How can you explain the resurrection? 2

If you don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus, you are taking a bigger leap of faith historically than you are if you believe in it. Since there is virtually no evidence that anything other than the resurrection took place (other than some wild speculation centuries later at best), and that making sense out of the ensuing happenings in the Roman empire and the rest of the world within short time is almost impossible apart from the truth of the resurrection of this man, the only path left for the skeptic is to invent some improbable conspiracy theories about "what really happened", which can only be loosely based in history, if even we can say that (which I would highly doubt).


Sometimes it's discouraging when I look at the world with all its division and problems, especially in the realm of Christianity it is difficult to cope with. But really, it is all simplified down to one thing: that being what happened the first Easter. It screams for a verdict to be rendered. There is no way to avoid it. This one event clears away all the fog and opens the mind to think clearly. As Paul said, if Christ has not been raised then faith in Jesus is futile and Christians are the most pitiful people that ever lived (1 Cor. 15 ). History and reality both hinge on this fact. If Christ is buried somewhere, the stupidest and most pathetic thing you can do is be a Christian, despite some people's attempts at claiming that it does not matter. But if he has been raised from death, the only thing in the world that makes sense is to love and trust Jesus because he is the only one who can defeat the most relentless and unstoppable perils there are: suffering, injustice, and death. And his defeat is once for all. Because he lives, we who trust in him will live also because God was pleased for all humanity in Jesus' life, death, burial, and resurrection. As N.T. Wright has put it, this pattern of life seen in Jesus is the prototype for humanity and hope, and is the pattern that has been promised by God thousands of years ago and that awaits all human beings. He is the human race's representative and imputes his resurrected life into ours if we believe in him through faith.