An Audacious Claim

I believe a man died and returned to life.

In more detail, there was a Jewish teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, approximately two millenia ago, who claimed to be God, upsetting the religious leaders of the day. These leaders had him executed: flogged to near the point of death, asphyxiated by hanging, and then, to be completely sure he was dead, put a spear through his heart. Now, if that was the end of the story, there would be nothing much exceptional about it – there have been other similar historical incidents. However, I believe that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, was literally returned from the dead, to physical life in a physical body. There are eyewitness testimonies to this fact that have survived to the present day, with orders of magnitude more reliability of transmission than other documents of similar age. Other historical witnesses state that these eyewitnesses held to their statement, even being executed themselves rather than renounce it. It is, however, rather audacious to posit that a man literally came back to life. Science cannot explain it, and really the only explanation that fits is that Jesus was, in fact, God, as he claimed. Once the familiarity of this claim (at least in Western culture) is put aside, the implications really are enormous.

The Expectant Bride

I've got a little-known fact about Christianity that shocks even life-long Christians. The rite of Communion, practiced in some form or another by all Christian denominations, is actually a wedding vow. Mike from Tenth Avenue North (a really great new Christian band – check their album out if you're into Christian music) expains it really well in this blog post.

For those of you who didn't read the post I linked, the basic idea of Hebrew marriage back then went like this: boy meets girl, some price is arranged for her hand in marriage, boy proposes (with a cup of wine), if she drinks the wine, boy and girl are married, but separated until he's finished building them a house, then boy brings girl back to their new home, and that's a wedding. This process works very well as an analogy for Christianity (the Church is called “the Bride of Christ” sometimes (for those of you outside said Church, when church is capitalized it refers to all Christians, taken as a single body)). The price paid for this marriage is Jesus' own life (the payment I spoke of in this blog post). Right now, we're in the middle stage – Jesus is working now on preparing Heaven, and physically separated from humanity. At some point though, he will return, and take his bride (the Church) back to Heaven with him.

So, this has been a kind of interesting academic excercise, but what's the point? Its simple, really. If you view Christianity as a marriage, rather than a religion, you have to consider a lot of things differently. Earth isn't your home, its simply the apartment you stay in while your home is being renovated – so the important thing there is not “he who dies with the most toys wins”, or to be the most popular person on the block, its to prepare for your journey home. Your life isn't beholden just to yourself, you have the interests of a husband to consider. Furthermore, Sin isn't just breaking God's law, and commiting a fault against your judge, its cheating on your husband. God loves you, has given his life to marry you, and you're shacking up with Satan, the great rebel. That certainly puts a new perspective on things.