Editor’s Note: I am currently blogging through my book Easter: Fact or Fiction, 20 Reasons to Believe Jesus Rose from the Dead. That book is available on Amazon by clicking the picture or link below. Please check it out! (Scroll down for links to the other parts to this post) (CLICK HERE FOR THE AMAZON LINK)
“So if you were going to make up a story about the resurrected Jesus Christ, you would never make up a story like this.
You might have some luminescent, radiant Jesus bursting through the doors and everyone shielding their eyes, but instead what do you have? Would you, if you were making up a story do this? He just appears in their midst and says, “Do you have anything to eat?” Look how magnificent. Look what a faith-building experience. “And they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he ate it.” Seriously, if you were making up a story about the resurrected Jesus, you just wouldn’t say things like this.
Why would this be there? How mundane. How odd. How completely uninspiring. Why would that be there? The only right answer is, if you’re reading literature, it must have happened. Why else would you put it in? Legends are not like this.” [1]
- Pastor Tim Keller
One of the oddest things about the resurrection accounts in all four gospels is their obvious lack of drama and embellishment. As Dr. Keller points out, Jesus just kind of appears in the midst of the disciples. They do cower, thinking he is a ghost, but after getting their courage back, Jesus quite anticlimactically asks for some boiled fish. If Hollywood had scripted the resurrection, Jesus would have come back in a blaze of glory, surrounded by a fiery glow. Thomas, upon expressing doubts, would have either been divinely smited (smitten?) down, or, Jesus would have answered his doubts with such a perfect put-down, that the disciples would have spent the rest of their lives reminding him how he’d been put in his place by the master. After Jesus met with the disciples, He would have flown off and utterly wiped the floor with Pilate and Herod…maybe even Caesar over in Rome. It would have been a blaze of glory and revenge, and every bad guy would have learned their lesson the hard way. When all was said and done, Jesus would have rocketed back up to Heaven with an amazing display of light and sound. Jesus is back…and this time, it’s personal.
That’s what would have happened if the resurrection of Jesus had been mythically embellished or fabricated, or exaggerated or invented. There would have been more drama – more comeuppance for the bad guys, and more adoration for Jesus. Instead, He ate some fish. He had a discussion with Peter about John. He broke bread with Cleopas and another guy walking on the Emmaus road. Other than the coming back from the dead part…it just seems kind of mundane, doesn’t it? (Note: This is a partial preview of my book, you can continue reading FREE on Amazon via Kindle Unlimited, or you can purchase the book for a few pennies, OR you can find a friend reading it and take it when he isn’t looking!)
[1] Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).
Links to the other 20 posts in this series (20 Reasons To Believe Jesus Rose from the Dead)
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