Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2 through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain. 3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

            Several months ago I had a conversation with a man (not a member of Calvin Church).  We were talking about faith and spirituality, and he said to me, “I don’t know how you can believe in the resurrection of Jesus.  It goes completely against all logic.  It seems to me that belief in Jesus’ resurrection is just kind of silly.” 

Now, you might think that as a pastor I’d be offended by such comments, but I’m really not because I’ve made those comments myself in the past.  It’s hard for me to condemn people who have the same kind of questions I’ve had, and the same kind of struggles with Christian faith that I’ve had.  For a long time I thought that the resurrection was preposterous. Why?  Because I’m a logical, rational person, and the resurrection seemed so illogical and irrational. 

What makes the resurrection so illogical and irrational?  Let’s look at all the problems. 
The first problem is the most apparent.  It’s this:  once people are dead, they’re dead.   It’s hard to argue with that logic.  Do you know anyone who has been really dead, put in the ground, and then came back?  Of course not.  Death is final.  Still, isn’t it possible that God, who created the world, is more powerful than the rule of death?  Second, there’s the fact that we have no corroborating evidence of Jesus’ resurrection outside the Bible.  From a scientific point of view we have to be skeptical.  If there is no proof of something, then we have to question it.  And since we don’t have clear-cut evidence of the resurrection outside the Bible, we have to be skeptical.  Third, as we all know, the people of Jesus’ time were naïve.  They were ignorant and superstitious.  So we have to be cautious about accepting what they believe in because it may be rooted more in rumor and misunderstanding than in fact.  Finally, as we all know, people lie all the time.  How do we know that Jesus’ followers didn’t lie?

These are all fairly powerful problems that really get in the way of belief in the resurrection.  I understand all these arguments intimately because I uttered all of them at some point in may past.  If only we could prove logically that Jesus was resurrected.  Wouldn’t that take care of all the doubts and bring people into the faith?  Wouldn’t that solve all of our problems? 

Unfortunately, there’s a problem with logic when it comes to the resurrection.  What proof would be suitable?  What evidence good enough for all the skeptics?  Well,… what if there were people in Jesus’ time who had witnessed Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection?  I don’t just mean the disciples, who we might suspect were lying, but what about others?   That’s just it.  There were others.  Paul mentions in our passage that there were over 500 people who were visited by the resurrected Christ.  Paul mentions that a few of them had died, but the rest were all alive.  These were people who, in his day, could be visited, talked with, and vetted.  In fact, Paul was telling the Corinthians that there was evidence outside of his writings.  We may not have access to it today, but skeptics in Corinth did. 

This brings up another question.  Many doubt the resurrection because they suspect that Jesus’ disciples and followers could have lied.  It seems to make sense.  These were people who committed three years to following Jesus.  They had been part of a powerful movement.  They probably weren’t ready to give it all up.  Did they make up the story of the resurrection to regain power?  That’s very unlikely and illogical.  Why?  Because the only way lying about it would have benefited them is if it had actually benefited them.  There was no benefit.  After Jesus’ crucifixion they were wanted men.  They were outcasts.  The Jewish authorities, as well as some Romans, wanted to capture them and try them for sedition.  Over the following few years, Jerusalem became so hostile to them that they had to move to Damascus, and then Antioch.  And the apostles’ lives were hard because of their faith.  They were all beaten, imprisoned, and killed (except John, who was just imprisoned in isolation) for their faith.  There was no upside to lying about the resurrection.  Their lives were harder because of their faith.  Logic tells you that people don’t undergo that kind of sacrifice for a lie.  They gained no power from their faith.  Instead, their faith made their lives harder.

Paul himself suffered even more than the rest.  In becoming a follower of Christ, and an evangelist, after his vision of Christ, he became the target of persecution.  He gave up a lot for this vision.  He gave up the power he was amassing among the Pharisees (he was a rising star).  He had to live life for almost three years on the lam, and his new faith ended many of his close relationships.  He was beaten, imprisoned, and eventually killed for his faith.  Paul even writes about this, saying that he had suffered terribly for the Gospel, but that he considered it to be joy, not a tragedy. 

