The resurrection is reasonable
Over two billion people identify as Christians. It's about one-third of the global population. This is striking because in AD 350––after emperor Constantine recognized Christianity as the prevailing religion of the Greco-Roman world––about thirty million people followed Jesus. Which is also striking because just three centuries earlier there were only about 600 Christians (see Acts 1:15, 1 Corinthians 15:6). How do we make sense of this reality? How do we understand this explosive and expansive growth? In a word, resurrection.
God did something that changed everything.
Today many of us relegate the resurrection of Jesus Christ to an inspiring spiritual story. But not a real one. God didn't really do something, we might think, but the story of resurrection is a powerful idea that leads us to take meaningful moral action, like loving our neighbors and living hopeful lives. Others of us, perhaps who grew up in faith and church, limit the resurrection of Jesus to a moment in history which leads to our eternity in heaven. Jesus rose from the dead so we get forgiveness and we get to go to heaven one day. But resurrection doesn't change the way we live today.
However scholar N.T. Wright explains that the best way to understand the reality and growth of the early church was that, "Something had happened, something which was not at all what they expected or hoped for, something around which they had to reconstruct their lives” (The Resurrection of the Son of God). Wright says the best explanation for the birth of Christianity is Jesus' resurrection. That is, that the dead physical body of Jesus Christ actually came back to life.
God really did something.
But that's not all. That's not the full story. Historian Larry Hurtado gives us more to consider. He says, "the growth of Christianity in its first three centuries, the most crucial period, was largely by a combination of the power of persuasion, whether in preaching, intellectual argument, ‘miracles’ exhibiting the power of Jesus’ name, and simply the moral suasion of Christian behavior, including martyrdom” (Destroyer of the gods). Though nothing in their existing worldview prepared them for resurrection, followers of Jesus were changed. They'd received immediate hope and power and security from the resurrection. They believed and acted accordingly. Christians lived with intellectual, spiritual, and moral conviction and integrity in response to the resurrection.
God did something that changed everything.
Think about that. The best explanation for the resurrection is that it really happened. The most reasonable way to make sense of the rise of Christianity is that two thousand years ago God actually did something. And that something doesn't simply give us access to some etherial future. Rather what God really did really changes me. It changes you. It changes us as a community, on the spot and perpetually, by grace through faith.
God did something that changed everything.
**Adapted from a sermon preached on Easter Sunday 2022