My brothers and sisters in Christ, I received a very disturbing correspondence this past week. Apparently, a well-funded, start-up organization called the Athiest Agnostic Association of America has filed suit in a federal court in Houston asking the court to file a cease and desist order against the Church for proclaiming a lie. They have asked, "Just as free speech does not give one the right to lie and yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, it does not give people the right to proclaim falsehoods and lies about history." They continue, "Since there is no verifiable, scientific proof that one Jesus of Nazareth ever was raised from the dead, we request an order that the Church stop proclaiming such a falsity."
I don’t know how they managed to get such a lawsuit filed, but somehow they found a sympathetic judge right down the road in Houston. I took the correspondence to our Associate Member Richard Faulk who is a partner in a major law firm in Houston. I visited with Rick about this, and aside from being shocked this thing is actually going forward, we started trying to think through a defense.
Now, I don’t think I need to tell you how serious this charge is. I mean, if the quadruple A folks win, there are staggering consequences. I mean, sure, we could continue to proclaim that Jesus was a good teacher and that He wants you and I do be kind to one another and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. But if we cannot proclaim the resurrection, we are through. The resurrection is THE most important event in all of Christianity. St. Paul even wrote in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15, "13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." The entire central, core message of Christianity is in trouble if we are not allowed to proclaim the resurrection!
So what can we do? What kind of defense can we offer? First off, we can’t offer scientific proof Jesus was raised from the dead. There is no way to measurably show that indeed this event happened. We can’t recreate it. We have no video evidence. Neither do we have any record noted by any people of authority. Sure, we have the Bible. We have the scriptures, but the AAAA will argue that these records are biased, taken down by Jesus’ followers and not objective observers. They will easily call them into suspicion.
Furthermore, they will call into question the validity of the Bible. They will surely point to things like our Gospel lesson this morning. They will show that the first people to go to the tomb went there and were confronted by a young man. They will argue the first reaction these women had was not joy, not elation, not a strong conviction to tell others. No. They will argue the first reaction of these women was to go home and cower in fear. They will argue that this is no such appropriate action, and even though we will counter that Jesus later appeared to His disciples and urged them to go out and tell, this primary reaction will be troubling for our defense.
As Rick and I talked we came to believe that our only defense will be to show that the witnesses of the resurrection are credible witnesses. We believe that the only way we can defend the proposition that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead is to show that the witness accounts by the earliest disciples are accurate and that they have had a lasting effect on the world. We believe that the only way we can defend the proposition that Jesus indeed rose from the dead is to show that these witnesses to the resurrection were so changed by the experience that they changed their lives and put into practice the very things Jesus taught them to do. We believe that the only way we can defend the proposition that Jesus indeed rose from the dead is to show that the risen Jesus still comes to people today to change their lives and empower them to witness to this fact of history.
Ah, but we face a daunting challenge in this defense. A daunting challenge. It is very true that we will be able to call upon a host of witnesses. We will be able to call upon the saints of 2000 years of history. We will be able to call upon the disciples who after encountering the risen Christ took His message into the world. We will be able to call upon the fact they willingly gave their lives and suffered martyrdom for Christ. We will be able to call upon the early Church Fathers who forsake glory and power and wealth and sought solitude and conversation with God in the desert. We will be able to call upon the saints who when the plague struck in the Roman empire, stayed and ministered to those sick and oftentimes dying, giving up their own lives when everyone else ran in fear. We will be able to call upon the major reformers of society who fought injustice, hunger, and poverty–St. Francis of Assissi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others. We will be able to call upon the Church’s founding of education and health care as further evidence of the power of the risen Lord.
Yet, our opponents will point to the fact that for every Christian who does such marvelous things–who has had their lives transformed, there are just as many who don’t. There are just as many who call themselves Christian who have no noticeable evidence that the risen Christ has had an impact in their lives. They will point out that many who are Christian have no sense of peace and joy in their lives. They will point out that many who are Christian do not speak out and act against injustice. They will point out that many who are Christian still speak ill of others, are prejudiced toward others, and do not even follow the basic command of Jesus to love others as He has loved us.
Our only hope is to provide overwhelming numbers of people whose lives have been touched by the risen Savior. Our only hope is to produce an overabundance of credible witnesses who can show beyond the shadow of a doubt that their lives are different because they have encountered Jesus Christ. Our only hope is to have witness after witness after witness take the stand who produce the gifts of the Spirit: love, joy, peace patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, generosity, gentleness, and self-control. It is in this alone that we can win this lawsuit. It is in this alone that we must rest our hope.
Of course, you might realize by now there is no such organization as the Athiest Agnositc Association of America. You might also realize there has been no such case filed. Yet, what if there had been? What if such a thing were ever to happen? Would we be able to call you to the stand? Would we be able to show that the risen Christ had touched your live and made a difference in it? Would you be seen as closer to those women who cowered in fear, or as those who live boldly proclaiming that Jesus is Lord and Savior of all? Would you be seen as a credible witness? Amen.
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