The risen saviour
One of the most intriguing articles of faith among Christians, one which is often looked at with doubt and even considered superstitious, is their belief concerning the resurrection of Jesus from the dead on Easter after he was nailed to the cross and the claim that he is alive today.
Since an event such as that is unprecedented in history — the only one of its kind — it does appear suspicious, leading some sceptics to claim that this is a story concocted by Christians to mislead people and keep the Church going. Due to deep interest in the subject much research has gone into it, both by sceptics and believers.
Scholars’ scrutiny of the narratives on the resurrection by the four evangelists — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, who wrote several decades after Jesus’ resurrection — reveals that though there are differences, one does not find any contradictions. The differences prove that each source is independent of the other and that there was no conspiracy between the four writers of the Gospels to report a falsehood. The Gospels testify to the
incidents of the empty tomb (Jesus’ body is not found anywhere) and his many appearances to his disciples over the next 40 days.
The fact is that Jesus’ disciples had not grasped anything about his resurrection. On the contrary, Jesus had belied their hopes of being a messiah who would liberate them from the clutches of the Roman empire. His death on the cross smashed their hopes. And even before his death, seeing what was coming, Peter, whom Jesus called “the rock” and on whom he decided to erect his Church, even denied any knowledge of Jesus.
After Jesus’ death, along with Peter, all his disciples were frightened to death, dreading they too would meet the same fate as their master. They were still grappling with the turn of events of that week when the great miracle worker, despite a huge following, was suddenly done to a kind of death reserved for the most notorious criminals. Their emotional state swung between sombre and gloomy. Could there have been anything more shattering than the fact that the one for whom they had given up everything was now gone?
All that suddenly changed when the disciples began to witness the risen Lord amongst them. If death on the cross was the end of Jesus, how could his ordinary fishermen disciples muster the courage to ask people to follow someone who died a criminal’s death?
And indeed, if people did not experience the spiritual power of the Risen Saviour in their lives, there is no way that a person who owned absolutely nothing except the loin cloth he had on when he was hung on the cross, could get billions of followers over the centuries, including people like Mother Teresa.
Father Dominic Emmanuel can be contacted at frdominic@gmail.com
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