Christians and skeptics agree on this: Christianity stands or falls with the Resurrection. This is the cornerstone of all Christian belief and faith. It’s said that among the last words of historian Jaroslav Pelikan were these: “If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters.”
Paul says as much. Later in the same letter, Paul puts it bluntly: “If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.” (See 1 Corinthians 15:14) If Christ isn’t risen, the Christian faith unravels like a cheap dress. If Jesus is still in the grave, he’s not a great moral teacher or a wise guru— he’s a sideshow huckster.
Paul goes on: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (See 1 Corinthians 15:17-19)
In other words, if the tomb of Jesus is not empty, then the Christian faith itself is completely empty. The stains soaked deep in my soul of the worst that I’ve done aren’t coming out. If Christ is dead, then it’s death that has the last word in the world. Your life and mine, and every human being’s, every single creation of beauty and each act of goodness, kindness, and justice in the history of the world—all these are so many meaningless smudges on the windshield of cosmic history. If Christ is not risen: Eat, drink, and self-medicate. If Christ is not risen, nothing else matters. But, says Paul, and every believing follower of Jesus: Christ is risen. Something has happened, out in the open in world history, that has changed everything, for everyone and everything, forever. And so nothing else matters. To help you take in just how outlandish the Christian story’s central claim is, I want to be clear. When Christians say we believe that, on the first Easter morning, Christ was raised from the dead, we don’t mean that Jesus’ inspiring example will somehow live on forever. We don’t mean that his teachings still speak to us from beyond the grave. When we talk about resurrection, we’re not referencing the inspiring refreshment of springtime, or the potential of the human spirit, or the power of optimism.
We mean that the crucified, executed person of Jesus of Nazareth was raised from death by the power and love of God.
In the 1950s, author John Updike submitted a poem entitled “Seven Stanzas at Easter” to an arts festival; its verses vividly map out the staggering dimensions of the Easter claim:
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 Christian claim of Jesus’ resurrection means that, on the first Easter morning, Jesus’ tortured body was reknit, his expired heart began its beat anew, his life was rekindled. In an act of power and love not seen since the dawn of the cosmos, the Creator raised Jesus into new life, breaking the stranglehold of sin, evil, and death on his good creation and beginning his work of making all things new.
Jared Ayers
Rev. Dr. Jared Ayers is a pastor, speaker, professor, and writer. He is a graduate of Western Theological Seminary and the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination. A pastor for more than two decades, he currently serves as Senior Minister at First Presbyterian Church in North Palm Beach, FL., and as adjunct faculty at Palm Beach Atlantic University. Jared is married to his wife Monica, and they’ve been graced with two sons and a daughter.