why the resurrection matters

i spent 3 years of my life working my way through one of the most liberal seminaries in the south, perhaps in the country. a lot of people wonder why i went there, and the best answer i can give is that i didn't know how liberal it was going to be until i got there. but in all seriousness, i value learning from others who think differently from me. and that's how i ended up at a school with a bunch of people who thought the resurrection of christ was simply metaphorical. most of my classmates didn't believe jesus physically returned from the dead. instead, they believed that his spirit lived on with his followers and transformed their lives -- a resurrection in a sense, but not one that claimed jesus lived again in the flesh. for them, the reality of the life jesus had lived was enough to bring resurrection power to a dead world. it didn't really matter if jesus actually did rise from the dead.

lest anyone think i'm being one-sided, i want to address what i call the conservative view (please note: i hate labels. i think they're offensive and constraining and not at all representative of nuances in opinion. but for convenience, i'm labeling). i grew up in a southern baptist church where the importance of jesus was found mostly in the cross and resurrection. i think this is why so many conservative churches struggle with understanding the importance of social justice and overemphasize "going to heaven." for some (please note: i didn't say all or even many), the importance of the cross is found in "getting saved from our sins so we can go to heaven." i like what rev. vernon johns said to a group of preachers: "you didn't do a thing but preach about the death of jesus. if that were the heart of christianity, all God had to do was to drop him down on friday, kill him, and then yank him up again on easter sunday...you don't hear so much about his three years of teaching that man's religion is revealed in the love of his fellow man." when it seemed like johns had illuminated the point of the resurrection, he instead swung in the wrong direction by adding: "i want to deal with jesus before the cross. i don't give a damn what happened to him after the cross!"

i hope it's becoming clear that the problem with both of these views is that neither live as though the life of jesus and his death and resurrection are meant to go hand in hand. one does not make sense without the other. we cannot emphasize the life of christ without emphasizing his death and resurrection, nor can we emphasize christ's death and resurrection without seeing those events in light of his life. the life of jesus is the most glaring example of our need for the cross. when jesus came to dwell among us -- God in the flesh -- he revealed to us through his life the character of God. he showed us what we -- the image bearers of God -- were created to be. johns is right, jesus did show us that man's religion is revealed in his love for his neighbor. but what he and many liberals forget when they behold jesus as a moral exemplar of love is that human beings are prone to sin. we cannot do this loving on our own. we do not have the capacity for it.

and so the life of jesus points directly to the cross and resurrection. the cross is God's way of saying, "i love you. i am sad that you have strayed so far away from me and the things i intended for you. i want you to come back to me. i want you to be like me. i will rescue you. because you cannot rescue yourselves." i don't claim to know exactly how the transaction of atonement took place exactly or why it had to happen the way it did, nor will i say i've never doubted it. but i do know that if the bones of jesus are buried in the ground somewhere, we have no hope. if jesus left us with just the memory of his life, we have been left to our own abilities, and we will surely fail. the resurrection matters because it proclaims that jesus lives! that he conquered sin and death, and they no longer have a hold on us! and because of that, a way has been made for us to God. a way has been made for us to live as jesus did, to be who we were created to be. to love God, to love our neighbors, to have compassion, to work for justice, to forgive, to be peacemakers. that is redemption. and that, my friends, is a reason to celebrate.