Are We Still Surprised By Easter?

from Jim Stump at Biologos Blog:

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Does the resurrection still surprise us today? We who work constantly at the intersection of science and faith might have a sort of propensity to rationalize away the miraculous. Our critics talk often about the slippery slope we're on when we point out natural processes that explain some aspects of reality once thought to require special divine intervention. Once we start doing that, won't we end up denying the resurrection too? Honestly, it would be a lot easier in our culture to say that Jesus was a just great moral teacher who taught us how to live. We might try to treat the resurrection stories as just some anomalous results mistakenly obtained from an experiment that was not controlled well enough. That would put us comfortably on the road to some watered down spirituality where God is kept safely cordoned off from the natural world that science investigates.


But intellectual honesty forces us to look carefully at the data again. When we do, we can't just dismiss the fact that the first Christians believed in the real resurrection of Jesus strongly enough to give their lives for it. We can't hide behind modern polemics masquerading as scholarship which claim to give a better more enlightened explanation of the Easter events. We can't discount the reality of the resurrection life experienced by countless Christians over the centuries.

Still, God does not seem to be in the business of compelling people to believe if they are determined not to. Some will continue to see the data "as" constituting some other kind of story. It takes the eyes of faith to see the data as a confirmation of the Good News. But this is not blind faith that believes despite the evidence.... we who continue to believe and trust that Jesus is risen indeed, need not commit intellectual suicide in doing so.

And so we too might still be surprised by God's dramatic entrance into the natural order of things at Easter, by God's provision for the abundant life now, and by God's promise to transform the present world at the final resurrection-- including our bodies-- into an everlasting kingdom of peace, joy, and righteousness for all who recognize Jesus as Lord.

Thanks be to God.
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The entire post can be read here.