The Case about Resurrection!

The financial year-end had kept me busy and I couldn’t go to the Soul Café for many weeks! Moreover, the temperatures were much higher this year compared to the years before that I have lived, and so, coffee and all its derivatives were not very high on my wish list. As April commenced, memories of the ‘All Fool’s Day’ and the amusement we had at the cost of our more naive peers flashed through my mind! I remembered that it was also a good old friend’s birthday! However, strangely, unlike how I would have been, this friend of mine, Amar, was ever glad that his birthday fell on such a memorable day! This year, as I called to wish him, I got invited to join him for an afternoon’s munch over coffee, and there I was, back where I hadn’t been in a while! We enjoyed the flashback of our school and college days and to make it more exciting we mooted the idea of calling a get-together with all the other available friends from ‘good old days’. The nearest possible day happened to be the very next day – Good Friday! Amar was excited at the possibility of two days of nostalgia and walking down the memory lane! However, I declined the offer as I had to be at church! Amar was disappointed by my refusal to be a part of it and taunted me for being fanatical! I made sure that I didn’t express shame or regret. However, he was not going to give up easily. This is what ensued. Amar: What is Good Friday? Me: It is the day that commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. Amar: We aren’t able to celebrate everyone’s birth properly and you guys make a public holiday out of someone’s death, and that too every year! Me: The birth or death of any person is celebrated or remembered not just because of the event that it signifies, but because of the life and the impact that person has made. We celebrate Gandhi Jayanti, because on that day was born someone who lived on to change the destiny of our nation! Amar: Do we “celebrate” Gandhi Jayanti??! Don’t we just enjoy the holiday and period? Me: Yeah sad but true. Amar: But in that case, there is Christmas! Isn’t that enough? Why celebrate one more day! Isn’t it such a global waste!? Me: A conservative estimate is that about 40 billion people have lived on this planet and there are countless names that stand out very vividly in the fabric of history for whatever reasons - Alexander, Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Napoleon, Muhammad, Newton, Einstein, Hitler, Gandhi and of course Jesus to name a few. Amar: Ya, so?! What are you trying to say! Me: In the above list, most of them are just names that double as historical reference points! Their birth may or may not be remembered but hardly would people know when they died! Jesus’ death, however, is celebrated by his followers and disciples by calling it “Good”! Amar: Why? What makes this man special? Me: That is perhaps what you and everyone else should be asking! How it is that even after 2000 years after he traversed this planet, his name is still revered and celebrated? Is it just the fanaticism surrounding him that makes him this famous or was there something about his life and claims that makes him stand out? Amar: What claims are you talking about? Me: He is claimed to be born of a virgin! Amar: Implausible and incredible! How can that happen! Me: If God were to come into this world, what were the options before him! In what way should he enter the human realm so that humans would truly believe that he is what he claims to be?! Think about all the options and the virgin birth will look more and more conceivable! Amar: Maybe. Maybe not. Me: We can talk about it later. Jesus’ life was accompanied by extra-ordinary signs and wonders! Observe carefully and you will find that these signs he performed were not a display and show-off of his super-natural abilities but that he was touching people around him. He was healing the sick and having compassion on the broken and neglected. He picked up very normal people and placed them on the fabric of history. His favorite subjects were those we would never even notice. He ministered to beggars, lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors, fishermen and lunatics! Amar: I agree that he would have been an extra-ordinary human being. Me: Well, not really. He claimed he was equal with God. In fact he claimed he was God. Amar: Did he? Isn’t that outrageous! Me: Now there is no person of his reputation and fame in whole of history who makes such a claim! Either he was a crazy mad man or he was really serious and true! If he was crazy, I don’t think we would be discussing it two thousand years after the event. Haven’t there been thousands of such lunatics who have made this and many more claims! Who even knows their names! Amar: If he was God, how did he end up on the Cross? Me: He chose to die a gruesome death - the cruelest punishment that Romans could give! The movie ‘Passion of Christ’ gives a glimpse of what had happened to this so called Christ (Christ means Messiah / Savior). Amar: Yeah, I have seen that movie. One doesn’t comfortably sit through such a movie! Me: It was only a trailer of what actually happened. Jesus was betrayed by one of his own, he was slapped and mocked. He was then flogged with whips that had in it rusted nails, bones and hooks. Each time, he was whipped and the whip pulled back, his flesh was ripped off along with it! In this almost dilapidated state, he was condemned to be crucified, he was spit on, poked, and then crowned with thorns. He then had to carry a heavy cross, a long distance. He was deserted by his disciples and ridiculed by almost everyone on the scene. He was given bitter gall when he asked for water! Nails were driven through his hands and legs and he hung on the cross for about six hours going through intense pain as he kept shifting the weight of his entire body between his hands and feet. The term “excruciating” comes from the word “cross”. Finally he died on the cross, the truth about which is validated by the blood and water coming out when he was pierced at his sides. Amar: Why would anyone chose to die such a death? Me: The principle reason why the Jews got Jesus crucified, was because of his claims to be equal with God! However, despite such a gruesome nature of the crucifixion, at no point, Jesus backed out of his claims. One confession and he could have been released from being killed like he was, but he endured it till the end! That’s why I said, he chose to die such a death! Amar: I still don’t get it. Me: It’s important to note at this point that he had foretold that he would die such a death. But he had also foretold that the cross would not be the end! Let me finish what I have to say and perhaps you will get it! Amar: What’s there after someone dies? The grave! What more is there to say now! Me: After his death, he was buried and his tomb guarded by the Roman guard with 16 soldiers each and the tomb was sealed. However, he rose again on the third day! Amar: Now that’s incredible. That has to be a hoax. How can anyone