From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts–
[Peter said] “We are witnesses of all that he did
both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.
They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.
This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible,
not to all the people, but to us,
the witnesses chosen by God in advance,
who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
He commissioned us to preach to the people
and testify that he is the one appointed by God
as judge of the living and the dead.
To him all the prophets bear witness,
that everyone who believes in him
will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Acts 10:39-43, from our first reading
Do you have trouble believing that Jesus really rose from the dead? You do? Then you are in good company:
- Mary Magdalen did not believe it when she saw him near the tomb.
- The two disciples on the way to Emmaus walked and talked with him (for an hour? two?) and it never crossed their minds they were speaking with the Risen Lord until they heard him use a characteristic prayer over supper.
- Thomas wasn’t convinced by what he was told, for a week, by the 10 men closest to him over the previous three years, including his own brother!
As Peter says in our reading, Jesus appeared only to chosen witnesses, both men and women. These eventually numbered some 500+ in all, according to what was passed on to Paul, most of whom were still alive in the early 50’s of the first century. (1 Corinthians 15:5-8)
Mary Magdalen, the two disciples walking to Emmaus, and Thomas all came to see that Jesus had risen, but it took a bit more time and something else more for each of them to come to that realization. With Thomas it took a personal confrontation with Jesus; with the two disciples, it took review of Scripture and words of prayer as they broke bread; with Mary Magdalen it simply took Jesus speaking her name.
Those kinds of experiences still happen today. Oh, if we ask historians, they are quite unlikely to flat out state that Jesus rose from the dead. Historians deal in probabilities and likelihoods on the one hand, and in greater historical causes rather than personal motivations on the other. Resurrection has to rank low on the probability scale, but on that other hand, great historical movements do not happen without strong causes. Belief in Christ Risen started with a tiny group in an unimportant part of the Roman Empire, spread throughout it in the blink of a historical eyelash, and into areas vastly larger (to the East and southward) than the Empire itself. SOME cause of immense power was behind that. Powerful enough that many historians are not averse to allowing that the 500 original witnesses themselves were absolutely convinced Jesus rose from the dead.
And in our day? Start with me: why do I believe in the Resurrection of Jesus? How was that conviction been passed on to me some 2000 years later?
Briefly, I would say it was passed to me the same way it always has been—directly or indirectly through other convinced believers:
- Through my grandmother Lucy (“light”) a firm believer herself, who introduced me to Scripture.
- Through baptism, via my parents and the Episcopal church, which directly connected me with the Spirit Jesus promised he would send his followers.
- Through a whole series of events and life choices that eventually led me into Catholicism, into a deeper study of the faith, into listening to Jesus daily in Scripture and prayer. And my belief came with the gift of being able to serve as a convinced witness to some of the next generation of His followers.
Would you come to believe if you could? What makes you hesitate?
How would it change your life? Do you know, or are you just guessing?
What objections to belief do you have?
If you have questions like these, email me and let me know. I will respect your wish to remain anonymous. jdmccullough [at] earthlink.net
For further reflection:
Coming to faith in Christ may (or may not) involve an emotional “moment.” Even if there is an identifiable “moment” that moment will be prepared for, in some way, by many previous steps of many different kinds of experiences in different people’s lives. Your journey to belief will not be exactly like anyone else’s. Nor should it be: we were created as unique individuals, and God’s ways with us and for us take unexpected paths. But, in the end, He wastes nothing. It all brings us home to the Father who created us in order to love us and be loved in return.