Curtis Klingle

The Resurrection and Apologetics

1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear…” 

When first asked to teach this week’s lesson at church, I immediately thought to give a message on the subject of apologetics regarding the resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of my favorite topics in this realm. My usual mode of operation when preparing an essay, lesson, or a sermon is to begin taking notes and performing research for the topic immediately, and I normally have a rough outline by at least the second or third day. But this week things were coming slowly and it wasn’t me being lazy. I sensed I was missing something, there was something elusive escaping my thoughts, and there was, but we will come to that later.

The day that we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ is referred to as Easter Sunday. We say that phrase, “resurrection of Jesus Christ” almost flippantly as if folks rising from the dead, is an everyday occurrence. While Jesus and His disciples did raise people from the dead, and even today that miracle still occurs, Jesus’ resurrection was vastly different. When He was resurrected His new body was beyond anything we can comprehend. Jesus’ appearance and abilities were so different that the disciples didn’t seem to recognize Him immediately. (See Mark 16:9; Matthew 28:9-10; Luke 24:13-32; John 21; Matthew 28:16-20) His new body was not restricted by space and time, and this was evidenced in His ability to suddenly appear or disappear, sometimes even inside locked rooms. (See Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-25; John 20:26-31; Mark 16:14) He was more, He is more after the resurrection. And it was this recognition of His resurrection and this something more that started a “movement” that changed and continues to change the world. All of history is divided by Jesus: BC and AD, Before Christ, and “Anno Domini,” which is Latin “for in the year of our Lord.” As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The name of Jesus is not so much written as plowed into the history of the world.”

The Christian religion is based upon the belief that the resurrection occurred. Even the Apostle Paul declared in his first letter to the Corinthians that, “…if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is vain and your faith is also vain.” (See 1 Cor. 15:14) He goes on to say that, “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile…” (See 1 Cor. 15:17) If Jesus Christ was not raised from the dead then our faith is folly. If what the gospel writers testified to us is false, then it is the greatest deception in history.

Many believe that the word “faith” is synonymous with the term “blind faith.” This is an error, because faith is not blind. The modern use of the word “faith” often denotes adherence to a particular religion, when that is not the meaning of the word. The etymology of the word “faith” is traced back to the 11^th century Latin word “fides” which means, trust, confidence, reliance, credence. There must be corroborating evidence in what we put our faith in. I submit that each of us have come to the conclusion that Christianity does in fact provide such evidence to the degree that faith is possible. (See Hebrews 11:1) In fact, there is more evidence supporting the historical existence of Jesus Christ and the events surrounding Him than any other ancient historical figure.  

Seeing that our entire faith rests upon a singular event, that being the resurrection, then I also believe that we must be prepared, as Paul instructs us in 2 Timothy 4:2 to “Be ready in season and out of season, to convince, rebuke, exhort… and teach.” And Peter encourages us in his letter to “…always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you…” (See 1 Peter 3:15)

This defense is referred to as Christian apologetics. The word “apologia” is where our word “apologetics” comes from, as well as the word apology. It is misfortunate that this Greek word connotes that we are apologizing for something, when in reality we are not. The word apologia is a Greek legal term denoting a defense of what one believes or a defense against an accusation. It is not saying “I am sorry,” as in an apology, but stating, “I am innocent” or “I am right.” So, in apologetics we are defending, we are proclaiming the evidences of our faith.

In preparing a lesson or sermon depending upon one’s chosen terminology, you can put in four to 10 hours (or much more) of research and structuring per half hour of speaking time. I read countless articles, searched my library, watched lectures, podcasts, and gleaned tons of information as well as refreshed my memory in several places. Late in the week, I started putting the lesson together, but as I mentioned at the beginning, there was something missing, thus it moved very slowly, almost renitent.

I began with the evidence of the empty tomb, and stressed the point that it was never argued that the tomb was empty. Even the religious rulers believed it empty, so much so that they bribed the guards assigned to the tomb to lie about what occurred. (see Matthew 28:11-15) No, no one argued that the tomb was empty, but the question of “why it was empty” was ever present.

