The oldest account (Mark 16: 1-8) is straight forward:
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.
As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ”
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
Don’t accept any nonsense about this story. Ask the most important question: “Is it true?”
If it is true, then death has been conquered.
To put it mildly that would be more important than anything else you will consider today.
Crucified men in the first century didn’t survive Roman torture and roll away the stone of their guarded grave to live again unless something amazing had happened.
First-century people were not credulous dupes, ready to believe in anything. If you doubt that, read the account in Mark again. The friends of Jesus had too little faith, not too much. They were afraid and did not understand what was happening. It was hard for the women of Easter to believe, because it was such a huge event.
The tomb was empty.
That fact could not be denied. What did it mean? A man, other accounts say it was an angel, told them that Jesus was risen!
Is this an ancient myth (in the sense of a false religious story)?
Go read an ancient myth. Go read Hesiod or Homer.
No legend of the Greek and Roman world is as plain and unadorned as this simple account in Mark.
Read the end of the other Gospels. They handle this Great Miracle almost calmly. There is no purple prose and precious little poetry. Dante and Donne would come later, but here in Mark is the bare bones of eye witness testimony with almost no theology or philosophy intruding.
This ancient account was the first of the Gospels to be written. John’s Gospel was almost certainly the last written and fragments of a copy of that last Gospel exist from the first part of the second century. Think about it. The spare and compelling story you read in Mark, based on the testimony of these women, was written in their life times.
We can be sure of that.
The gospel was written when at least some of the women of Holy Week were alive. These women were eye witnesses to history. Their stories were some of the bare facts on which the Gospels were written and theology developed.
They were not the eye witnesses any ancient, Jewish or Roman, would have chosen. Women were doubted and demeaned in the ancient world and the worth of their testimony questioned.
God knew better and sent His message to humanity forward in time on the word of the women of Holy Week.
The tomb was empty.
Ask yourself this question, “Would the women of Holy Week have even imagined such a thing?”
Jewish expectation was not for a messiah who would die and come back to life again.
Greek and Roman legends knew nothing of an incarnation where God became fully man and yet remained fully the Creator God. (Later Roman myth makers would imitate the Christian story, but even then their theology was too weak for a strong view of an incarnation.) This empty tomb was unexpected.
Jewish women expected a resurrection at world’s end, but of all men and not just one. This empty tomb and this God-Man was unexpected.
This was not the messiah they expected, but it was the Messiah God sent.
The tomb was empty and the women of Holy Week were willing to follow the evidence where it led them.
If you don’t believe Jesus is alive, then you have failed to follow the facts to the proper conclusion.
Jesus actual resurrection is a fitting ending to His extraordinary life. It was unexpected at the time, but makes sense, perfect sense, in retrospect.
Extraordinary claims may require extraordinary evidence, but for this Man to conquer death was not so extraordinary.
He was extraordinary and this was just the final extraordinary thing He did.
Jesus actual resurrection explains the empty tomb, the compatible (but not identical) reports of eye witnesses, the existence of the Gospels, and the Church.
The Gospel accounts contain details that fit the times, make theological points, but are not overly theological. If their only purpose was theological, then why the details such as the name of Joseph of Arimathea (almost surely historical) who helped bury Jesus?
Skeptics like to point to the difficulty of a total harmony of the Gospel accounts, but scholars note that it can be done and that eye witness accounts are often difficult to harmonize. It is only the carefully fabricated lie that is perfect from one “witness” to the next.
The lives of His disciples, including the Women of Holy Week were changed forever. The cowards became bold and the brave became martyrs. The Church developed at least two sacraments (baptism and communion) that suggested that Christ was alive. The earliest records of the Church (the epistles of Saint Paul) concur with the outline of the Gospel message.
Jesus actual resurrection explains more of the data than rival theories. If he survived the cross, then where did He go? Why didn’t his enemies find Him or suggest He was hidden? If He was not on the cross, then why didn’t His enemies (and they were many) suggest it? Why did the diverse group of Apostles die for a life?
Jesus actual resurrection is less ad hoc than rival theories. Other notions come and go, but only the actual resurrection survives the test of time.
Groups like the Jesus Seminar rise up and make a stir by proclaiming that He is not risen, but already the Jesus Seminar seems as ’90’s as the X-files and Bill Clinton’s hair. As Raymond Brown, a mainstream Bible scholar said of them:
“In fact, however, although spokesmen for the Jesus Seminar like to pretend that the chief disparagement of their stances comes from “fundamentalists,” scholarly evaluations and reviews of the productions of the Jesus Seminar have often been bluntly critical, e.g., those by NT professors like A. Culpepper (Baylor),R.B. Hays (Duke), L.T. Johnson (Emory), L.E. Keck (Yale), J.P. Meier (Catholic University), and C.T. Talbert (Wake Forest/Baylor). One finds therein such devastating judgments as methodologically misguided; no significant advance in the study of the historical Jesus, only a small ripple in NT scholarship; results representing the Jesus the researchers wanted to find; the pursuit of a specific confessional agenda; and dangerous in giving a false impression.”
Best of all, Jesus Christ lives in my heart! He speaks to me in a Voice that I cannot confuse for my own anymore than I can mistake my wife’s voice for my own. I am otherwise sane, not given to mystical experiences, but He stirs in my heart!
It may be possible for science to simulate this religious experience in a lab with elaborate equipment or a drug, as science can simulate other passions. Any real thing can be faked, but this Easter morning what is causing this knowledge in my soul?
Isn’t the simplest explanation that He is alive?
After all, I am not alone in my (small) confrontation with this fact.
What did Saint Paul see on the road to Damascus? Who inspired Dante? What drove Francis to give away all he had and follow the poor? What vision came to my Nana as a young woman and again when she was old?
The simplest explanation is not to explain their experiences away, but accept the simple explanation. They were real, because He is real.
The tomb is empty and so our experience of Him is not.
The women of Easter against the lies of misogynists, skeptics, and Roman butchers proclaimed His triumph with their very lives.
I hear their message and I must respond. There is no half-way mumbling possible to their clear proclamation.
“He is risen!” the women of Easter say to us.
“He is risen, indeed!” is the only sensible reply.