The Meaning of Easter: Miracles Still Happen

Jesus' resurrection was a true miracle that changed the world then, and continues to transform lives now.

In 1978, I was at a little Methodist chapel outside Durham, England, about to preach the Easter service, when the chapel steward raced out to me all in a bother. Looking at me with some fear and trembling, he said, "I am ever so sorry, but I must ask you something before you go in to the service." I responded: "Go ahead." Timidly he asked, "You do believe in the resurrection, don't you?" I assured him that I did. Looking mightily relieved, he said, "Thank goodness, I am ever so glad. The chap we had last year didn't, he just talking about the cycle of the crops and the popping up of the spring flowers. It was awful. Nothing about Jesus at all."
We all have personal reflections on Easter. My own memories are of churches packed with people wearing new and brightly colored clothes, huge dinners with relatives and Easter egg hunts, and of course way too many chocolate bunnies.
But all of this is simply on the periphery of Easter for me. The heart of the matter is not "beauty in the ordinary" or the rites of spring, but a unique historical miracle that has spawned other miracles ever since.
To put the matter directly, Easter is about the resurrection of Jesus and his appearances to his disciples shortly thereafter. There are those who dispute that this was an historical event, but the evidence is pretty compelling. The gospels tell us that the inner circle of disciples denied, betrayed, and deserted Jesus in his hour of greatest need. They tell us that his death was basically witnessed by a few female disciples, and that it was these women who first went to the tomb and encountered the risen Jesus.
Several things must be said about this: 1) By all accounts, Jesus died by crucifixion--the most shameful and public way to die in antiquity. In an honor-and-shame culture, Jesus' death by crucifixion should have put an end to his following and stopped any trumpeting about Jesus being the messiah or savior (see Luke 24.19-21: "We had hoped [past tense] he would be the one to redeem Israel"). It is very difficult for historians to explain the transformation of the inner circle of Jesus from cowards to some of the most courageous people of their era if Jesus did not arise and appear to them.
2) No evangelistic religion in its right mind, operating in a highly patriarchal world, would make up the idea that the chief witnesses to the heart of their creed (death, burial, empty tomb, risen Lord) were women. The witness of women was considered suspect throughout the Greco-Roman world, including Judea.
3) In the context of early Judaism, resurrection meant something that happened to a body. It was not seen as a purely spiritual or visionary matter, which is one reason why the Gospel accounts stress that the risen Jesus could be touched and could eat. These accounts, in their very specificity and physical detail, were clearly not intended to be metaphorical. They are a record of a world-changing physical miracle: the return to life of a previously-dead man.

Jesus' resurrection was a true miracle that changed the world and set it on a course that we still see being played out today. In my view, the death and resurrection of Jesus is the fulcrum of human history and the key to its interpretation.
The Easter miracle transformed women and men from doubters to believers 2,000 years ago, and has continued to do so ever since. In great and little ways, Easter miracles have touched me personally. A member of a Baptist church near me suffered heart failure, but was miraculously revived after being prayed over by his pastor. The sister of my college roommate's closest friend, five years old and dying of leukemia, witnessed to the risen Jesus so personally and persuasively that her brother, who had gone down a dark path, converted long after she died. A little boy from a dirt-poor family in the backwoods of North Carolina, invited to an Easter egg hunt, showed me the true face of Christ by offering up his prized goose's egg "for the children who ain't got no Easter eggs." Jesus' resurrection continues to transform me and millions of other Christians.
To me Easter is all about the fact that God's "yes" to life is louder than death's "no," and the ultimate proof of this is that God raised his Son from the dead. Easter is not just about an isolated miracle 2,000 years ago that chiefly affected one person. Easter is all about the fact that miracles do still happen. Christ's story is the Christian's destiny. In 1 Cor. 15, Paul calls Jesus' resurrection the first fruits of the resurrection, and he speaks of a day when, upon Jesus' return, the dead in Christ will be raised.
The physicality of Jesus' resurrection is important not least because we live an empirical age. Most people's spiritual birth certificates seem to be from Missouri--they say "Show Me." I love the way John Updike confronts this tendency in his famous poem "Seven Stanzas at Easter":

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
...
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

In an age of materiality and hard empiricism, the resurrection of Jesus challenges modern assumptions that miracles are impossible. There is certainly no miracle that more comforts me, having already had various close encounters with surgery and experienced life after 50. I increasingly look forward to my own physical existence coming up for renewal when Jesus returns. To me, this is also what Easter is about. Because the Son rose, this son (which is what my name, Ben, means in Hebrew) will also one day rise.

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