Is the Easter story true?
Since the time of the gospels, every week and especially once a year, Christians gather to sing and worship the death-defeating Jesus of Nazareth. As then, through today, right now, all over the world on every continent (and sometimes even in space) Christians celebrate this story of the resurrected Jesus.
There’s a place to talk about if it’s true, and there are lots of good resources to back it up (to be clear, I definitely believe it is!) But I want to offer two reasons as to why you should want this to be true.
What’s at Stake?
The apostle Paul argues for the importance of the bodily resurrection of Jesus in his first letter to the Corinthians. The Greek world had a distaste for the grimy, stinky human body, so to them, Christ’s resurrection was impossible—people don’t just rise from the dead—and it was distasteful.
In 1 Corinthians 15:17-19, Paul shows what’s at stake if Christ isn’t raised.
“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
If Christ isn’t raised, then the faith these Christians possess is futile, they’re still in their sins, and those Christians who have died have perished. There is no hope.
But if Christ is resurrected that means two incredible things, thus, there are at least two reasons why you should want the resurrection to be true.
Reason One: If it’s true, we’re no longer in our sin.
Paul says Christ’s resurrection means a release from sin. This is a two-sided coin, it entails both being forgiven of sin and being made to walk in new life.
Side One: Forgiveness
The Christian story begins with a universal problem: sin. Humans were made for life with God in His good world. Yet we reject God as did the first man, Adam. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Rom. 3:23).
But what are we to make of the Bible’s claim that all people are sinners deserving God’s judgment? This can be a challenging claim for our unbelieving friends.
Neil Shenvi offers a telling hypothetical in his book Why Believe. Imagine a new iPhone app that translates your thoughts into a voice that is immediately read though a loudspeaker. Everywhere you go—the beach, the gym, church—every thought is made plain for all to hear—every lustful thought, every petty thought, every cruel thought. Are you so certain in your moral uprightness that you’d sign up for that?
What’s more, we all know the pain of regret from a wrong we’ve committed. I love my kids, but I lose my patience with them. They don’t deserve to be spoken to the way I have spoken to them. I choose scrolling over eye contact with loved ones. Or I think of friends I’ve betrayed or lies I’ve told.
Maybe “sinner” is an apt diagnosis of our condition. This is exactly how God’s word describes us.
Outside of the Christian answer, what are we do with the fact of our sinfulness? Some say we can do enough good to hopefully outweigh the wrong. But how do we really know how much is enough? Do we really have it in us to achieve utter selflessness or utter self-authenticity?
We try to deal with guilt by plugging our ears and muting our shame. Instagram says that’s the solution; “break free from shame and be your truest self.” But we know that’s cheap, we know we’ve done real wrong in the world, and we know there’s people who shouldn’t be their true selves—arsons, and Viking warlords, for instance.
But if Christ is resurrected, everything’s different. Your guilt can be gone.
Not just your experience of shame, but your objective guilt can be washed away by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul says Christians are made right (“justified”) with God by Christ’s resurrection in Romans 4:25. It does not matter who you are! It does not matter how guilty you are You, right here, right now, can be forgiven.
Side Two: New Life
Paul writes in Romans 6:4, “We were buried therefore with [Christ] . . . in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
For those who repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, our old self with his guilt and sin dies with Christ in the cross, and Christ’s resurrection enables us to walk in a new kind of life, a life characterized by joy, peace, patience, holiness; a life with God by His Spirit.
I recently bumped into a friend at a coffee shop and he asked what I was reading. I was studying for my sermon, so I told him briefly about the chapter of the Bible I was in. I asked if he was religious or ever thought about the “big questions”. He answered with a shrug. “Not really. Nothing matters. That’s my view on life.“ His vision for life was a shrug.
Is that really how we want to spend our days? If Christ is resurrected, what’s offered to us is new life, one with purpose, meaning, direction, and vision. We’re given a teacher and a path to follow. We are welcomed in a life of holiness and the goodness of Jesus and His people.
Do you want to be free from envy? Lust? Anger? Are you tired of living for yourself and your appetites? Do you want to live for something substantial?
Christ walked out of the grave to enable people like us to have new life in Him. Our old lives are forgiven and we’re given a new way to live, a new way to be human, like Jesus.
That’s the first reason we should want Christ’s resurrection to be true; because we’re no longer in our sins. We can be forgiven of our old life and enabled to walk in new life.
As glorious as that is, it’s not even the best part. Read part two tomorrow at The Baptist Courier for the second reason we should want the resurrection to be true.
— Trevor Hoffman is a teaching pastor at Ridgewood Church in Greer.