The Witnesses
In the end, our faith in the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, is grounded upon the testimony of witnesses and it is ultimately dependent upon the fire that the resurrection started in their souls and the societies of the ages.
Character of the Witnesses
The disciples who followed Jesus were not theorists. They were neither theologians nor philosophers. They were like Andrew, skilled laborers, and Matthew, people who knew how to add and subtract. They were like John, young and impressionable and Thomas, who doubted until he could touch the wounds in Jesus’ body. They were not the kind of people who sat around and pondered how they would like to see the world work.
For the most part the early witnesses of the resurrection were practical people who lived in the full sun of harsh realities and had a life where action was the difference between life and death. Peter, who was uncomfortable with reflection and who had a tendency to act even before he thought, illustrates this. We must also admit from reading the record that the variety and inclusiveness among the first followers of Jesus is typical of modern times. They were common and cultured, doers and dreamers, intelligent and practical and wealthy and poor. They were the reporters of the final results of every effort to demolish the claims to deity of Jesus. It is difficult to conjecture how one could assemble a better jury or witness pool.
After the crucifixion the followers of Jesus were dispirited. They were fearful. They fled the scene of his punishments. They went into hiding. The testimony is that they were devastated by the sudden shock of having their beloved leader taken from them, tried, beaten, gibbeted on a cross, hastily having his battered body laid in a borrowed tomb and sealed away from their eyes.
Each of the twelve was in individual and in personal states of doubt and despair. None of them seemed to believe the resurrection had even occurred until they reportedly had seen Jesus, in the flesh, before them. When they saw Him they were transformed. This is not the testimony of their mouths. It is the testimony of their lives and the transformation was so powerful that every one of them became willing and benevolent martyrs overnight.
The Effects of their Witness
In spite of our too often spotted record, the followers of Christ have done more by their witness and sacrifice than any other faith to transform the world from barbarism to the positive aspects of our world culture which we enjoy today. The high ideals of the Enlightenment, placing value on the individual, are a direct product of the gospel of Christ. The triumphal and dubious notions that we “can be anything we want to be” have their root in the optimism and hope seeded by those early followers of Jesus. Whenever people cry out for purpose, justice, charity and equality they are espousing notions that are post-Christian, at least, and Christian at best. Any evolution of ideas that we suppose we have as moderns find their real apex in the teachings of Jesus and there are no higher thoughts or practical ways of life than those He taught and inspires in His followers.
Even when Christians are rightly impugned for their improprieties, morality, barbarisms, ignorance and sins by the culture it is always by the standards of Christ which Christians teach and society has unwittingly adopted. After all, if judgment is first to begin in the house of God, when it is all said and done it will end with all of mankind standing before their Creator. (I Peter 4:17)
Passing Our Judgment
So- it all comes to this. The resurrection of Christ and the testimony of those who witnessed it bring us all to the place of choice. We must individually decide if they were witnessing to the truth. We become the jury which really decides how we will live and what we will release to the public domains of mankind. Our judgment of Christ and his witnesses cannot be dismissed without consequences. A hung jury essentially chooses what it decides it must live with.
1 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed. (I Corinthians 15:1-11)
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Were the wounds which you bear put upon you by Christ? Were they imposed upon you as some distant God turned his back upon you? Were you disappointed because He was not true to His word or because those entrusted with His legacy failed to bring you to Him? Did he bring coldness upon your heart or did someone else steal your early innocence and trample upon your tender affections? When did He ever demonstrate hypocrisy, this one who spoke plainly and bore the brunt of truth killing partisanship?
If you were failed, it was not Him who failed you. He has done all He can to show you the winsome face of God for whom you long with every good aspiration. He has done all He can to refute the ugliness foisted upon you by power brokers and blind guides. He has not failed in His mission to reach for you as you felt every gentle affection, He has offered but comfort in your nights of tears; he has but lifted you up again with new hope when you were cast down. Do you not know his name? Do you not know you could not have found any new love, new hope and new purpose without Him?
