That Great Gettin' Up Morning

What happened in Jesus' borrowed tomb two thousand years ago? It's a question that has haunted men and women over the course of every generation and in virtually every part of our world.

Did the disciples lie?

Perhaps they hallucinated.

Roman soldiers stole the body.

Dogs ate the corpse.

Maybe Jesus never really died? He came close but the coolness of the tomb (a.k.a. the swoon theory) allowed for his body to recover. Jesus, after 48 hours walked away from the tomb (don't ask about the large stone).

It would not make sense for the disciples to lie. To declare the carpenter from Nazareth "Kyrios" was to put yourself on shaky ground with the powers of Rome.

If they hallucinated, they convinced others of the hallucination as well.

Roman soldiers were punishable by death for the body gone missing. Remember the Roman official who wanted to kill himself when Paul was busted out of prison? Why did he want to kill himself? He failed his primary mission and knew the consequences that faced him.

"Dogs eating the corpse" of Jesus (the viewpoint of noted scholar John Dominic Crossan) seems to me a logical leap from the amazingly similar canonical accounts contained within the pages of Christian scriptures.

I believe in Easter because I believe that if God can cut the grand canyon, paint the sky blue, inhabit the womb of a pre-teen named Mary, create the sun, form the giraffe--if God can do all of the previous, I believe he can step into his own story ("rupturing the narrative" as literature scholars like to say), show us what it means to be human, take on the evil of religion and society, only to transform by the Spirit's power overwhelming the power of darkness, sin and death. In short, if God can do this (everything I see around me), I know he can do that (walk away from a borrowed Jerusalem tomb).

I believe in Easter Sunday because I believe the disciples, women and men, had everything to lose and nothing to gain in declaring Jesus' victory. They spent the rest of their lives with Resurrection on their sleeves, in their hearts, beaming from their eyes.

Generally speaking: Post-modern Christians believe in the resurrection because they trust Jesus. Modern Christians believe in Jesus because they've intellectually accepted the tenets of resurrection (or at least the scientific possibility). I find myself going back and forth at different seasons in the faith journey.

Something happened Easter Sunday. I choose to believe that God overcame the greatest shackle known to man: death. It's a life-altering story. A story too good to not be true.