So, here we are faced with evidence from that time, but we dismiss it.  Well,… what if people had experiences of Jesus today?  What if people had personal experience of the risen Christ?  Would that make a difference?  What if people had an experience like Virginia’s.   Virginia, who lived in Belle Glade, Florida, had her life change when her father was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a strain that was resistant to all the new drugs that were coming out in 1950 when he contracted it.  Her father, Roy Wolfe, was not a deeply religious man.  Nor were the rest of the family.  Still, his diagnosis put all of them into a deep funk that touched their souls.  Before his illness, Roy didn’t go to church.  As he put it, he had gone to church all the time as a boy, and had been “churched out.”   Virginia was involved in her church, serving on committees, helping with fund-raising, and being part of civic-minded church activities, but she really didn’t know what to do with things like prayer and spirituality.  Things changed for her when her father was diagnosed with TB. 

After the initial shock of the diagnosis, she had a period in which she started to cry.  For four days she had a crying fit in which she cried almost nonstop.  She would have periods in which she bawled, and others in which she wept quietly and softly.   At first she thought that her crying had to do with her father’s illness, but over time it felt different.  It seemed like she was also crying about her life.  By the fourth day she thought that she might be having a nervous breakdown, but then it all stopped one afternoon as she was sitting in a chair, looking out the window. 

Off in the distance she saw a small ball of light.  It started to grow larger.  Slowly she realized that the light wasn’t really growing bigger.  It was coming closer.  Soon it entered her window and stopped over her shoulder.  She was awestruck.  She didn’t know what to do.  As she stared at the ball of light, she realized that there was a face in it.  She knew the face.  It was the face of Jesus.  And he was looking at her intensely and smiling.  It was the most loving, non-condemning look she had ever had.  And Jesus laughed as if to say, “You have no idea what I’m about to do.” 

The light stayed with her for three months, and with it came a sense of deep, deep peace and joy.  It was strange at first, but then she got used to it.  Others couldn’t see it, but she saw Jesus there constantly, looking at her, smiling, and sharing the world with her.  Then one day it all ended with a vision.  Virginia was sitting in a chair, and on the wall she noticed a light.  It grew, and in it she saw her father’s lung X-rays.   In the X-ray she could clearly see the figure-eight tuberculosis cavity that she had seen on previous X-rays.  Soon a white line, like a scanner line, passed up the X-ray, and as it did the X-ray revealed a healthy lung where the diseased lung had been.  Feeling incredulous, she wondered what it meant, and she had the vision again.  It suddenly occurred to her that her father was healed.  Looking at the face at her side, she saw the face of Jesus rear back and laugh, with the laughter filling the room, as if to say, “See what I can do!  This is so much fun!”    Then the face left her. 

She called up her mother, and said to her, “Mother, this is Virginia.  Daddy’s well!”  Her mother tried calmed Virginia down with a parental platitude, but Virginia said it again, “Mother,… Really well.  Daddy’s healed.  Mother, when are the next X-rays?”  Her mom told her that they were next Wednesday, and Virginia said, “Then I’ll call you Wednesday evening.  But remember that I told you, Daddy’s well.” 

