Resurrection? Are you kidding me?!
—— Special Edition for Easter ——
Right after Good Friday comes Easter.
Why it’s called easter
The word “Easter” originated from Eostre, a pagan goddess worshipped by ancient Europeans.
Very much like Guanyin, a fertility deity in China, Eostre symbolizes life and birth.
The ancient Europeans celebrated Goddess Eostre with huge feasts
to mark the arrival of spring and wish for blessings and babies.
Bunnies, known for their prolific breeding, and eggs, symbol of new life,
became folkloric figures for the spring festival.
When more and more Europeans became Christians,
they turned the pagan-worshipping festival to a day to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.
The legend of Eostre was soon forgotten.
Bunnies and eggs started to represent eternal lives from Jesus’ resurrection.
No wonder Charlie Brown prefers Easter to be called Resurrection Day.
Hints from the nature
I still recall the first time I heard of Jesus’ resurrection.
Without even bothering to consider if it’s true or not, I simply took it as a fairy tale.
I held this view until the moment I learned how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.
You may check out the full version of the video below.
I had always assumed the caterpillar GRADUALLY sheds its fat
and SLOWLY grows its wings in its chrysalis. But I was so wrong!
As it turns out, the caterpillar actually gets dissolved completely first!
In other words, if you cut open a chrysalis at just the right time (highly inadvisable!),
you would find NOTHING but some milky soup.
Right from this “NOTHINGNESS” comes a beautiful butterfly.
After many years of research,
scientists admit there are more questions than answers with the astonishingly complicated
and delicate metamorphosis process. What puzzled them more is:
if the theory of evolution was true,
what kind of environment would let this tiny insect develop such an amazingly complicated life cycle?
Can it be that
God uses a butterfly to reveal to us
the mystery of life and resurrection?
Besides the very surprising process of metamorphosis,
God also encodes resurrection through every new sprout in every spring.
Winter in Canada is extremely harsh. I recall my first few winters in Canada.
With the entire world being covered with snow and all the branches looking so dead,
I could hardly believe they will ever wake up.
No wonder Martin Luther said,
“Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in the book alone, but in every leaf in springtime.”
Lee Strobel
It’s not surprising that many people showed contempt for the resurrection of Jesus.
Among them all, Lee Strobel took the challenge to a new level.
Strobel was born in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He received a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a Master’s degree from Yale Law School.
As a journalist for the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers for fourteen years, he was awarded many prizes, including Illinois’ highest honors for both investigative reporting and public service journalism from United Press International.
Having experienced a very broken relationship with his father, Strobel refused to believe that there’s a God who is full of love and full of power.
He showed extreme contempt towards Christianity, and he was so proud of himself of being an intellectually competent atheist.
With a flourishing career and a beautiful family, Strobel led a pretty happy life until the day his wife became a Christian.
Strobel had a hard time fathoming his wife’s new faith.
“I didn’t want to be married to a Christian,”
he said. “I didn’t sign up for this.”
He was so furious that he was thinking of ending the marriage.
But when Strobel calmed down, he had a second thought:
“what if I use my journalistic skills to disprove Jesus’ resurrection? I would be able to save my wife from this “cult” and save my marriage! ”
Hence, Strobel devoted himself into the investigation of Jesus’ resurrection.
He inspected 13 well-respected authorities for historical evidence on the existence of Jesus and Jesus’ resurrection.
After two years’ of intensive investigation, Strobel discovered that contrary to what he set out to do, the evidence for Jesus Christ—
His existence, His divinity, His resurrection—was overwhelming.
By the end of his journey, Strobel realized his atheism simply did not hold up against the evidence.
He took the natural next step: he became a believer of Jesus Christ.
The Case for Christ is the record of Strobel’s investigation.
The book contains 13 chapters, with 9 chapters listing the medical and scientific evidence of Jesus’s resurrection.
The book has been sold millions of copies and was translated into many languages.
In 2017, The Case for Christ was also made into a movie.
There are Things More Unbelievable Than the Resurrection
One of my good friends said to me,
“I admit I am a sinner, and I also believe that Jesus came to the world and was crucified for my sins.
But it is too hard to believe in His resurrection.
Can I be a Christian that believes in Jesus’ death for us only, but not Resurrection?”
Suddenly I was at a loss for words.
I started to imagine: what if Jesus hasn’t resurrected…
Peter was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. Just like you and me, he thought that resurrection was nonsense.
When Jesus repeatedly told him that
“I will die and be risen three days later”, Peter did not pay much attention.
When Jesus was brought to the priest to be interrogated,
Peter was so frightened that he swore three times that he did not know Jesus.
When Peter saw Jesus died on the cross, he was not only sad but also despaired.
Peter quietly went home and resumed his life as a fisherman.
Beside Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus and committed suicide later, the rest of the disciples all left.
