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Where God-questions are put to the test This month’s question… Couldn’t the followers of Jesus have just imagined he was alive after the crucifixion The claim that Jesus came alive after being crucified is too far-fetched. Perhaps his followers just imagined it because they were expecting it to happen. There have been lots of attempts to explain away the resurrection of Jesus. And no wonder, because if sounds impossible to a sane mind! For example, could his followers have somehow imagined it happened because that is what they were expecting? For them this was such a conviction that it seemed to them it had happened. Does that sound reasonable? Then let me tell you why that idea simply doesn’t hold water. Imagine your car has just had a very big argument with a brick wall – and lost. Next stop is the junkyard. Since you don’t expect it will ever run again that’s the way you treat it. You strip off the plugs, points, wheels and a few other rattly bits that might be worth a bit or useful in the future. However, what if you had a wild hope that the fairy car-mother would somehow appear, restore the wreck, and deliver it to your door in mint condition three days later? If you believed that might happen you would do all you could to cooperate. You would leave everything as unbroken as possible. But, as you have no such expectation – you strip it bare and walk away. This is exactly the attitude the disciples showed to the body of Jesus – but with considerably more respect. Their behaviour shows they had no expectation of a grand finale. No hope of him rising from the dead. So they did nothing to make it easy. Not that they cut lumps off him or donated his vital organs. But they did, according to the custom of the day, bind him up so tight and weigh him down with so much embalming gunk that movement would have been impossible even if he had come alive again. Wrapped tight round the body – in a way that would have defeated even David Blaine – were yards and yards of tightly-wound fabric. To that was added 75 pounds – that’s the weight of two big boxes of fish – of aloe and myrrh, a thick gooey tree resin that congealed it all together. Far from expecting Jesus to spring up and yell ‘boo’ three days from then, here was every sign that they had given up the ghost – so to speak. Yet the events of the days following the death of Jesus left these same embalmers convinced beyond doubt that the same Jesus met with them, talked with them, ate with them and walked with them. No wonder so many today, for this reason and many others, stake their own lives on the fact that the same Jesus that died also came alive again. The Y Course Peter Meadows is the co-author with Joseph Steinberg of The Book of Y the basis for the eight week Y Course that explores life’s biggest questions. If you have a Y Question relating to issues of faith and God, Peter or Joseph will do their best to answer it. Send your question to: challenge @veritecm.com Subject: Y Course We hope to publish their responses in future editions. |
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