Gods and Kings

The idea that the king is a god was pretty much universal in the ancient world. Monarchs were seen either as deities, descendants of the gods, or as their divinely appointed representatives. The first Mesopotamian ruler to declare himself to be divine was Naram-Sin of Akkad. Ruling sometime in the 23^rd century BC, he referred to himself as the husband/warrior of the goddess Ishtar. Even before that, Egyptian pharaohs were seen as incarnations of either Horus, the war and sky god, or Re, the sun god. Mayan kings were supposedly possessed by gods. Kings were also regarded as sacred in Polynesia, Africa and, until the end of World War 2, even Japan.

In Jesus' day, the Roman emperor wasn't considered a god until he died. That changed with Caligula. Yet even before him, people worshiped the genius or divine spirit that accompanied the emperor from his birth to his death. The Jews refused to do this, of course, and Rome, realizing that monotheism was essential to Judaism, got them to agree to pray to Yahweh for the emperor. But elsewhere, the emperor was treated as a god for all practical purposes. The Senate could not oppose him and the Roman Republic was no more. The emperor had absolute power over everyone's lives.

That was the main reason why Christians were persecuted. By declaring Jesus Christ to be Lord of all and King of kings, Christianity was saying that neither the emperor, or any earthly ruler, had ultimate power. There was Someone over them to whom even they ought to swear allegiance. So beginning with Nero, it became dangerous to proclaim that Jesus was the unique Son of God. Because it meant he had the last word on what was right and what was wrong, regardless of what any earthly authority said was legal.

Ancient Israel, however, did not always have a king. When the tribes were attacked, God called a person, male or female, to be their leader. (Judges 4:4-6) These were called judges. But eventually the people approach the aging Samuel, then the current judge, and say, “Appoint over us a king to lead us, just like all the other nations.” (1 Samuel 8:5) Samuel is upset and prays to God. The Lord says to him, “Do everything the people request of you. For it is not you that they have rejected but it is me that they have rejected as their king. Just as they have done from the day that I brought them up from Egypt until this very day, they have rejected me and have served other gods. This is what they are also doing to you. So now do as they say. But seriously warn them and make them aware of the policies of the king who will rule over them.” (1 Samuel 8:7-9) And Samuel warns them that by giving one human being such power he will conscript their sons into his army, make their daughters work for him, and take their best fields, vineyards, servants and animals for himself and for his administrators.

God had anticipated that the people would want a king before they even entered the land of Canaan. In Deuteronomy 17, God sets some limits over how a king should act. He should not accumulate horses for himself. He must not marry many wives or acquire a lot of gold and silver. He must write down God's law, keep it with him and study it all his life. And finally he should not “exalt himself above his fellow citizens or turn from the commandments to the right or to the left...” (Deuteronomy 17:16-20)

That kind of king is not a god but a godly person, knowing and obeying what God requires from us all. Like not having any gods other than the Lord, not creating any images to be worshiped, not misusing God's name, setting apart the Sabbath as a holy day, honoring one's parents, not committing murder, not committing adultery, not stealing, not giving false testimony against others, and not desiring what someone else has. A ruler who breaks these 10 commandments is not a godly person. When David committed both adultery and murder, God told him through Nathan the prophet that it would bring disaster upon him and his household. (2 Samuel 12:9-10) Again the king is not a law unto himself but must follow God's law, even in his personal life.

After Christianity had become a legal religion, the problem for all the subsequent kings and emperors was that now they had to admit that there was in fact an authority higher than them. So they tried to tame Christianity. They made it the only legal religion so they could restore it to the role that religions had before Jesus: to bless the status quo. They made the church an arm of the state. Some rulers, like King James 1, claimed the divine right of kings, which meant their authority came directly from God, and thus they could not be held accountable to any earthly authority, like, say, Parliament or some other elected body of mere men. Or those clergy who preached against them.

