Resurrection Really?
In the events of Holy Week, Jesus was crucified on what we now call Good Friday. The final week of Jesus’ earthly life started in an unbelievable way. On Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem via the Mount of Olives. Having just raised Lazarus from the dead days earlier, the crowds were swelling with anticipation of what Jesus would do next. So, they cried out, “Hosanna!” as Jesus entered the city. Hosanna literally means save us. The crowds were declaring that Jesus was indeed the long-promised Messiah, and they were right. Well, they were partially right. Their true expectations would be made clear as the week went on. They didn’t want the suffering servant that Isaiah predicted. They wanted a conquering king. So, as the week went on and Jesus didn’t live up to their expectations, they demanded something else: his death on a Roman cross. What they don’t know is that Jesus was willingly and joyfully walking to the cross, ready to give his life as a ransom for many. It would be a Gentile who would rightly declare at the crucifixion that Jesus actually was the Son of God (Lk. 23:47). And three days later, just as he promised, he would come back from the grave. This is the hope of Christianity. That God gave himself so that you and I might be adopted back into the fold of his family through faith. The resurrection is precisely what Peter and John would declare from Pentecost on (Acts 4:20). The resurrection changed everything. But how can we know it is valid and not just an embellishment or a total fiction? Scholar William Lane Craig helps us with this question. He offers four facts to consider:[1]
FACT #1: After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. This fact is highly significant because it means, contrary to radical critics like John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar, that the location of Jesus’ burial site was known to Jew and Christian alike. In that case, the disciples could never have proclaimed his resurrection in Jerusalem if the tomb had not been empty. … As a member of the Jewish court that condemned Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely to be a Christian invention. There was strong resentment against the Jewish leadership for their role in the condemnation of Jesus (I Thess. 2.15). It is therefore highly improbable that Christians would invent a member of the court that condemned Jesus who honors Jesus by giving him a proper burial instead of allowing him to be dispatched as a common criminal.
FACT #2: On the Sunday following the crucifixion, Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers. … The story is simple and lacks signs of legendary embellishment. All one has to do to appreciate this point is to compare Mark’s account with the wild legendary stories found in the second-century apocryphal gospels, in which Jesus is seen coming out of the tomb with his head reaching up above the clouds and followed by a talking cross! The fact that women’s testimony was discounted in first century Palestine stands in favor of the women’s role in discovering the empty tomb. According to Josephus, the testimony of women was regarded as so worthless that it could not even be admitted into a Jewish court of law. Any later legendary story would certainly have made male disciples discover the empty tomb.
FACT #3: On multiple occasions and under various circumstances, different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead. … Certain appearances have earmarks of historicity. For example, we have good evidence from the gospels that neither James nor any of Jesus’ younger brothers believed in him during his lifetime. There is no reason to think that the early church would generate fictitious stories concerning the unbelief of Jesus’ family had they been faithful followers all along. But it is indisputable that James and his brothers did become active Christian believers following Jesus’ death. James was considered an apostle and eventually rose to the position of leadership of the Jerusalem church. According to the first century Jewish historian Josephus, James was martyred for his faith in Christ in the late AD 60s. Now most of us have brothers. What would it take to convince you that your brother is the Lord, such that you would be ready to die for that belief? Can there be any doubt that this remarkable transformation in Jesus’ younger brother took place because, in Paul’s words, “then he appeared to James”?
FACT #4: The original disciples believed that Jesus was risen from the dead despite their having every predisposition to the contrary. Think of the situation the disciples faced after Jesus’ crucifixion: 1. Their leader was dead. And Jews had no belief in a dying, much less rising, Messiah. The Messiah was supposed to throw off Israel’s enemies (= Rome) and re-establish a Davidic reign— not suffer the ignominious death of criminal. 2. According to Jewish law, Jesus’ execution as a criminal showed him out to be a heretic, a man literally under the curse of God (Deut. 21.23). The catastrophe of the crucifixion for the disciples was not simply that their Master was gone, but that the crucifixion showed, in effect, that the Pharisees had been right all along, that for three years they had been following a heretic, a man accursed by God!
[1] William Lane Craig – Excerpts taken from: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/popular-writings/jesus-of-nazareth/the-resurrection-of-jesus