It is reasonable to consider that miraculous happenings require two conditions. One is a belief in the ‘normal’, that is the predictable state of the physical universe; the other is a belief in some reality beyond the observable universe. When both beliefs are held, then the various reports of super-natural events actually happening can be approached with a properly enquiring mind. The Resurrection of Jesus may be regarded as a miracle – the greatest miraculous event if you like – it was not a normal and natural thing to happen – it went against the predictable workings of creation. But believing in a reality beyond the observable universe means that it could have happened.
When we celebrate the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, we are actually celebrating a supernatural event that nobody saw. For all its importance the moment of Christ rising from the dead had no witnesses! The soldiers sent to guard Jesus’ body so it would not be stolen, saw the stone that closed the tomb move and were frightened, but they did not see Christ rising. This, the greatest of all miraculous events, is significant not only for those few moments at the tomb which nobody saw, but more significantly because of what happened before and what happened after that event. The moment of Resurrection must be placed in a context. It would be right to say of the Resurrection that what our earliest Christian teachers proclaimed was really the reality that Jesus had risen; the evidence they place before us is that of the meetings with Jesus after his death – sometimes by individuals, sometimes by large crowds.
Our faith rests on their testimony. Christ’s rising from the dead was the first of its kind. Of course there are aspects of the resurrection stories which do make Christ resemble a ‘ghost’ of popular understanding; He appears and disappears, He walks through locked doors. On the other hand, Jesus vigorously asserts that He is a real body and eats fish to prove it! But something had definitely changed. The Jesus who stood before the disciples was not a holy hallucination. Jesus passed from death neither to a ‘spiritual’, ghostly life, that is one without space or environment, or time and senses, – nor to a ‘natural’ life as we know it, but into a life which has its own new Nature. His risen body is something very different from our mortal body.
Christ being risen opens a door to a new reality – a new creation. It is not magic, nor an escape from this material nature. It is a transformation, a happy realisation of the wonderful potential of this creation and especially of the human race. For all the dreadful happenings in this world – of the hurtful, despicable things we do humans do to each other, we do know that we are capable of so much better, of love, of sacrifice, of building up and of joy. In Christ, in Him who is risen from the dead, we have the opportunity of achieving this, of achieving what we should regard as our proper destiny.
Occasionally our own lives and the life of so much of humanity may seem like a dark and cold winter, but sometimes we can recognise the signs of spring. Look and see, there is evidence of New Life – what is noble, true, just and pure. Its growth may seem fragile at times, for it is in our hands, but power to be strong and courageous is freely given by God. Then the bright warm summer comes, the Risen Lord has changed the season, there is no going back. He has opened up the way for us to move forward.