Such rulers leaned into the part of Romans 13 that says, “Let every person be subject to the authorities over him. For there is no authority except by God, and the authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore the one resisting the authority has resisted the arrangement of God; those resisting will now bring upon themselves judgment.” (Romans 13:1-2) But rulers ignore the verse that follows, which says, “for he is God's servant for your good.” (Romans 13:4) If they don't do that with their authority, they aren't fulfilling their purpose. Didn't God, in spelling out how kings should behave, warn the people that such a powerful person is likely to do things that are not good for them? Aren't there numerous examples of kings of Israel and Judah who did what was evil in God's sight? And didn't God's prophets point that out, even at the risk to their own lives?

What God arranged was not a person but a position of leadership. Order is preferable to chaos. But if the person in a position of leadership is not good or wise, if what he or she is doing is evil, like Queen Jezebel of Israel who killed God's prophets (1 Kings 18:4) or King Manasseh of Judah who worshiped other gods and killed innocent people, God will not support them. (2 Kings 21:1-16) King Herod Agrippa had James the brother of John executed and Peter imprisoned. When he accepted the people's praise for having the voice of a god and did not give glory to the Lord, he was struck down by a deadly illness. (Acts 12:1-4, 21-23) When the Sanhedrin, the council that had the authority over the Jews in Jerusalem, gave the apostles strict orders not to teach in Jesus' name, Peter and the Twelve replied, “We must obey God rather than people.” (Acts 5:27-29) Having authority isn't a blank check or permission to do what you will, no matter how evil. After all, we rightfully see those who disobeyed Hitler, the legally appointed chancellor of Germany, as heroes. Christians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth spoke out prophetically against the Nazis, who were the official party of the government.

In the countries where Christianity has come to be accepted, few political leaders have dared to declare themselves to be God. However, cult leaders have. And Jesus knew this would happen. He said, “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” (Matthew 24:24) And, of course, it is especially dangerous if a political leader is also the leader of a cult, and accepts the title of Messiah or God. Paul foresees one whom he calls the “man of lawlessness” who will set himself up as God. (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4) He could have been speaking about an emperor such as Nero. But as someone said, while history may not exactly repeat itself, it rhymes. The possibility of such a politician is always there.

Because there are always arrogant people, people who think they are smarter, better and more competent than anyone else. And when the arrogant are given power, the people under them suffer. As Psalm 10 says, “The wicked arrogantly chase the oppressed; the oppressed are trapped by the schemes the wicked have dreamed up. Yes, the wicked man boasts because he gets what he wants; the one who robs others curses and rejects the Lord. The wicked man is so arrogant he always thinks, 'God won't hold me accountable; he doesn't care.' He is secure at all times. He has no regard for your commands; he disdains all his enemies. He says to himself, 'I will never be upended, because I experience no calamity.' His mouth is full of curses and deceptive, harmful words; his tongue injures and destroys.” (Psalm 10:2-7) Such people have always existed. And somehow they have always managed to get other people to grant them power.

Unfortunately, when leaders declare themselves to be god, it's not because they desire to be like God in terms of character but in terms of power. They want to be obeyed like God but they do not want to obey him. And they certainly do not want to emulate the only person in the Bible who is held up as the ideal king: Jesus, God Incarnate.

Jesus refused earthly and political power at his temptation in the wilderness. He did not claim it when he was arrested, when asked if he was a king by Pilate, or when the jeering crowds told him they would believe he was the king of Israel if he came down from the cross. (Matthew 4:8-10; 26:51-54; 27:42; John 18:36) Instead he said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) And he did serve others. He healed them. He fed them. He showed them God's love and forgiveness, not just in what he said but in what he did.

