Last year at Easter I wrote something to the effect that it would be enough for me to just have the stories of Jesus’ life, teachings and death; I don’t need a resurrection for them to have meaning and power in my life.
But the thought I had during morning prayer today was that the disciples needed it! And it’s only because of the profound ways they experienced Jesus’ presence after his death that they regained hope in his message and meaning and therefore passed on and wrote the gospel stories and letters and kept the Christian faith going.
Just because I don’t believe that Jesus’ body was raised back to life doesn’t mean the the disciples didn’t believe it! That’s why we have Christianity at all today, and in that sense our faith is utterly dependent on the historical truth of the resurrection – because somebody else believed it.
The gospel stories were written after the resurrection, because of the resurrection, in light of the resurrection. And that IS a historical fact!
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