4/17/24

Since Easter, I’ve been speaking and writing about the evidence that supports the resurrection. Of course, we can’t look at physical evidence because there isn’t any (the tomb is empty). But there is other evidence that really needs to be considered. 

We looked first at the eyewitness evidence of Mary Magdalene, the premier witness in all four gospels to the resurrection. If the believers in the Middle East in what we now (because of the resurrection) call the first century were to make up the story of Jesus rising from the dead, they would not have Mary (or any woman for that matter) as the witness. The fact that they led with Mary and not any one of the men points toward the truth of the story.

What about the men who witnessed the resurrection? Is their testimony trustworthy? Using the example of Charles Colson and those involved in the Watergate break-in during the 1972 Presidential campaign, we saw the impossibility of 11 somewhat cowardly men being willing to die for a lie.

Today, I’d like you to consider a third piece of evidence: the results of the resurrection.

I watched a recent sort of bizarre interview with Richard Dawkins, the famous British atheist, who wrote the book, The God Delusion, in which he argued that religion is a deeply malevolent, dividing force in our society. In recent months, Dawkins has changed his tune. He sees the inroads Islam is making  into British culture and society, and he now calls himself a “cultural Christian.” Dawkins, it turns out, likes Christmas carols and hymns and cathedrals over hijabs, sharia law and mosques. He wants the benefits of Christian culture, but he rejects the Christian faith.

Maybe he should go back and rethink why he rejects Christ. He’s made a good first step. Now, he needs to take that next step, to realize the source of these good things: a relationship with God through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus.

Skeptics like Bill Maher, and his ilk want verifiable evidence of the resurrection. Fine. I would suggest that they look at life before the resurrection and life after the resurrection – what we might, to follow Mr. Dawkins’ lead, call the cultural impact of Christianity.

The role of women in society. If you have any questions, see the way women are treated in the Middle Eastern Islamic world. Before Christ, women had little if any role in society. I know it is fashionable to say that Christianity has kept women down through the centuries, and in some religious circles, some men would like to return to the good old days of women being silent and invisible. Yes, Paul writes, “let a woman learn in silence,” but there are all sorts of questions to raise about who “a woman” is to whom he is referring, and why the “in silence” bit  . . . BUT don’t miss the earth-shattering part of that verse! In a time when women were expected to stay home and manage the home, when the rabbis would say, “whoever teaches his daughter [the Law], teaches her obscenity,” Paul writes, “let a woman LEARN.” Mary learned at the feet of Jesus. Women traveled with Jesus. In Romans 16, Paul the Apostle knew the names of at least 7 women (though he greeted more), which was something Saul the Pharisee would not have known! Before the resurrection, it wouldn’t have happened. 

The family. Before Christ, a wife was basically a husband’s business partner, responsible for managing the home, having and rearing the children. She belonged to the husband, who was free to be sexually involved with anyone he chose, whether a servant or a prostitute, as long as it didn’t violate his neighbor’s property rights (that is, a woman belonging to his neighbor). Paul turned the world upside down by telling husbands to love their wives and telling wives to voluntarily see after the needs of their husbands (that’s the meaning of the Greek word often translated, “be submissive”). Christianity curbed the power fathers had over their children at a time when Roman law gave them absolute power to abuse or abandon them. Texts like Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5 essentially created the family as we think of it today, but these texts wouldn’t have been written if Jesus hadn’t been raised!

Slavery. In the ancient world, slavery was like electricity is today; society couldn’t function without it. The Romans responded to any threat to slavery with brutal and deadly force. Christianity attacked slavery from the inside out, appealing to believers to first treat their slaves humanely and then to voluntarily free them. Through the influence of Christianity, and especially Paul’s little letter to Philemon, slavery would eventually be abolished in Western society.

Hospitals and hospice care. If Christ had not been resurrected, sick people would still be abandoned rather than cared for in hospitals and hospices. Christians, who weren’t afraid of dying, would take the sick into their own homes. Sociologist Rodney Stark argued that one of the primary reasons for the spread of Christianity was the way Christ’s followers responded to sick people. Dionysis, a third century bishop of Alexandria, wrote about the actions of Christians during the plagues that would decimate the ancient world: “Heedless of the danger, [Christians] took charge of the sick, attending to their every need, and ministering to them in Christ. And along with the sick, the Christians departed this life serenely happy, for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves, the sickness of their neighbors, and cheerfully accepting their pains.” Why were they able to do this? Because Jesus was alive, they knew they would live also. 

The Arts. Yale professor Jaroslav Pelikan noted, “The victory of Jesus Christ over the gods of Greece and Rome, and the fourth century did not, as both friend and foe might have expected, bring about the demise of religious art; on the contrary, it was responsible over the next 15 centuries for a massive and magnificent outpouring of creativity that is probably without parallel in the entire history of art.” Had Jesus not been resurrected, there would not have been a Shakespeare, the Sistine Chapel, the“Hallelujah Chorus,” or “I’ll Fly Away.” 

I could go on: universities, orphanages, eyeglasses, mechanical clocks – none of these things would have existed had it not been for the followers of Jesus who were galvanized by the message of the resurrection: The Lord is risen! He is risen indeed! 

What happened on that first Easter Sunday 2000 years ago changed the world in ways that a lie could never change. But the greatest evidence for the resurrection is the change in us. More next week!