rise again from the dead!? Me: Well. On the third day, his disciples and the authorities found out that His tomb was empty! In fact, after that, He appeared to many of his disciples and once even to more than 500 people! Amar: I can’t believe it! Me: Well sometimes, I too think why believing Jesus was made so difficult! Couldn’t there have been normal circumstances and predictable events! But then I understood that in the latter case it would have become more difficult for me to even notice his claims! Amar: Well, I think you are right there. Me: See Amar, the claim was something that could have been easily thwarted by the then government and all they had to do was produce the body. But they couldn’t because there was no body anywhere! Amar: But there could have been other reasons to the missing body! Someone could have stolen it! Me: The claim of Jesus having risen back from the dead, his resurrection, has been refuted and contested throughout history. The ‘Stolen Body’ accusation or ‘Fraud theory’ is one of the principle arguments. Amar: Some of his disciple could have stolen the body in the night and then staged the whole disappearance to look like a resurrection! Me: Actually, the disciples were themselves so devastated by the crucifixion and every other happening that they had no guts to perpetrate such an event. Moreover, the Roman Guards and the Roman seal were no small deal. 16 guards were placed in position to guard the tomb with a death warning and it is unreasonable to say that they slept off! Even if they did sleep off, to remove the stone without being noticed was then quite a feat for his disciples who denied and deserted him when he was arrested! In fact, if you read the gospel accounts, the religious rulers suspected that Jesus’ disciples would try to steal the body and so they were extra careful and therefore requested the Romans to deploy the guard at the tomb. Amar: Jesus may not have been dead when he was buried? Is that not another possibility! Me: This is called the ‘Swoon Theory’. Some claim that Jesus had actually never died on the Cross! He recuperated in 3 days and escaped from the tomb! Amar: Yeah. That I think could be the real reason. Me: We can say that only because we do not understand how the Romans worked. They meant business and that’s why they ruled the world! Actually, the punishment was so severe that it was impossible for anyone so dehydrated and dilapidated to have recuperated in two days, that too in isolation! Moreover, even if we assume that he recuperated, it would have been impossible for Jesus to have removed the stone all by himself and that too from the inside. The stone was about a ton in weight! Amar: How can you be so sure that Jesus had actually died? Me: That blood and water came from his sides when pierced with an arrow is proof that his heart had ruptured in the process. So even if he hadn’t died till then, the piercing ensured that he was dead. Also, the Roman soldiers had to ensure his death before he was taken down from the cross and if not his leg bones had to be broken. His bones were not broken and he was taken down, which is proof that he had died. Amar: Yeah. Actually if he had only fainted, it would be silly to assume that Jesus could claim himself to be a “champion over death” looking like that! Me: Right. And then inspire the disciples to stake even their lives for such a claim! Most of his disciples in the first century died the death of a martyr. One would live for a lie, but to die for it is another story! Amar: Is it possible that his disciples were seeing things! It happens under severe stress! Me: You mean hallucinations? Some claim that the disciples were so overwhelmed by the events that they started hallucinating! But the fact that 500 people at the same time went through hallucination is not realistic. And moreover, if this was true, all that the authorities and rulers had to do was to produce the actually body of Jesus and end the lies! Amar: What are the other reasons that critics have cited? Me: Many more. Like, the disciples actually only saw a ghost! But, it is accounted that they touched his wounds. His appearances were in flesh and bones. Also, he ate food with them! Amar: What if it was a case of a mistaken identity? Me: Well, that is perhaps the weightiest argument according to me. But as I said, the disciples touched his wounds. Moreover, this identity, whoever he was, appeared and vanished into thin air at will. Moreover, these disciples saw him being taken up into the skies! So even if he appeared different from when he lived, it was certainly not a case of mistaken identity! Amar: What does all this mean? Me: With implications that this claim has, either it is the most wicked, vicious, and heartless hoaxes ever foisted on the minds of human beings or it is the most remarkable fact of history! Looks like it really happened! Amar: But all this happened so long ago! How can I really believe it today! Me: It’s ironic that when we say 2010, it means 2010 years after he Jesus born. His birth divided history! We are talking about someone who divided history. Someone who made claims unparalleled; lived a life that shook up the most powerful civilization of all times, not by might or power but by simply changing the lives of the people living inside of it! Someone, who rose again from the dead and promised to come back to rule the planet! Amar: Come back?! One more unbelievable claim! Jesus! Me: Perhaps that is the reason people say ‘Jesus’ when they encounter something astonishing! Well, Jesus did make one more claim that he would come back. But to discuss that, we need another day! Amar: So you are sure you will not join if we call a get-together tomorrow! Me: I and you simply can’t ignore him! Jesus couldn’t be ignored in 2000 years of world history. If all these claims are true, I should be commemorating many more days of the year for him! Don’t you agree? Amar: Perhaps. Especially if he said that he is coming back! Me: Oh yeah. Next time we sit together, we will talk about how the prophecies related to his coming back are strangely getting fulfilled. It’s alarming! Amar: If someone has died and come back from the dead, I suppose he better be heard because, we all are each day progressing towards our death! Me: We may become rich or maybe not. We may own a big house or maybe not. We may buy a big car or maybe not. We may marry or maybe not. We may have children or maybe not. We may become famous or maybe not. But one thing that will surely happen to all of us here is death! If there was an answer to death, would you not grab it!? Amar: Now I understand why you call this day “Good”. The talks continued at Soul Café for some more time that day. Eventually we did decide to have a get together the next day, but at a time which was convenient for me too. I ended up that day with many more topics for intercession! Dear reader, hope you are ready for him! Jesus is alive and coming back! Check out the facts for yourself and do something about it! Jesus is risen. He is risen indeed!