The ridiculous “swoon theory” that surmises that Jesus didn’t die on the cross but merely “swooned” or lost consciousness came to mind as one of those reasons given by detractors that the tomb was empty. According to this theory, when Jesus revived from His “swooning,” He merely got up and walked out of the tomb. I will say again, ridiculous. Anyone who has researched a Roman flogging or crucifixion will know that that “theory” is a load of tripe. The victim of a flogging/scourging was considered half dead, then add to that crucifixion, and death was guaranteed. Either you suffocated, died from blood loss or dehydration, wild animals tore you apart at night, or your legs were broken to ensure you could not raise yourself anymore to take a breath, no, there was no “swooning.” No respectable scholar even brings this one up anymore.

Yet another supposed theory comes in the form of the “stolen body” theory. Proponents of this theory, (which is really just a hypothesis as is the swoon theory) believe that Jesus’ followers stole His body from the tomb, which is yet another farcical attempt to refute a miracle. Anyone who performs even a cursory reading of the gospels can see that all of the disciples were terrified and in hiding after Jesus’ arrest. They feared they would be the next to be scourged and crucified. Not only that, they were grieving and distraught over their fallen Lord, not to mention, disillusioned; their world had been turned upside down and all they had come to believe had disintegrated before their eyes. They neither had the guts nor the forethought to even consider stealing Jesus’ body.

I next considered the discovery of His empty tomb and the certitude that it was women who were the first on scene. I reflected on the fact that all of the Gospel writers declared that it was the women who discovered this strange event. No one in that era would have admitted this! A woman’s testimony was considered worthless in that culture and time period. Someone trying to promote an agenda to start a movement focused upon a man rising from the dead would never have chosen female witnesses, yet, here we are. You can find evidence later in Paul’s writings that the female witnesses may have even begun to be viewed as an embarrassment. In 1 Corinthians 15:4-8 Paul lists those to whom Jesus appeared to after His resurrection: Peter, the 11 remaining Disciples, Jesus’ brother James, over 500 witnesses at one time, and lastly himself, but there is no mention of the women. As scholar N.T. Wright said, “the witness of the women was slowly being airbrushed out.” The fact that the gospel authors included the women witnesses plus the fact that this “airbrushing” was taking place so early in church history, sum 20 years after Jesus’ ascension, only adds weight to the truthfulness of the Gospels. 

I also addressed the supposed discrepancies or contradictions between the Gospel narratives. In any witnessed situation there will be variances in the way people witnessed the event. Positioning, what I mean by that is where the person was during the event, personal prejudices, stress, distractions, lack of focus, all of these influence the way we see things, and there are many other facets that I didn’t mention. And to the contrary, it is these nuances which add credence to the testimony of a witness and it is this we see in the Gospels.

What about the remaining 11 disciples? Look at their behavior beginning at Jesus’s arrest. They were in hiding, they were denying Him, even on resurrection Sunday the women went by themselves to anoint Jesus’ body. Remember, they purchased the herbs and oils necessary for this customary procedure right after His crucifixion, but they were unable to perform this act of veneration because the Sabbath was upon them. Now think about this. Why were no men mentioned in the initial discovery of the empty tomb? Wouldn’t they have wanted to assist in preparing Jesus’ body? Why weren’t they there? I submit, it is because the women were sent alone because the men were still afraid to come out for fear of capture. In their defense though, these men were terrified, and rightly so. But watch what happens in the first chapter of the book of Acts, a mere 10 days after Jesus’ ascension, each of these men have changed and they are declaring boldly that Jesus had risen from the dead. So bold is their preaching, that they pin Jesus’ execution on their fellow Jews! Peter declared, “…Him…you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.” He went on to say that, “This Jesus, God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses.” Folks, this kind of talk will get you dragged out of the city and stoned to death! Something had changed these men so drastically that they are emboldened to the degree that they do not appear to fear death.

