I came across an article recently that opened with the
following statement: Perhaps the most boring question one can
ever direct at a religion is to ask whether or not it is ‘true’. The author
went on to claim that Easter “commemorates
an incident of catastrophic failure”[1]. Well, we’ll see. My view is that
deciding whether the events commemorated at Easter are true is far from boring.
Not bothering to consider whether they are true is probably a product of the
author completely misunderstanding what was going on. But let’s go back to the
thorny issue of truth.
We now apparently live in a culture that has a real problem
with truth. For some, and for a long time, the idea that there is something “out
there” to be known is a non-starter. For others, even if there is an “out there”,
it cannot be known in any certain way. This sort of thing has been argued back
and forth for centuries. Meanwhile, most of humanity has just got on with life,
not really bothering too much whether they could/could not prove in any
absolute sense that it was all “real”. Family, food, employment, cushions, art,
music, football, Radio 4, Monty Python and model railways might all be
illusions, but they are comforting illusions. Interestingly (at least to me), even
those who think that truth is an illusion seem to spill a lot of ink trying to
persuade other people of the truth that truth is an illusion. It is almost as though
it matters.
In fact most of us seem to live with the notion that it’s
important to know what is true and what is not. Not all truth is equally
important I’ll grant you. For most people, most of the time, knowing that there
is a river that flows through Merseyside to the sea, is of only trivial importance. It’s
maybe useful in the odd pub quiz, but it hardly counts as one of life’s great
truths. Mind you, it becomes considerably more important if you have to make
your way from Liverpool city centre to Birkenhead – look at a map (hopefully a
true representation of certain geographical features) if you don’t believe me.
Clearly there are some people who claim that certain events
that occurred in and around an obscure city in the Middle East called Jerusalem
millennia ago have continuing significance. As a matter of observation, these
events have been celebrated annually throughout large parts of the world, and
by a growing and now large proportion of humanity, ever since. There are
reports that provide some level of access to those original precipitating
events. Can we reach a judgement on the truth of what those events were, whether
they are important and indeed whether some of them were catastrophic? I think
we can, and I think we should. I think we owe it to ourselves to investigate
for ourselves what the fuss is about. We could just surf the web and explore
the blogosphere. We could depend on the opinions of others. I much prefer the
notion of doing as much of the work as I can for myself. Of course, I’ll have
to take some things on trust. But as I’ve argued here before, some level of
trust is always required in any enquiry. How much trust would be too much?
Well, if I’m standing at a bridge wondering if it can bear my weight and get me
safely across a river, I know some of the signs I need to look for. Does it go
all the way across? Is it fairly clear what’s keeping it up? Does it appear
steady as I set out, or does it begin to creak alarmingly? Of course I could be
fooled. But not to attempt the crossing could be equally foolish, particularly if
there’s a pressing reason to cross the river.
As far as Christianity is concerned, the question “is it
true?” has to be the key question. Christianity depends on claims about things
that happened (or didn’t happen). While some of these things are probably more important
than others, if any of them turn out to be demonstrably untrue, then the
credibility of the whole will take a hit. If the major claims are untrue, then
the whole thing comes crashing down. Certain of the key claims are clearly
unusual, and some, on the surface at least, approach the bizarre (at least from
a 21st century standpoint). It’s tempting to dismiss these out of
hand, a priori. This is a temptation worth resisting.
The Easter story turns on one of the most famous characters
in history called Jesus. Four main accounts compiled from eye witness testimony
from his own time have come down to us, along with accounts and interpretations
of others who claimed to know him. These various sources have been frequently
attacked but have yet to be fatally undermined. They tell us quite a lot about
the life of Jesus, including what they claim was a miraculous birth (also still
celebrated). They tell us much of what he said. But they seem to spend an
inordinate amount of time on his death, implying that it has some significance
beyond the ending of a particular life.
Jesus as portrayed in these accounts does not come over as a
fanatic, a rabble rouser or a tyrant. He seems to have been attractive to some,
and a curiosity to many. He doesn’t seem that interested in gathering a
movement around himself. Indeed, in at least one of the accounts (by one of his
followers called John) he seems to go out of his way to drive the merely
interested away. For all his apparently humility and simplicity, it is his
claims about himself that stick out. His original audience were in no doubt
that he made one particularly objectionable claim. It’s a claim that many have
made for themselves, and today it would be taken as a sign of poor mental
health. He claimed to be God. One modern writer about Jesus introduced the
subject by confessing that it was “easy to sympathise with scepticism” because the
claims made by Jesus and his early followers “are staggering, and indeed
offensive”[2]. And C.S. Lewis famously pointed out that these claims paint both
Jesus and enquirers about Easter into a corner:
“A man who was merely
a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral
teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he
is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your
choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or
something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill
him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let
us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human
teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”[3]
It was at a place just outside Jerusalem that his claims and
his death collided. By all accounts he died a barbaric, if not entirely unique,
death. In Jesus day, those in control of where he lived had a standard form of execution.
This involved literally nailing the condemned person to a wooden frame, raising
them up, and waiting for them to die from suffocation, blood loss, thirst or a
combination all three (plus various other encouragements like breaking legs, or
sticking with spears). Even in the midst of these excruciating circumstances
(which he had some insight into before they happened) he verbalised forgiveness
for his torturers, made provision for his mother, comforted someone being executed
with him, and made several other statements. None was a statement of regret.
One was tantamount to a final claim. It is reported that he shouted “finished”
(probably a single word in his original language). Even in dying (an extended
process lasting several hours), he was claiming that he had accomplished something.
And there the story should have ended. If this was a man, a
good man, a clever man, an exemplary man, ending as all men do, what possible
significance could he have for the rest of us? Less than none. This would not be
a sad story of what could have been. It might be a story that was instructive, but
hardly one that would in any way be transformative. For most of us it would be
more of a footnote than a catastrophe. But remember he claimed to be something
considerably more than a man. If the story ends with his death, then this claim
is clearly bogus. This, and probably all of his other claims are untrue, his
credibility fatally flawed. He might have occasionally said something clever,
or even something that appears high and moral, but it’s not. He got the one
thing he could truly know wrong; he didn’t ultimately even know himself, never
mind anything else. So why then twenty centuries later is there still even a
question? Why a story to repeat? Why claims to consider?
Because of what happened next.
1.
“Easter for Atheists”, The Philosopher’s Mail
2.
Donald MacLeod, “The Person of Christ”
3.
C.S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity”
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