Why it's actually not that difficult to believe in the Resurrection

I recently read an article that stated that a full 25% of Christians don't believe in the Resurrection of Christ.

I'll be honest with you: I do believe in the Resurrection, as it is reported in the Bible, 100%, no metaphor, no simile, no hyperbole.

In other words, I believe Jesus was dead, was in a tomb for 3 days, and then came back to life.  Literally.  I kid you not.

I don't blame you if you don't, it's pretty unbelievable.  I mean, that's what a miracle is after all, right?  If it wasn't hard to believe, it would just be a thing that happens every day.

I don't actually find it that hard to believe in the Resurrection, and the reason is that by my estimation, we are daily awash with things that would be considered miraculous to people who lived 100 years ago, and which we would consider to be miraculous if only we weren't so jaded.

Let me tell you about my Easter morning.  I got up and popped a muffin in the microwave.  In 30 seconds, invisible radiowaves agitated water molecules in my muffin, and it came out hot.  I didn't see it happen, but it did.

Then I got in my car, which is powered by fossil fuels.  Fossil fuels which are essentially liquefied dinosaur bones and prehistoric biological material.  Somehow, these fuels catch fire in my car's engine, and this controlled explosion propels me forward, somehow managing to not blow me up with it.

As I drove, I popped in my bluetooth headset which communicates invisibly with my cellphone, and my cell phone communicates invisibly with my parents' cellphone, and we wished each other a happy Easter, even though we are separated by several hundred kilometers.

Have you ever flown in an airplane?  You are sitting in a chair in machine that weighs several hundred tons and travels at several hundred kilometers an hour, and somehow manages to not fall out of the sky.

Now all of the foregoing examples have very solid science behind them, but they would have been inconceivable and incomprehensible to someone who lived 100 years ago.  And this brings me back to the Resurrection: I believe it happened, I am just waiting for the science to catch up.

The problem with this modern-day miracles is that we fail to see them.  We get annoyed when there is a cold spot in our muffin.  We pine for a nicer looking car.  We are irritated when we travel through a dead zone.  We positively bark with rage when our plane is delayed or if the person next to us touches our elbow mid-flight.

We should be wandering around in a constant state of amazement and gratitude.

The Resurrection is the greatest message any God has ever sent any species on any planet we know of, and when we contemplate it, we have only two possible reactions: either we believe in it or we don't.

If you don't, read no further.  Go outside and play, get on with your life, do whatever you want because it literally can't possibly matter to you.

If you do, however, believe in the Resurrection, then that should be something that guides your behaviour and the way you live your life.

If you believe in the Resurrection, that means you believe that through Christ, God send the most important message he ever sent to humanity.  It means we should be wandering around with a profound sense of gratitude, humility and a profound sense of responsibility.

Most churchgoers have head the Resurrection story every year their whole lives.  None of us gasped on Easter morning when we heard about the Resurrection.  We all saw it coming.

But maybe that has made us a little blase about the Resurrection.  Familiarity breeds contempt, you could say.  Sometimes, when you spend enough time in a system, whether it be a workplace or a family or a church, you forget how cool your job can be, how neat your spouse is, how interesting some fellow churchgoers can be.

If we really consider ourselves to be children of the Resurrection, how dare we take each other for granted?  How dare we mistreat one another?  How dare we abuse other people?  How dare we sell our own selves short?

For me, the Resurrection is a story of the fragility and beauty and goodness of life itself, and I have been reminded of that this Easter as I watch my new baby grow.  I am reminded that I live in the shadow of the Resurrection, and no longer the shadow of the tomb.

This Easter and this coming year, I hope we can all feel the new life we have.  I hope we can all remember that we are all fearfully and wonderfully wrought, and that we can treat each other with the same wonder and love with which God treats us.