Without the resurrection we have nothing.
If Christ did not rise bodily from the grave after being put to death on the cross, our faith is worth nothing. We would be a pitiable bunch hanging our hope upon something that is nothing more than fantasy. All the Apostles, all the disciples, all the New Testament authors, all of those in our day who identify themselves based on the person of Jesus Christ would be wasting their time—giving it to something void of all real meaning—if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.
However—and this is a life-changes, worldview rearranging “however”—if Jesus did rise bodily from the dead after being put to death and placed in a tomb, everything changes.
The way we view the world around us changes because Jesus rose from the dead. The way we understand our relationship with God changes because Jesus rose from the dead. The way we love people changes because Jesus rose from the dead. The way we disagree with people changes because Jesus rose from the dead. The language we use while talking theology changes because Jesus rose from the dead.
Everything changes.
I was listening to a debate/conversation between two orthodox Christians and two “spiritual” thinkers as they discussed Jesus’s “resurrection from the dead.” What struck me most about the debate/conversation was not the way in which the orthodox Christians gave biblical evidence of the resurrection. It wasn’t even the way in which they spoke about the logical consistency of the resurrection, beginning with historic biblical Judaism into what came to be called Christianity. What struck me the most was how the other two gentlemen struggled for adequate language to use while talking about the resurrection.
The two gentlemen who denied that Jesus rose bodily from the dead reached for again and again the appropriate language to use in describing an event that took place 2,000 years ago. They struggled for language to use in describing how the earliest disciples would have thought about what they saw with their own eyes or were told about by those who saw it with their own eyes. And, maybe even most of all, they struggled with trying to hold on to some sort of meaningful relationship with Easter while denying everything that Easter is built upon—the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Why they would even want to retain something of Easter is something else to think about.
They had given up the foundation upon which they were building their “spiritual” house and (although they would most likely take offense to this statement), unbeknownst to them, the ceiling was cracking, the walls were falling in, and the floor was sinking into the sand. Their house they had worked so hard to build—without a proper foundation—was doing just what houses do that don’t have a foundation—they were collapsing.
The bodily resurrection of the once-dead Jesus Christ from death is the foundation upon which our homes can be built. In fact, it’s the only sure foundation that will work.
Jesus was crucified. Jesus died. Jesus was placed in a tomb. Three days later Jesus was no longer in the tomb, because he had risen bodily from the dead. And now, we, live in the light of that historic event and everything is different because of it.
It all hinges on the resurrection.