Without Resurrection,
Christianity would have ended
before it started
You can not assume those disciples were gullible and would believe in Jesus’ resurrection just because scientific advances were not on their side.
Resurrection had always been impossible or supernatural since the dawn of time.
The Bible says that when the women came to tell them Jesus was risen,
the disciples did not believe the women. Their words seemed to them like nonsense!
Until they saw the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes.
However, even after some disciples had witnessed with their own eyes,
Thomas, one of the disciples, still didn’t believe.
He said to the other disciples: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (John 20:25)
Graciously, Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands.
Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:27-28)
Having witnessed risen Jesus with his own eyes, tasted the breakfast Jesus made, and received Jesus’ calling with his own ears, Peter’s life was no longer the same.
Peter, along with other disciples, started preaching God’s salvation boldly and established the first century Christian churches.
Peter, the same guy who once denied Jesus three times out of fear, showed tremendous courage when the government harassed him and the other disciples.
In the end, Peter was sentenced to be crucified on the cross.
On the verge of execution, he asked to be crucified upside down because he felt unworthy to die like Jesus did.
St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City was built on the site where Peter was buried.
Besides the cross, the other important icon for Christianity is the empty tomb —-
On Easter morning, the body of Jesus was gone.
If Jesus was not resurrected, then where was his body?
If the then-governors had stolen the body, they would have just shown the body and the Church would go bankrupt.
If Jesus’ disciples had stolen the body, they would not have risked their lives and shared the gospel knowing that Jesus had already died on the cross.
After all, most of Jesus’ disciples ultimately sacrificed their lives for the sake of the gospel.
True, it’s not easy to believe Jesus’ resurrection.
However, if Jesus had not resurrected, it would have been even harder to explain.
How could Peter, who denied Jesus three times, become so courageous to bear witness for Jesus?
Even to the point of death? Why would he?
How would the first century Christian church be established, if the other disciples did not also devote their lives to Jesus?
What convinced them: a Jesus who finished on the cross, or a Jesus who resurrected from the dead?
Back to my friend’s question, I want to say this:
There is only one thing
that is harder to believe
than Jesus’ resurrection:
that is, he has not resurrected.
Aslan is Back！
Remember Aslan the lion from C.S. Lewis’ the Chronicles of Narnia?
To redeem Edmund who betrayed his siblings for Turkish Delight,
Aslan was willing to take Edmund’s sin and be killed by the White Witch.
Just when all the children in Narnia were heartbroken, they suddenly saw that in the morning light,
Aslan was back!
After tears, laughter, and hugs,
Aslan explained to them the secret that the White Witch did not know:
The resurrected Aslan led Edmund and other children to defeat the White Witch and saved Narnia.
In John 11:25, Jesus said
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.”
Because of Resurrection, death is no longer an ugly and terrifying end,
but a door that leads us into the loving embrace of the Father.
Tony Snow, a famous American journalist, was interviewed when he was battling against late stage cancer.
Explaining his inner peace and hope, Snow said,
“I sat by my best friend’s bedside a few years ago.
He kept at his table a rather worn-out Bible.
Seeing how cancer slowly took him away, I was very sad.
But my friend was still as calm and humorous as usual, and said to me,
“I will try my best to beat this cancer, if I don’t, I will see you on the other side.”
Resurrection, a Matter of Life and Death
Remember Strobel, the journalist who tried to prove that Jesus has not resurrected?
When he surrendered to the historical and scientific facts he himself collected and studied, his life was never the same.
A few years later, Strobel left his career as a journalist, took a 60% pay cut and became a pastor.
Although he disliked his father, he inherited his father’s bad temper.
After became a Christian, he reflected on his relationship with his father and his own life.
He prayed to God that he would not become an obstacle for his children to know God.
Gradually, he quit drinking and improved his temper.
Not only did he love his children well, he also wrote a children’s version of The Case for Christ.
I even have two copies of the book in my house.
When Paul was teaching the fellow Christians in the church of Corinth, he said “How foolish!
What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.” (1 Corinthians 15:36).
What Paul meant was that
life without death is not real life, because it will die sooner or later.
Only life that has overcome death is true life, because it will never die again.
Jaroslav Pelikan, a professor from Yale university used to say:
” If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not – nothing else matters.”
No matter how comfortable our lives are,
it will reset to null sooner or later if we are without resurrection and eternal life.
If we believe in Jesus, all struggles and challenges in our life
will become our opportunities to experience God’s grace by the power of His resurrection.
We feel our heavenly father’s sorrow when we have difficulties connecting with our children.
When our relationships with others are broken, we start to imitate Jesus’ acceptance and sacrificial love.
We are full of hope, as we truly know that we will one day be home with our heavenly father, a place
that is forever warm, bright, and beautiful!
I write these things to you
who believe in the name of the Son of God
so that you may know that
you have eternal life
【1 John 5:13】