Jesus did not use the power God gave him to make his own life better but to make the lives of others better. And overwhelmingly they were the poor and the despised and the excluded; the people powerful folks call losers. Jesus didn't just project an image of caring and healing; he actually touched the blind, the lame, the lepers, and the dead. And he said that if we really want to serve him as our King, we need to give the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned and the immigrant what they need. Because whatever we do to those whom the world counts as the least important, we do to him. If you want to see Jesus, don't look to the powerful but the powerless and to those who serve them like Jesus did. (Matthew 25:31-46)

All those ancient kings and emperors who declared themselves to be gods are dead. No one worships those psychopaths and narcissists any longer. Their power died with them. But Jesus lives and his power is still active in the world. Unlike those false god-kings, he did not leave a legacy of cold and dead monuments, doomed to crumble over time or be demolished. His legacy is the people who still trust him and follow him, who obey the commandments to love God with all they are and all they have, and to love their neighbors as they do themselves and even love their enemies. That legacy will live on until Jesus returns and the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And he shall reign forever and ever.

Good Above All Other

The scriptures referred to are Psalm 16 and John 20:19-21.

When reading the lectionary passages for this Sunday, one phrase really stuck with me. It's the second line in Psalm 16, which goes, “You are my Lord, my good above all other.” This is a key truth about our faith. God is our good above all other good things. If you don't subscribe to that, whatever moral or ethical system you replace it with will not stand up to all the challenges of life.

This may upset some people. They think that putting God above everything else can lead to fanaticism. Which is true but only if you have a distorted view of God. If you think of him as a giant narcissist and cosmic killjoy, then, yes, prioritizing that kind of god above all other things will lead to people doing horrible things in his name. So before we even consider putting God first, we need to define what we mean by God.

There are lots of conceptions of God out there, from that of various religions to those conceived by certain philosophers. Because we are Christians, we are going to be using the Bible as our database. And right off the bat, in the first line of the first book of the Bible, we are told that God created everything. This is important because not all gods were seen as creators. In some cases, a god became the primary one by defeating a monster or serpent or other god. In some cases, the material world is not real but an illusion created by faulty thinking or a lack of connection with the divine mind. But the God of the Bible created everything and pronounced his creation good. Matter, the earth, our bodies and our minds are all good things.

Next we are told, again in the first chapter of Genesis, that God created humans in his image. (Genesis 1:27) What exactly that image is does not get spelled out. But if we look at the rest of the chapter we see that God is intelligent, creative, communicative and delights in all that he has made. And we see that humans also have, to a higher degree than all other animals, intelligence, creativity, the ability to communicate, and an ability to appreciate the goodness of creation.

In the second chapter we learn something else about humans. We are social animals. It is not good for us to be alone. (Genesis 2:18) We need other humans and we form pair-bonds. We don't merely seek out the opposite sex to mate with and then go about our ways like some animals, such as the Key deer. We don't give birth and then let the offspring fend for themselves, like sea turtles. We become families. (Genesis 2:24) We love our spouses and our children. Is this another way in which we reflect God?

In 1 John 4:8, we are told that God is love. It doesn't merely say that God is loving but that God is love. We were created in the image of an eternal love relationship. One way to make sense of the Trinity is that God is the Father loving the Son loving the Father in the unity of the Spirit of that love so that the three are essentially one in mind and will.

And the fact that God is love is essential. To put a god who is not primarily love above all else leads to the distorted versions of religion that have justified atrocities. If God is primarily a creator, he doesn't necessarily have to love his creatures. He could be like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who grew to hate his creation, Sherlock Holmes, and killed him off because he drew attention from his more “serious” books. And God certainly has a right to get mad at us for the way we have used his gifts to harm each other and the rest of his creation. But just as you may not always like your child because of what they have done (hit their brother or sister, stolen money, developed habits that are harmful to them and others) you still love them. And so God continues to love us even though he is not happy with all the things we have done.

Some see God as primarily just. But justice without love is harsh and merciless. And there are societies today where there are some rather brutal punishments, like caning for vandalism in Singapore, flogging for criticizing religion in Afghanistan, and amputation for theft and beheading for drug offenses in Saudi Arabia. And in some places simply being suspected of being illegally in the country can get you locked up in overcrowded cages and warehouses.

