Jesus! The story that will not go away

According to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, after the crucifixion of Jesus, Joseph of Aramathia stepped forward and claimed the body of Jesus. He had watched what had happened to Jesus and knew what would follow. Joseph owned a cave that had been carved out of a large hillside rock. He gave the body of Jesus a decent burial.

The Roman rulers of Palestine executed thousands of people, many by crucifixion. They tolerated no dissenting or disruptive citizens. Usually the bodies of men who were crucified were thrown into a foul smelling dump, where stray dogs and vultures fed off of the remains. But Joseph saw something different about the man from Nazareth. He saw a good man who was worthy of burial. He put the body of Jesus in his own tomb and rolled a huge rock in front of the opening.

Establishing ancient events as real history is very difficult. The story of the crucifixion of Jesus stands the tests of historical and literary examination very well. Roman rulers had Jesus put to death by crucifixion because he had become a public irritant and a nuisance. Joseph was a real person who claimed the body and buried it.

The next part of the Jesus story leaves historical verification behind. The stories of the resurrection of Jesus in the four Gospels do not agree with one another. They cannot be reconciled. What can be shown is that soon after the crucifixion and burial, a plethora of stories began to circulate about appearances of Jesus.

Jesus is reported to have appeared to his disciples in Galilee. He walked with two disciples along the road to Emmaus. He appeared to a group of women. He is reported to be like a ghost. He is reported to have a real, tangible body. He entered locked rooms.

The most compelling appearance of Jesus happened a few years later when he appeared to Saul of Tarsus along the road to Damascus. The Jesus appearance to Saul was critical to the development of Christian Faith. Saul’s name was changed to Paul and he became the theologian of early Christianity. Paul’s theology turned on two declarations. Those with earthly powers killed Jesus by nailing him to a cross. God raised Jesus from the dead. One statement is accepted history. The second is not accepted history but a proclamation of the great leap of faith that is involved in Christian theology.

The great conflict in Christian understanding in today’s world is between those who have truncated the Christian message by ending the Jesus story with his crucifixion and those who insist that the resurrection of Jesus must be understood as the same kind of history as his crucifixion. Those who want to dismiss the resurrection message go to great length to establish the high standards to which Jesus calls us. They place him among the greatest of human beings. They even call us all to embrace his peculiar combination of love and justice for all human beings.

Those who want to read the resurrection narratives as history, ask us to turn our backs on critical studies of the Bible. They want us to accept God stories as history simply because they are reported in the collection of writings that we call the Bible. No critical, scholarly study of the Bible material is allowed. They want us to believe the reports of the resurrection of Jesus and his later appearances as history.

The two sides of the argument are at an impasse that never will be resolved.

I choose an alternative path. I too am one of those people who have met the resurrected Jesus. He walks with me, and I try my best to walk with him. He is my friend. He is my life teacher. Jesus provides my very best understanding of the mind and activity of God. Jesus pushes me to study and probe life with intellectual honesty. He comforts me when I am down. He encourages me when I lose my way. He reminds me of the grace of God when I fail.

I have never felt conflict between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of the resurrection. Jesus is both a person of history and a shadowy figure of mythology. I will live my earthly life with Jesus at my side. When I die I will join Jesus in the misty fog on the other side of the lake.

On Easter Sunday I anticipate again singing one of my favorite hymns.

“I serve a risen savior, he’s in the world today.

I know that he is living, whatever men may say.

I see his hand of mercy, I hear his voice of cheer.

And just the time I need him, he’s always near.

He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today.

He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.

He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart.

You ask me how I know he lives. He lives within my heart.”

May the joys of Easter faith be yours.

The Rev. Howard Bess is an American Baptist minister who lives in retirement in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.