Second Sunday of Easter: The Resurrection and the Witnesses

At our family Christmas party, I was sitting on the back porch with my brother Tom, brother-in-law Brian and my nephew Thomas. They were arguing about the University of Arizona’s national championship in basketball back in 1997. The argument went back and forth over who was and who was not on the roster at the time. Additionally, there was general disagreement over who they beat and in what order. I sat, calmly as always, above the fray. At some point my nephew got on his smart phone and read off the roster and the teams they beat in the championship. There was a silence. My brother Tom then remarked, and correctly, “That is the problem with the internet; you can’t even have a decent argument anymore.”
 
The Resurrection appearances of Jesus are recounted in various ways in the New Testament.  Although we are used to thinking of the Resurrection as being recounted in the Gospels, the first written account of the Resurrection is in St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians that was written to the Church in Corinth in the early 50’s.

 
Now I am reminding you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you indeed received and in which you also stand.   Through it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.  For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture s that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scripture s, that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelv e.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.   After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.   Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to m e.  For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  1 Cor. 15:1-9

 
Paul’s letters are pastoral in nature in that they contain advice and direction to existing Christian communities. The apostle would enter a new town, probably go to the synagogue and preach the story of Jesus Christ. Perhaps as recounted in the second reading on Easter morning,

Brothers and sisters: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory. Col. 3:1-4.

 The Acts of the Apostles describe the preaching and the signs and wonders that the Apostles performed. The preaching of the apostles formed the basis for the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life that are generally not recounted in the various epistles of the early Church. Paul assumed that his audience had already heard the oral Gospel.
 
The Gospels began to be written after the Apostles started to be executed in the 60s. Peter and Paul were both killed in the mid-60s, according to early Christian tradition, under Nero’s regime. The Gospels, sometimes called memoirs in the early Church, recount the story of Christ in a more orderly form than any of the letters. They are intended to be biographies in the same way as other biographies written in that time period in Greco-Roman culture. St. Luke makes this clear in the opening lines of his Gospel.

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us , just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us .  I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received. Lk. 1:1-6

 Luke was not making a story up, but was probably recounting the Gospel that Paul preached. Pastoral letters like Paul’s letters continued to be written and were included in the New Testament by the early Church, even after St. Paul was executed. In fact, Christians from the earliest times produced volumes of literature concerning the faith. That is why we know so much about the divisions in the early Church. The Gospels, however, tried to compile the apostolic preaching as each community that produced a Gospel understood that story.
 

• Mark was probably written in Rome.
• Matthew was probably written in Antioch.
• Luke was written, probably, somewhere in Greece.
• John, it is thought, was written in Ephesus, modern Turkey.
• Paul met the Risen Lord on the road to Damascus and learned the Gospel form other apostles and Christian teachers.

 
Mark may have been the earliest Gospel, although the early Church thought Matthew was written first. Copies circulated, some stories were copied and each recounted the story of the Resurrection as the community understood it, although inconsistently.
 

• Mark announced that the first appearances of the Risen Christ would be in Galilee.
• Matthew recounts that the first appearances were to the Eleven in Galilee.
• Luke has all the appearances in our near Jerusalem because, for him, the Gospel is to go out from Jerusalem.
• John has the appearances begin in Jerusalem and then move to Galilee.

 
The consistencies are the startling aspect of the Resurrection. We take them for granted.

• All the male disciples ran and hid.
• The Resurrection was, according to every Gospel, first made known to a woman or women.

St. Justin martyr, a second century apologist defended the Gospels, which he called the memoirs of the apostles, against an attack made by a pagan controversialist. The pagan argument was that Christianity could not be trusted because the apostles couldn’t get their stories straight. Justin, who would have made a great trial lawyer, pointed out that if four witnesses at a trial told the same exact story as the others, you would know that collusion was involved. The gospels tell us the truth of the Resurrection in human language. The shameful fact that the male disciples all ran. The embarrassing fact that the women were the only ones Jesus first revealed himself too. In the law, we would call those ‘statements against interest’ and, because they are against the interest of the witness, they are more believable.
 
From the beginning of Christianity, the apostles told an unbelievable story, the Resurrection of a very, dead man. They each told it in their own way, though it was basically the same story.  The accounts are fundamentally consistent, although the events recounted differ in the order they occurred. Paul wrote about an appearance (to 500 at once?) that is not recounted in the Gospels at all. The Gospels are most consistent in the recounting of the most embarrassing facts. That, I would suggest, is what makes them worthy of our belief.