God's justice comes out of his love. If you have more than one kid and love them all, you don't want to play favorites. You treat them all with the same standard of fairness. Yet at times you are also merciful. If a child has given his brother a black eye and is upset at himself for doing so and is sorry and in tears, you treat him differently than if he were without remorse. Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is not getting all that you deserve.

But God is more than merciful. He is gracious. Grace is getting what you do not and could not deserve. God gives us second chances and more. Peter denied Jesus three times while his master was being tried. After his resurrection Jesus gave him three opportunities to confirm his love. (John 21:15-17) Paul persecuted the church. Jesus appeared to him and commissioned him to spread the gospel to the Gentiles. Then there is what happened at his crucifixion. The criminal on the very next cross rebuked his fellow insurrectionist for insulting Jesus. “Don't you fear God,” he said, “for you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:40-43) That man is the only person Jesus ever said that to. And there was no way that man could undo the harm he had done. But he admitted his guilt, asserted Jesus' innocence and recognized him as a king. And Jesus accepted that as faith in him and promised that they would enjoy paradise together.

So if we acknowledge that the God revealed in Jesus—loving, just, merciful, forgiving and gracious—is the true God, then he is worthy to be our good above all others.

And it follows from the fact that all humans are created in the image of this God that we must treat others with love as well. Indeed when Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment, he gave not one but two: “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40) He also says, “There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:31)

All Christian morality derives from these two commandments. We are to love God above all and we love our neighbors as we do ourselves. But why should we treat them as we do ourselves? Because we cut ourselves a great deal of slack. For instance, when we are in conflict with others, we blame them for the results of what they did, but we judge ourselves by our intentions. When someone breaks something important or messes up a situation, we don't accept their protests that they didn't mean to do that. But when we are the ones who are responsible for creating a problem, we quickly say, “I didn't mean to do that!” and expect to be excused. We need to be as forgiving of others as we are of ourselves. As Jesus said, “In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

But just as it is important to define what we mean by God, we also need to define what we mean by neighbor. Is it just the people next door? Is it just the people in my town, or state or country? No, says Jesus. When asked just who was our neighbor, Jesus told the parable of the good Samaritan. The Jews and Samaritans had a long history of hating one another. Each regarded the other as heretics and worse. But in Jesus' parable two supposedly pious Jews, a priest and a Levite, see a man beaten and left for dead and avoid him. The Samaritan, whom Jesus' original audience thought would be the villain, turns out to be the hero. He gives the victim first aid, takes him to an inn, nurses him through the night and then pays for any further care the man needs. Jesus asks the scribe who posed the question, which of the three in the parable acted as a neighbor to the victim? The expert in religious law could not even say “The Samaritan,” but instead says, “The one who showed mercy to him.” To which Jesus replies, “Go and do the same.” (Luke 10:29-37) Our neighbor, according to Jesus, is anyone we encounter, regardless of race, creed or any other descriptor. We are to love them all.

But people still try to draw the line between who is our neighbor and who is not, and therefore whom we do not have to love. Jesus erases that line. In the Sermon on the Mount, he addresses this unwritten corollary to the commandments. Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor' and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax collectors do the same, don't they? And if you only greet your brothers, what more do you do? Even the Gentiles do the same, don't they? So then, be completely good, as your heavenly Father is completely good.” (Matthew 5:43-48)

Again Jesus takes it back to God, who is “perfect” or as I translated it, “completely good.” And he gives examples of God's common grace, his goodness to all, whether or not they deserve it. He sends sun and rain on all, both good things, especially in an agricultural society. It goes beyond that. Scientists have noted that our universe is apparently fine-tuned for the existence of life. If any of several universal constants, such as gravity, the strong and electromagnetic forces, the universe's expansion rate and other conditions, were even a tiny bit different, then stars, chemistry and life would not be possible. We are here because of God's grace, his unreserved, undeserved goodness.

