Sunday Reflections: Christos Anesti!

By: Rev. Ben Black

Christos Anesti is Greek for “Christ is risen.”  In fact, if you are one for movie quotes it is the phrase that is thrown around throughout the duration of the film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." 

The expected response is to be Alithos Anesti which means “He Has Risen Indeed.”  But the question for us today remains.  What is the big deal about Jesus’ resurrection?  Does it really matter whether this man, Jesus, who lived and was executed 2,000 years ago on a Roman cross came back to life or not?  It is a fair question and one that must be answered. 

In fact, everything hinges on our answer of this question.  I think 1st Corinthians 15 sums it up as clearly as anywhere else.  Verse 17 says “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile” and continues a few sentences later to say that if the resurrection is false, then Christians, of all people are most to be pitied.  It’s true.  If Jesus Christ did not come back to life three days after his execution to defeat death, then I am following a lie.  Not only am I following a lie, but the very thing I have given my life to teach and explain to others is just falsehood. 

There is a lot riding on this- and not just for the sake of my pride.  I have hope in life because I know that I am a part of a greater plan, and the life of the believer has been set apart by God Himself, saved through the blood of Jesus Christ.  It was in the resurrection that Jesus Christ defeated death and took His place, not as a mere prophet or magician, but as God incarnate.  If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then everything else disintegrates.

So then, did he rise?  I believe he did. Let me be clear, I don’t believe Christ rose from the dead because I am a pastor.  I am a pastor because Christ rose from the dead. 

Something big happened 2,000 years ago.  There isn’t a historian in the world worth his salt that will refute that fact.  Overnight a new religious community was formed that began with the claim “Jesus has risen from the grave.”  It began with hundreds, spread into thousands, and today the number is somewhere around 2.18 billion people who claim to be Christians.  So what happened?

One explanation is that it wasn’t Jesus who died on the cross.  Mohammad says in the Quran that it was a substitute who died in Jesus’ place.  It was six hundred years after the event that Mohammed claimed it was an imposter hanging on the tree in Jesus’ stead. 

However, Mohammed isn’t alone in making the claim that Jesus never died.  There is another theory that Jesus was only severely wounded and removed from the cross while he was unconscious and not dead.  The problem is Jesus was arrested in the middle of the night, goes through six trials, is mocked and abused, then gets whipped with a lead tipped whip, has a bed of thorns that were crudely woven together in a severe crown forced upon his head, nails thrust into his hands and feet, hangs on the cross for hours, has a spear shoved into his side, then is removed from the cross and wrapped in grave clothes and sealed in his tomb. 

IF Jesus actually survived all of that, he would then have to work his way out of his grave clothes, move the very large stone sealing his tomb, and sneak by the guards unnoticed.  I have trouble sneaking downstairs for a midnight snack if I have an ingrown toenail!  What is most interesting to me about this theory, aside from the fact that it reminds me of a Die Hard sequel, is that it does not deny Christ being alive on Easter Morning.  The evidence is overwhelming that Jesus literally lived and literally died- the burden is usually on the fact that he was raised and lived.  This theory struggles with the death.  Christ did die and it is historically recorded outside of the New Testament.

An explanation for why the tomb might have been empty is that maybe the disciples stole Jesus’ body and then made the brash claims that he lived. If you read the accounts in the gospel of the disciples from the time of the crucifixion until the resurrection of Jesus, you'll find that these timid Galileans were too mortified to even acknowledge that they knew who Jesus was! How could they grow from men cowering for their lives to rebels with the authority to outmaneuver and foil skilled Roman guards protecting the tomb? Is it possible that these men could have simply slipped by these soldiers, gotten inside, grabbed the body, and vanished? Doubtful. 

It is also doubtful that the citizens of this era would seek to make up a story about Jesus coming back to life.  Greco-Roman tradition championed the spirit being freed and liberated from the body.  Similarly, that someone would resurrect themselves back into a world of sin and suffering would have been just as counter-culture for Jewish thought as well.  Yet there it is.  That is what they claimed and that is what people began to believe, and more importantly, that is what people saw.  There are accounts of people speaking, eating, and hanging out with Jesus after he rose.   In the passage I mentioned earlier, 1st Corinthians 15, Paul even tells his readers that Jesus appeared to many people and most of them are still alive.  Paul wasn’t trying to hide any truth or secret.  He was being bold and transparent.  His point was “THIS REALLY HAPPENED, YOU CAN EVEN ASK THE EYEWITNESSES!”

Jesus' disciples became martyrs for their belief in the resurrection.  It was Pascal who said, “I believe the witnesses that get their throats cut.”  That is essentially what happened.  Their lives were hanging on the line about the reality of Jesus Christ and they did not shift from their story, to the point of death.  Who would be willing to die for a lie?  Not just one person, but over and over again.  What is more is that they died separately.  They were not executed as a group of martyrs but instead one by one, alone.  If there was a falsehood to be fished out, it would have been.  But N.T. Wright puts it well, “The early Christians did not invent the empty tomb and the meetings or sightings of the risen Jesus. Nobody was expecting this kind of thing. No kind of conversion experience would have invented it. To suggest otherwise is to stop doing history and enter into a fantasy world of our own.”

Jesus died.  And Jesus rose.  This did not happen figuratively, this happened literally.  This is the reality on which all of Christendom stands.  It is what makes Christianity so amazing, and also why it is so hard for us to swallow.  We have not seen anything like it.  It defies everything in science and the natural world.  That is indeed the point.  This is the supernatural we are talking about.  This is GOD.  This is why I have hope in tomorrow and confidence in the work I am called to. If God can become man, suffer as He did, die and return to life, then anything that God wills is possible.   Moreover, this God loves and this God changes lives.  It is my prayer that if someone comes to you and says "Christos Anesti," you might be able to respond “He is risen indeed” because that is the reality and truth of Easter.

Happy Easter.
Alithos Anesti.

The Rev. Ben Black is pastor at Forest Hills Presbyterian Church.