HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED. ALLELUJAH!
by Rev. Richard A. Bolland
as published in the Pagosa Springs Sun Newspaper
“It can’t be done!” Once it was common knowledge that if any human being traveled faster than 35 miles per hour that the stresses on the body would be such that bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth would result! They said of speeds greater than 35 mph, that, “It can’t be done!” Again, others a bit later insisted that powered flight by humans simply couldn’t be accomplished. They said, “It can’t be done!” Later many insisted that the sound barrier couldn’t be broken and again the refrain was heard, “It can’t be done! Still later many insisted that the very notion that we earthlings could put a man on the moon was ridiculed with, “It can’t be done!”
We still hear that refrain being claimed whenever we boldly and loudly proclaim, “He is risen!” The skeptics insist, “It can’t be done!” But they have forgotten whom they are dealing with when they talk about what God can do and what – they claim – He can’t do.
There is a notion among skeptics that not even God can do what they can’t conceive of. Now the God of which we speak is the one who created the so-called “Laws of Physics” and all other natural “Laws”. He is the same God who regularly chose to set aside those laws for special purposes. Recall His actions on behalf of the children of Israel when the sun was made to stop in the sky so that the army of Israel might prevail over their enemies? Do you remember Moses and the exodus of God’s people from bondage of Egypt enabling them to cross the Red Sea as though they were walking on dry ground with a wall of water both on the right and on the left? Do you recall our Lord Jesus Christ healing a man who had been born blind and a man whose arm had been deformed from birth? Perhaps you’ll remember the day, not long before His own resurrection, when Jesus called forth the four day dead Lazarus from his grave?
This is our Creator at whose Word the stars were hung in the heavens and the universe, in all of its unknowable vastness was called into being. Here we see the One who creates life so very small that electron microscopes are needed to observe it and who’s mere thought carves out the Grand Canyon. How utterly absurd that we wholly inadequate created beings might decide what God is capable of doing and what He isn’t capable of doing!
No only did Christ raise from the dead, He absolutely had to raise from the dead. There was no option in the matter! Why? Because the wages of sin is death, and the One who died on the hill of the Skull had never sinned! No grave could possibly keep Him beyond His temporary willingness to stay! That the wages of sin is death is a far more universal law than any law of physics! There had not been any exceptions to the rule save that exception God had worked in the prophet Elijah! Indeed, even those raised by Christ from death, eventually had to endure the wages of sin again.
Not only that, but because Christ has risen from the dead, it is absolutely certain that all those trusting in Christ for redemption will also rise! No where in all of Holy Scripture is it more clearly stated than in the 15th chapter of I Corinthians, where St. Paul writes:
“If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” (I Cor. 15:13-23)
Plainly put, there is no Christian faith without also the belief in the resurrection of the dead! The apostles did not go to their executioners willing to die for something they knew to be a lie! They went to their deaths with the full understanding that they had personally seen the risen Lord and knew that the grave would not be the end of them either!
So let skeptics continue to insist on a “god” they can shrink down to their own size if they wish. They are welcome to deny reality all they want with their cries of, “It can’t be done!” Finally, when all is said and done, they will know they have believed a lie and that it is a lie that will cost them eternal life with the Father in heaven. We Christians believe in a God of life who conquers the curse of death through His Son’s life, suffering, death and…yes…His resurrection from the dead. It can be done, and it was!