And it is vital that we not restrict the definition of goodness. We recognize it as selfishness when someone's personal definition of goodness is “what is good for me and to hell with everyone else.” But we often get confused when that definition of goodness is expanded to “what is good for me and mine.” Mine could be my family or my country or my race or my party. But the corollary is always “and to hell with everyone else.” Ma Barker loved her sons. It didn't matter to her that they robbed and killed other people. Hitler loved his adopted country of Germany. He loved it so much he wanted to purify it of all non-white Germans. He called them “vermin” who were contaminating his country's blood. He saw the sick and handicapped as “useless eaters” and eliminated them before moving on to Jews, Slavs, gypsies, gays, Roman Catholics and other Christians who spoke up about how the Nazis were subverting the real gospel of Jesus.

The only useful definition of goodness is “what is good for all.” And that's why we need to define goodness by referring to God and not to humans. If there is no God and if humans are not created in his image and therefore don't have inherent worth, we have no solid basis for saying we need to treat everyone fairly or with love. So as the final arbiters of morality, why not just eliminate everyone we see as bad? That's what we do in our popular entertainment. The good guys win by killing all the bad guys. Sometimes we disguise this kind of genocide by making the enemies monsters or robots or space aliens. In other words, we make our enemies non-humans. And in real world rhetoric, demagogues paint their enemies as less than human. Because deep down they realize they first have to destroy the idea that they are people made in God's image as well.

God made us to reflect his goodness: his love, his intelligence, his creativity, his justice, his mercy and his graciousness. He gave us all we needed to maintain the finely tuned world he created. We have decided to misuse, abuse and neglect these gifts because we think we know better than the one who made them and made us. Consequently it is hard to see the image of God in people at times. But then God gave us the ultimate in good gifts: his son Jesus. He told us how to live and showed us how in his life. And when we tried to snuff out that life, God raised Jesus from the dead and graciously offered his life, eternal life, to all who turn to him with trust and love. God keeps giving us chances to love him and each other, not merely with our lips but with our lives. One day all the seconds of our lives, all the second chances to change, will run out. One day all of us will see Jesus face to face. Some will do so with hatred. Some will do so with fear. Some will do so with love, saying “My Lord and my God,” as we reach out and embrace the One who is our good above all others. 

The Death of Death

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 28:1-10.

Comedian John Mulaney was performing at Graceland, and he brought his 4-year-old son. The boy is a huge Elvis fan and so he wanted to tour Elvis' house. While they were in the famous “Jungle room” his son asks if he can meet Elvis. And Mulaney realizes that he doesn't know that Elvis is dead. And all of his son's grandparents are alive and he has never had a goldfish. He has never experienced death and loss. And now Mulaney has to figure out how to tell his son that everybody dies. He opts to simply tell him that Elvis is in heaven. But like all kids, his son asks why. How do you tell a child that his hero died in the most humiliating way, from drug abuse while on the toilet? In relating the story to Stephen Colbert, Mulaney jokes that he told his son, “Well, sometimes when people are in their early 40s, and they have a job and a schedule a lot like Daddy, and some of the same issues as Daddy, they go to the bathroom and they go to heaven.”

How did you learn that everyone dies? When did you realize that you will one day die? It's not a secret, yet while we may decide it's time to tell a kid about the facts of life, we don't usually have a formal talk on the end of life. It just sort of hits you when a pet or a person you love dies. And, weirdly, while it makes sense that you become sad, it is not uncommon that it strikes you as unfair. That's why one of the stages of grief is anger.

And yet in one sense death is the fairest thing there is: it happens to everyone without exception. One can see it as unfair when a person dies young or in a terrible manner. But everyone dies. That's the moral of the oldest surviving written story, the Epic of Gilgamesh. When his best friend, Enkidu, dies, Gilgamesh goes searching for eternal life. But the answer he receives from the only man to survive the great flood is, “Life, which you look for, you will never find. For when the gods created man, they let death be his share, and life withheld in their own hands.”

