Who was raised by God to live forever<\/strong>, and Who Inspires Us to Truly Live<\/p>

NOW WHAT<\/p>

One of the great arguments at seminaries is wether it matters that Jesus was brought back to life in bodily form after his crucifixion.\u00a0 This is a question that has only been asked with more than one answer for the last 100 years or so.\u00a0 Before that people believed in a more literal reading of the Bible and took it for granted that the Bible was talking about a literal bodily resurrection.\u00a0 We can\u2019t know the answer for certain.\u00a0 I do know that it is something that makes people really nervous.<\/p>

WHAT NOT TO DO ON EASTER<\/p>

There is a joke about Jesus saying to his disciples, \u201cListen carefully, I don\u2019t wan\u2019t like four versions of this.\u201d\u00a0 But, that is what we have.\u00a0 Something we never do on Easter, probably for good reason, is to give a sermon on all of the inconsistencies in the Resurrection stories.\u00a0 It is not the time or the place. Here however, I have the time and space and if you do as well we can look at them together.\u00a0 My point here is not to try to prove the Bible to be false or useless.\u00a0 I instead hope to find new meanings in trying to ask why different authors painted different pictures.\u00a0<\/p>

MARK\u2019S GOSPEL<\/p>

The original ending of Mark\u2019s gospel doesn\u2019t have evidence of a bodily resurrection.\u00a0 It simply ended with three of Jesus followers, Mary Magdalene, Martha and Salome going to anoint Jesus\u2019 body with burial spices.\u00a0 They found the tomb empty and a man in a shiny white robe telling them that Jesus was not there but that he was risen.\u00a0 They left in terror and astonishment and told no one.\u00a0 This ending leaves much to the imagination.\u00a0 Maybe too much so another ending was added later.<\/p>

MARK\u2019S SEQUEL<\/p>

In the second ending, the women told Peter and others and but no one believed them.\u00a0 Jesus appeared to two other groups who also told the story but the disciples still didn\u2019t believe them.\u00a0 Then Jesus appeared to the disciples and scolded them for not believing.\u00a0 He gave them a pep talk and then was taken up into heaven. \u00a0<\/p>

MATTHEW\u2019S GOSPEL<\/p>

In Matthew\u2019s Gospel, it is Mary Magdalene and the other Mary,(no Martha or Salome) who go to anoint Jesus.\u00a0 An Angel descends from Heaven and tells them that Jesus is not here but raised.\u00a0 As the women go and tell the disciples, Jesus appears to them all and tells them to go ahead to Galilee where He will meet them.\u00a0 In Galilee Jesus meets them and gives them a pep talk to go out and spread the news. The last line of the Gospel of Matthew is Jesus saying that he will always be with them to the end of the age.\u00a0 Since he doesn\u2019t leave, if you didn\u2019t have the other Gospels, it might lead you to believe he never left.\u00a0 When we have the other stories we read this metaphorically.<\/p>

LUKE\u2019S GOSPEL<\/p>

In Lukes Gospel, we do not get the names of the women at the empty tomb but instead of a man in shiny white who might be an Angel.\u00a0 There are also two men to tell them that Jesus has risen.\u00a0 He mentions nothing about Galilee and as the disciples are in Jerusalem.\u00a0 All eleven are startled later when all of a sudden, Jesus is with them.\u00a0 They think he is a ghost so he shows them the holes in his hands and feet.\u00a0 He asked for something to eat and they give him some fish.\u00a0 He gives the pep talk about spreading the news and walks them as far as Bethany (a few miles) and then as he is blessing them he is carried into Heaven.<\/p>

JOHN\u2019S GOSPEL<\/p>

In Johns Gospel, it is Mary Magdalene by herself who goes to the tomb, and finds it empty.\u00a0 She then runs to find Peter and he and she and another disciple run to find the tomb empty.\u00a0 Peter and the other disciple go in one at a time and see the grave clothes.\u00a0 Then they return to their homes.\u00a0 Mary stays behind and sees two angels before also seeing a gardener.\u00a0 She asks him where they have laid Jesus and he tells her that he has risen.\u00a0 When the gardener talks, she recognizes that it is Jesus and calls him teacher.\u00a0 Jesus then tells her to go and tell the others so he can ascend to the Father.\u00a0 Did he ascend and then descend?\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 The disciples, minus Thomas, are afraid and gathered together inside a locked room and suddenly Jesus appears.\u00a0 He shows them his hands, feet and side and this time the pep talk contains the giving of the Holy Spirit as he breathed on them.\u00a0 Then Thomas comes home after Jesus has gone and says that he doesn\u2019t believe that they really saw Jesus.\u00a0 Eight days later, inside the locked room, Jesus appears again and shows Himself to Thomas.\u00a0 Then later, Jesus appeared to the disciples again at the sea of Tiberias in Galilee.\u00a0 He reenacts telling them which side of the boat to fish from from the beginning of the Gospel and they have another huge catch of fish.\u00a0 They come ashore and Jesus eats with them and forgives Peter for denying him.\u00a0 The Gospel doesn\u2019t record Jesus ascending again.<\/p>

SUMMARY<\/p>

So, just in case you are playing the home game.\u00a0 The differences are in how many women, whether they are believed or not.\u00a0 Who and how many men first saw Jesus and wether they were believed or not.\u00a0 In Luke, Jesus shows eleven of them his hands and feet and in John it is ten plus one later.\u00a0 In all of the stories except the oldest one, Mark\u2019s original ending, he gives a pep talk but not always the same one.\u00a0 In John, he gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit and not until later in Acts which is part two of Lukes Gospel. Sometimes they recognize him and sometimes not.\u00a0 Sometimes they think he is a Ghost, one time a gardener and one time a guy who gives really good fishing advice.\u00a0 Once he ascends to heaven before meeting the disciples, twice after and once not at all.\u00a0 So it can be a bit confusing if a factual understanding is what you seek.<\/p>

HE IS RISEN<\/p>

Some scholars would say that because Mark wrote first his is most accurate.\u00a0 Some would say that John who wrote last and had the others to work from is the most accurate.\u00a0 I think that accuracy is not the point.\u00a0 The point is for me, that either Jesus rose in bodily form or he didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Not much of a point, I know.\u00a0 Let me say more.\u00a0 Jesus\u2019 followers believed that he was alive.\u00a0 They believed that death was not the end of his story or ours.\u00a0 There is no way that they would have risked their lives to keep his message alive and no way it would have spread without God\u2019s help.\u00a0 Wether this happened in Jesus\u2019 own body after the resurrection or if he was embodied in his followers in some real way it simply doesn\u2019t matter to me.\u00a0 I can say with great confidence that, \u201cJesus is risen\u201d because I see it everyday in the lives of people who live his message of love. \u00a0<\/p><\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who was raised by God to live forever, and Who Inspires Us to Truly Live NOW WHAT One of the great arguments at seminaries is wether it matters that Jesus was brought back to life in bodily form after his crucifixion.\u00a0 This is a question that has only been asked with more than one answer for the last 100 years or so.\u00a0 Before that people believed in a more literal<\/p>\n