All of the remaining 11 disciples were martyred for their belief in Jesus and the preaching of His resurrection, save one, John. And even in John’s case, it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Domitian had him thrown into a pot of boiling oil, and when it didn’t kill him, he was banished to the Isle of Patmos. People will die for what they believe, but no one willingly dies for a lie. Furthermore, look at the number of Christian martyrs over the last 2000 years. It is estimated that there have been 70 million believers sent to their death for their commitment to Jesus. 70 million!

I had all of these points of apologetics I wanted to address, yet it wasn’t until I came back from a walk around 5AM, Saturday morning that the greatest evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ came to me. Upon my return home, I grabbed a cup of coffee and returned outside to star gaze and take in God’s beautiful creation. I took a seat, took a sip of coffee and let the awe of the heavens sweep over me. While enjoying this numinous moment I felt one of the two cats that adopted me, rub against my leg.

Anyway, I really enjoy the company of the one I call “Richard Parker” and the other one, well, I tolerate. Please allow me to explain. The other cat is a calico and I named her “Lemur” because, she looks like a lemur, but the similarities between her and an actual lemur abruptly stop there. She is the nastiest and dirtiest cat I have ever known. Her hair is always matted and dirty, in fact, when I water the garden in the summer, she will more times than not lay in the mud left behind. I have never seen anything like it. She also suffers from allergies and there have been many times when I’m trying to pet her that I have received a precipitous spattering of cat mucus and saliva during a sneezing fit. Like I said, she is nasty, and these two attributes do cause me hesitation in touching her. To add to that, a couple of months ago I began finding swatches of hair everywhere on the patio. Upon investigation I found the source of the hair deposits was the “Lemur” cat. She had lost a big patch of hair from her back and was constantly scratching and biting at the affected area, it was extremely gross but there were no open sores. I deduced that it clearly was not healing on its own, so I took action in the way of giving here a good soaking in used motor oil. My thoughts were, it works on dogs so I figured why not, and sure enough it did, but I had to endure fresh oil deposits from her matted coat for several days after her treatments. Okay, now that you know a bit of background you will understand why I am hesitant to touch her and why when I do pet her, it is almost grudgingly.

So, this morning, when I looked down and saw it was “Lemur” that had brushed against my leg, my initial response was revulsion. But sometimes, just sometimes my self-control gets the better of me, and rather than embrace the disgust, I reached down and forced myself to pet her. Her reaction was immediate, she reciprocated the affection with purring and aggressively rubbing her head against my hand. My reaction to her reaction was immediate as well; I felt the sting of tears in my eyes as recognition dawned on me. As gross and nasty as she is, she needs love just like I do.

As I pet her another realization came to me, actually, it was more like a deluge of comprehension. With all of the apologetics I know and have studied, the greatest apologetic evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ I can proclaim with 100% certainty is: me. It was that love that Jesus had placed within me and the transformation power of that love, that caused me to be able to love such a repulsive little creature like that cat. It was His love that caused me to step outside of my prejudices and embrace the needs of that animal. I also recognized that this transformation was evident in my interactions with other people. Yes, I can love the unlovable: the drug abuser, the thief, the violent man, even the murderer, I can love them all. But this love is only possible because Christ is living in me. This was what Paul spoke of in Colossians 1:27, the mystery of the Gospel is Christ in me!

I know each of us have had revelatory moments like this in our lives. It is here when we come face to face with God. It is these moments that I call my mind to repeatedly in order to glean all I can from them. This is His classroom. Yes, we need to know how to convey our defense of the Gospel and what it is we believe to those who question us, but the greatest evidence is our lives.

In closing, I return to the cat. I was thinking how Jesus must have seen me when I was at my worst. As I continued down that chain of thought I realized that I likely had a very similar appearance as that cat not that long ago. That horrid little creature I was, covered in the filth of sin, pridefulness, self-obsession, and pure selfishness, made me so repulsive. That creature who didn’t know or understand anything about love; the heart within had become calloused and putrid. But there I was, in so much need, looking up to Him with longing to experience His love and just a single touch. He could see that I needed Him, and to my surprise, He reached out His hand and gave me the affection and love I so desperately needed. And at His touch, I was resurrected in to a new life with Him. Yes, I am, as are you, the greatest evidence of His resurrection.   

C. Klingle