The next Wednesday Virginia called her mother, and her mother said, “Virginia, the most annoying thing.  They got the plates mixed up!  Poor Dad’s got to go back for more X-rays tomorrow.  Why, they sent down pictures of someone who never even had T.B.—“  Virginia said, “Mother, Dad’s O.K.  No matter how many X-rays they take, they’re not going to find anything wrong.”  The next X-rays showed no T.B., nor did the subsequent sputum tests.  The doctors had no explanation.  In talking with her father, he realized that he had had an experience of healing right at the same time Virginia had the vision of the X-rays.  He was lying in bed, and he felt like something had drained out of his body through his feet, followed by a swooshing feeling of well-being.  And he felt loved, really loved in a way he had never felt in his life.  These experiences transformed Virginia, her father, her mother, and her whole family because they realized that they had had an experience of Christ.  (adapted from the story as told by Catherine Marshall in her book, Something More)

So, what about an experience like that?  Ahh, there are problems.  The experience didn’t happen to us.  It happened over 50 years ago.  It doesn’t fit our logic scheme of the way the world works or the way God works.  How do skeptics respond?  The say, “Well,… .but…”  There’s always a well,… but.  That’s just the problem.  No matter how much evidence we get, there’s always a well… but. 

But there’s also another reality.  Despite the problems with the evidence that Jesus was resurrected, there is absolutely no evidence that he wasn’t resurrected.  Despite what books like The DaVinci Code might say, or all those other books about other books of the Bible, they are all speculative books.  Even the ones that sort of come from Jesus’ time, like The Gospel of Thomas, or The Gospel of Judas, were speculations written over 100 years after Jesus died.  This compares with Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, which was probably written about fifteen to twenty years after Jesus died.  There is no credible evidence that Jesus wasn’t resurrected. 

The reality is that logic is a problem when it comes to the resurrection.  Logic is limited.  I want to give logic its due.  The use of logic has done wonderful things in our culture and world.  Logic has created wonderful systems to grow food, build cars, houses, and highways, create a tremendous form of government, and allow us to lead the world in technology.  Logic is so crucial to every aspect of life, and its fruits have blessed all of us.  I will never argue for an illogical world.  The problem, though, is that logic has its shortcomings, especially when it comes to matters of faith, spirituality, and belief.   The problem?  Logic reduces everything to the material, and it can rob life of spirit.  Logic can be a trap.  It both opens us to wonders in life, and traps us into a way of seeing life that is reductionistic and materialistic. 

The fact is that ultimately no one can prove that Jesus was resurrected, and no one can prove he wasn’t.  What I can tell you is that something happened 2000 years ago that transformed the world, and whatever happened it has led people to experience God in profound and life-changing ways.  And there is something different about the Christian experience of God.  It opens people to experiences like Virginia’s.  Few other faiths open people to profound spiritual experiences like that.  Not Islam, not Buddhism, not Taoism.  The Christian experience of God, especially of God in Christ and the Spirit, is personal, intimate, tangible, and transforming.  There are aspects to the Christian approach that are profoundly different from that of other faiths, and it is an approach that is deeply mystical.  This is not to condemn other faiths.  It’s only to praise what Christianity offers when we are able to simply accept the resurrection. 

Why do I believe in the resurrection?   Because years ago I discovered something personally that that great 19th-century philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, wrote about 150 years ago.  This is a deeply profound concept.  Kierkegaard said that real Christian faith and experience comes when we realize that Christian belief and faith are not logical.  We get to the point at which we realize that belief in God is an absurdity.  And we stare at God across the abyss of the absurd, and we are left with a choice.  Do we turn away from the absurdity, choosing instead a life of logic?  Or do we leap across the abyss of the absurd into God’s arms, saying, “God, I’m yours even if this makes no sense.”  Kierkegaard is adamant that this initial leap of faith is essential to having a personal experience of God.  Without it, God remains distant, a God who seems powerless and aloof.  But when we make that leap, we begin to experience God in Christ both tangibly and constantly. 

I discovered that when I quit worrying about whether the resurrection did or didn’t happen, instead focusing my mind, heart, and soul on serving Christ, my life changed.  I discovered what Virginia discovered.  I discovered the risen Christ who is with us all the time, if we are open to him.  And I discovered that we can live a life of love, purpose, and service that makes a difference in the world. I invite all of you, on Jesus’ behalf, to share in that life--a life based on faith.