Even gods die in many mythologies. The Greek god Pan dies. The Egyptian god Osiris dies and becomes king of the underworld. At Ragnarok, the Norse gods, including Odin and Thor, die.

The founders of religions die. The Buddha died in Uttar Pradesh in India some time in the 5^th century BC. Muhammad died on June 8, in the year 632 AD. Moses died before entering the promised land, possibly in the 13^th century BC. And Jesus died on a Friday in either 30 or 33 AD. But only one of them rose to life again.

Of course, the disciples all knew that the dead don't come back to life, not until the end of the present evil age when all are resurrected to face judgment. Which is why every gospel mentions them doubting when they hear the women say he is risen. Even when they encounter the risen Jesus, they think at first that he is a ghost. Which is why he has them touch him and why he eats with them. He raised others who died of natural deaths but his rising by himself after being crucified is something unprecedented.

Of course, a lot of people since then have doubted this as well. They say the disciples went to the wrong tomb, or all hallucinated the same thing, or just made it up. None of these alternate explanations hold up. The authorities could have simply produced the body.

And why would the disciples do this? To keep the movement going? But Buddhism, Judaism and Islam survived the deaths of their founders. Plus the disciples got persecuted and martyred for holding to their belief. There was no incentive to lie, not when it could get you killed. Yet not one renounced the resurrection.

Could the story have evolved over time, like the legend of King Arthur? There's not enough time. The documents show that it took hundreds of years for a battle leader possibly named Arthur to evolve into the king of all Britain in the now magical tales. But the earliest Christian writings, Paul's letters, already refer to Jesus as God's Son, “whom he raised from the dead.” (1 Thessalonians 1:10) That's in Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians, dated around 50 AD. So it took centuries for a warrior to simply become king but only 2 decades for Jesus, whom people still remembered, to become God's crucified and risen Son?

Plus the first description of Jesus' resurrection appearances is found in Paul's first letter to the Christians in Corinth, composed around 55 AD. He writes, “For I passed on to you as of the first importance what I also received—that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles. Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-8) It is gutsy for Paul to mention the 500 who saw him and remark that most are still alive. In other words, Paul is saying, “You don't have to take my word for it; ask one of them.” 

Incidentally, this explains why the gospels were written later. There was no need for the words and works of Jesus to be written down while there were living witnesses around, who could come to your church and tell you about him. The gospels were probably written because of the martyrdoms of the apostles. Mark, who worked with both Peter and Paul, wrote the first gospel in the early to mid-60s AD, when those two were executed by Nero. Matthew and Luke basically took Mark's gospel and added the stories and teachings of Jesus they had access to. John's gospel, composed in the 90s AD, 60 years after the resurrection, appears to have been written with knowledge of the other three and so skips some of the events they record and concentrates on his additional material. John's gospel lets us know that Jesus' ministry lasted at least 3 years.

The process is similar to biographies written about C.S. Lewis, who died in 1963, a little over 60 years ago. I've read most of them and each has facts the others don't. Lewis' stepson David Gresham, who is still alive, revealed things that earlier biographies, mostly written by friends and former students of Lewis, didn't have. And the most recent, written by Alister McGrath, who did not know Lewis, unearthed still more facts and even corrected a crucial date, the year Lewis became a Christian, by reading everything Lewis wrote, including his letters, in chronological order.

While some extreme skeptics try to eliminate the problem by saying Jesus never existed, he is actually better attested by ancient writers than some other historical persons, like Socrates. Bart Ehrman, a respected New Testament scholar who is not however a believer, counts at least thirty ancient independent sources that knew the man Jesus existed. Of course, he and other historians doubt the resurrection. But even historian Michael Grant admitted that without the resurrection of Jesus, it was hard to explain not only the survival of the movement but its explosive growth. But if Jesus defeated death, that would account for it.

