that he ripped his clothes off, plunged into the sea and swam ashore to run to an illusory image of Jesus, a mere phantom, we suppose. When the rest landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread . . . Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Come and have breakfast~! This mere ghost, this mirage of their overwrought imaginations invited them to eat a meal! This is stunning. It seems so unspiritual, so ordinary. Why didn’t Jesus say, “Hey, I’ll meet you guys at the temple. I need to pose for a stained glass window.”? Because life in Christ continues … “Jesus did not vanish into mystical spirituality, becoming one with the cosmic vibration. Jesus has a body, and it's His body. His wounds have been healed, but the scars remain—not gruesome, but lovely, a remembrance of all He did for us. His friends recognize Him. They share a bite to eat. 

This is our future as well—our lives will be healed and we shall go on, never to taste death again.” (John Eldredge) Without the promise, the hope and the certainty of the Resurrection, all else is mere ornamentation. Looks and sounds pretty, but has no power to redeem or transform a life. Only the living Jesus can do that.