Easter

Regardless of whether today is the actual, calender-date anniversary of the resurrection of Jesus, and regardless of whether it is theologically allowed to treat this day as “special,” this is as good a time as any to reflect for a moment on the Resurrection.

I heard a story today about a newsman reporting the holiday as “today is the day Christians gather to celebrate the alleged resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

I actually like this. Most reporters I heard today simply described it as “celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.” It felt like they were treating it as simply a religious belief or a matter of opinion- you either believe it or not. Opinions cannot be true or false, so questioning whether the resurrection actually happened would be pointless.

Adding “alleged,” however, changes it. It no longer is simply a personal decision to either believe or not believe. An alleged event is an event that someone has claimed to have happened. The resurrection makes a claim of historic truth, and opinions matter little in the face of truth.

In a way, all Christians are conspiracy theorists. The official word explaining the disappearance of the body of Jesus was that the body was stolen. We believe otherwise. We believe that the body of Jesus, although completely dead, was restored to life, and that Jesus got up, walked out of the tomb, and appeared to many people before ascending into Heaven.

The Resurrection is the core tenant of the Christian faith, and is either a historic event or not. Merely dismissing it as a matter of opinion is to misunderstand Christianity.

On the subject of Easter, Martin LaBar at Sun and Shield has a good thought on the Resurrection, and Tom Gilson has two new posts on “The Ironies of Easter,” and has reran a post on the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Many will recognize these words from the song “Low in the Grave He Lay” (from Cyberhymnal- careful of the auto-playing sound):

“Death cannot keep its Prey, Jesus my Savior;
He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!

Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah! Christ arose!”

“You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.”

-Mark 16:6

Eliot Spitzer

Well, it looks like the Eliot Spitzer events are wrapping up.

I don’t know about international readers, but those of us who live in the United States have been flooded with news about the scandal revolving around former New York governor Eliot Spitzer.

Of course, when I say news, I mean constant analysis and opinions of the events, not updates.

For those of you who haven’t heard about this, the story is that the governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, was “linked” to a prostitution ring, causing a public outcry.

One phrase that I’ve noticed being used frequently is “fall from grace.” I want to examine this. True, Eliot Spitzer was a man with a bright future, maybe even with plans to run for president someday. None of that will be realized now. He has effectively thrown his future away for fleeting pleasures.

He has lost the office of governor and has turned public opinion against him. However, he has not fallen from grace. God’s grace is not for when we are on top of the world, and everything is going right. It’s not for the high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou ruler who ruthlessly crusades against corruption. It’s for the weak, the sinful, the fallen. It’s for the small, willful child we all know ourselves to be, deep down inside.

None of us are better than Eliot Spitzer. He has thrown away his a promising political career and his reputation for a pleasure so brief as a prostitute. We, in our own, personal sinful acts, throw away eternal life. Thank God He has grace; even though we keep throwing his gift away, he keeps giving it back to us.

Not that I’m implying that, by using the phrase “fall from grace,” the media is seriously suggesting that Eliot Spitzer lost the divine forgiveness of God, instead of merely using an overused cliché. However, it does lead to some interesting thoughts.

I think C. S. Lewis said it pretty well:

“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

More on the Cross

In the same spirit as my last post, Kevin Wright at Wright off the Bat has a brief post discussing a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King on the cross, and the implications of taking it up. It’s a powerful quote, and the post has some good thoughts.