Some people think that the idea of resurrection or even an afterlife is unnecessary. If everyone just acknowledged that death is the end, they would realize how precious life is and behave better. But we have seen that is not true. The atheistic countries of the Soviet Union, communist China, and Cambodia killed nearly twice as many people in 1 century (67 million) than are attributed to Christians in 20 centuries (36 million). If anything, belief in the God we see in Jesus restrains us from being as violent as we can be. Because it is just as easy to think that if this is the only life you get, and that there's no afterlife or judgment, then there is ultimately no justice in the universe, life is meaningless in the long run and you should just do whatever you want.

But does Christianity need the resurrection? Aren't its moral teachings enough? Thomas Jefferson cut up a couple of Bibles to paste various passages into a book he entitled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. He omitted all of the miracles including the resurrection. I wonder if he noticed that much of what Jesus taught about how to live makes no sense without the resurrection. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist the evildoer. But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well.” (Matthew 5:38-39) He tells us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. (Matthew 5:44) Crucially he says, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must disown himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and for the gospel will save it.” (Mark 8:34-35) That's a good way to get yourself killed. It got Jesus killed. If death is the end, this is suicide. Jesus' morals would be foolish, not wise.

But what if the afterlife is just continuing in a disembodied state, free from the flesh and its limitations? That would be like being a living brain in a jar or an AI program, where you would unable to use the senses you had while in a body or use the skills you learned and the talents you honed in this life. That doesn't seem like a reward for living in this world. It seems like being imprisoned in a sensory deprivation tank. It seems like hell.

God made the world and pronounced it good. He made us as unities of body and spirit. The spiritual gives the physical meaning and the physical gives the spiritual form and agency. He made us able to sing and dance and run and climb and play and embrace and help one another through the bodies he gave us. The Gnostics thought the material universe was irredeemably bad. The Bible says that the physical universe is good, loaded with God's gifts. It is our misuse, abuse or neglect of them that creates evil. With our intelligence and our bodies we can enhance and save lives or we can harm and destroy them, the same way you can use a knife to perform surgery or commit murder.

Not only does Jesus' resurrection make sense of our embodied existence and his teachings about how to behave, it also demonstrates God's plan for us and for all of creation. Lots of people think the story of the Bible concludes with the end of the world. But it actually continues with the creation of a new heaven and a new earth. God is restoring things to the way he intended them to be, populated by folks who are new creations in Christ, who love and trust him and who love and trust each other, and who use his gifts in good and creative and helpful and healthy ways.

One characteristic of life is growth. Plants and animals grow. Our bodies and our minds grow. And we are meant to grow spiritually as well. Paul talks about how we are to “reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, reaching to the very height of Christ's full stature.” (Ephesians 4:13) But how are we finite beings ever going to be able to become completely like the one who is infinite? Only by growing forever. The afterlife is not going to be eternal stasis but eternal growth. It will be a life where our growth in understanding and wisdom and the use of our talents and gifts will not be cut off by death or limited by age. There will always be new horizons to discover. There will always be new things to learn, new things to do and new ways to do them. There will be all the time in the world to find and do good things and to share them with others.

Jesus Christ's resurrection did not just give him new life; it gives all people the opportunity to have a new life. All we have to do is give to him our messed up and limited lives and open ourselves to receive his life, eternal life, the life of the God who is love. Jesus opened up a new way of living, not just to live for ourselves but for him and for others. And he opened a new realm in which we can live, the kingdom where God reigns and his will, to give life in all its abundance, is done on a reborn earth as it is in heaven. When we enter into Christ's life, we will see not only that death is not the end of all our adventures but is the beginning of new ones we can not possibly imagine. It is not the end of all we are but the real start to achieving all that we can be. In Christ, we will find the life we were looking for, the life we were longing for, the life God made us for. He is not withholding it from us; he is holding it out to us. And it can begin now!