BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Bible Basics Easter Untangled...

My two cents on the pagan encrustations on Christianity's most important day of the year are elaborated in Easter Untangled. Some people tell me I shouldn't fuss about bunnies and eggs...what do you think?

I agree totally with you about this. I have never felt right celebrating 'Easter' in the traditional way. Resurrection Day should be about nothing but the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and what that means for us. Great article, LeeAnn.

He died on the cross, the sun blacked out for three hours, an earthquake rocked the city and dead people climbed out of their graves and wandered around

Were all those dead people who climbed out of their graves and wandered around also the son of god? And if the town was full of dead people walking around, why were the disciples later surprised that Jesus's tomb was empty?

Can't quite follow your logic there, Peter. Why would you (in jest, I'm pretty sure) say that everyone popping out of their graves would be the son of god? If you're serious about the question, let me know. Part of my challenge in writing for Bible Basics is that I write seriously about a subject that many people ridicule, and while I'm okay with being mocked, I want to be careful not to mock a genuine seeker after truth, because the answers to these questions matter.

As for the disciples still being surprised that Jesus' tomb was empty: remember the 'freaked out' scenario? What seems obvious to us in hindsight, was probably experienced as just too much unprecedented weirdness. And Scripture tells us in Luke 18:32-34 that even though Jesus carefully explained the approaching events to his followers several times, understanding was "hid from them."

"And taking the twelve, he said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon; they will scourge him and kill him, and on the third day he will rise." But they understood none of these things; this saying was hid from them, and they did not grasp what was said."

Lots of people still don't grasp it.

Well my logic is that I thought the resurrection was the proof of Jesus being son of God, but you're saying that on the day he was crucified that people rose from the dead and wandered around.

So if the dead had risen (all of them? Just in that town or all around the world?) and the disciples had seen people that had been dead were now walking around, why should they be surprised that Jesus also had risen?

I just can't get my head around that.

I don't think that Peter is joking, it is a serious question. That is; if Jesus' resurrection was proof that he was divine, what about the other dead that had risen then too? Were they also divine?
The only mention of other dead rising is in Matthew, where it is written that when Jesus died "the earth did quake, the rocks were rent and graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many."
In other words, there were terrifying things happening that day(another gospel mentions there being an eclipse of the sun, with darkness over the earth for 3 hours) and many people in Jerusalem saw things that frightened them. There is no other mention of those wandering dead hanging around, they "appeared to many" and seem to have vanished. What were they? Wandering spirits, ghosts, restless dead? Who knows? But unlike Jesus, they were unknown before and never heard of again. And considering that the gospel of Matthew was written a number of years after that dreadful day, he was recording stories about the shocking events that people were remembering many years later. My sense is that the one mention of the apparitions reported second- and third-hand by Matthew is in the category of tales that grew in the telling as years went by.

Well, I wouldn't go that far, Claybird. Scripture records it as happening, so where a Christian starts is by believing it, unless there is some reason to think it was meant figuratively. We don't have that here. We can't explain what happened, nor why God had it happen, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. But looking at the verses in Matthew (27:51-54) it appears to have been a local phenomenon, involving only "many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep." That means OT believers and followers of Jesus who had died--so this would have been a witness to the local community, of the powerful things happening and their importance. Just like the various people Jesus raised from the dead (and none of them were divine either--they were given life by Jesus' power), these saints must have died again at some point, but we aren't told anything about that. Really weird, I know. Sometimes I think God includes that kind of freaky little tidbit just to see if we're paying attention.

Jesus' divinity does not depend solely upon his rising from the dead. He lived a completely sinless life. He also did many miracles, showing power over life and death, demons, and even the winds and the sea. And most compelling, his life, death and resurrection fulfilled many, many specific prophecies written hundreds of years before his birth.

And of course the disciples were still surprised that Jesus' tomb was empty. One experience with graves opening and releasing their occupants probably doesn't change your expectation that usually they stay shut. But they did accept it, and realize that it meant he was alive, and RISEN JUST AS HE SAID, and that's the crux of the matter and the sole reason I'm writing all this. It changes everything.