Last Sunday, the Christian community celebrated the most holy and important event in the Christian calendar, the resurrection of the Son of God. Despite its centrality in the Christian faith, this has not been one of the most easily understood and accepted teachings of the Church. In fact, from the very beginning of the Church, it has been a source of controversy.

Down through the centuries, the resurrection of Jesus was the fulcrum point in the arguments of secularists, atheists, and assorted philosophers who sought to deny the divinity of Christ, or who regarded Christian belief as delusional and mythical. Today, it is still a cornerstone for those who wish to deny the authenticity of Christianity and its power in the world.

In his letter to the Christians at Corinth, the apostle Paul sought to address a raging controversy that had emerged concerning the resurrection of Jesus. Paul understood only too well how important this event was to the claims of the Christian Church that Jesus Christ was real and his claims ought to be taken seriously. He knew, too, that if Jesus was a mere fossil in a tomb hewn out in a piece of rock in Jerusalem, then the whole foundation of faith would crumble and Christian preaching would be made of non-effect. This is so as it would have been founded upon a falsehood, and all the claims that Jesus had made about himself and that the apostles had boldly proclaimed to the world would have rendered the entire Christian enterprise a hoax. All their labour would have been in vain. If this were the case, then in our own day all the great edifices, traditions, and programmes that we have built up around him would have been a glorified futility.

So in his long treatise on the subject, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul presents the case for the resurrection of Christ. After his resurrection Jesus was seen at different time individually and collectively by different people. He was seen by the apostles (note their encounter with him in the upper room in Jerusalem); then Paul testified that he himself met him as “one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15:5-8). He is recalling his Damascus experience where he met the resurrected Jesus as he went on his mission to destroy the church.

In the brevity assumed by this column space, it is not possible to go into a full exposition or apologetic defence of the resurrection. There are many arguments that have been advanced as to why the resurrection is a farce, but there are several equally eloquent rebuttals of these theories. I believe that the most important defence that can be made of the resurrection is that to be seen in the attitude, disposition, and behaviour of the disciples before and after the resurrection of Jesus. When Jesus was crucified his disciples — with the exception of John, the beloved disciple — were nowhere to be seen. Judas had betrayed him and Peter, to his own sorrow, had denied him three times. The only people at the foot of the cross who stood in solidarity with him during his pain and suffering were a few ladies and John. And perhaps John was there because he wanted to lend support to Mary, as Jesus acknowledged from the cross, “Son, behold thy mother.”

As was revealed later, they were scared for their own lives and were hiding in fear of the Jews. When Jesus died they were a dejected, disillusioned and demoralised band. Their master had been cruelly removed from them by Roman crucifixion. There was no hope for the future for they did not know to whom or to what to turn. Perhaps they could go back to their individual occupations, but of one thing we can be certain, they were not a pretty sight to behold. But when Jesus met them in the upper room their world changed instantly. Life took on a new meaning for he was alive. If he was alive then all the things he had said about himself were true, and they could now hang their lives on his words which now took on a new meaning.

From Jerusalem they went out into the Roman world to spread the good news of the gospel. The rehabilitated Peter preached the first sermon and thousands of people were added to the Church during the Feast of Pentecost (Acts 2: 1-11). They became such powerful witnesses for their Lord that they were accused of turning the world upside down (Acts 17:6). What is it that infused them with this power? What is it that had transformed them from a pitiful band of disciples into an apostolic “fighting machine” for the gospel? It had to be that they had really seen the resurrected Christ; that he was not dead, but had risen from the dead as he had told them. Their faith in him had been vindicated by his living interaction with them.

These same disciples, with the exception of John who was exiled to Patmos, individually and separately, and in different places in the then known world, gave their lives in service to the gospel. One must remember that this was not the age of the cellphone,

Facebook ortwitter. One could argue that if they were able to communicate with each other they could have conjured up ways in which they could dupe the world into believing that they were really in one accord with Jesus’s resurrection. But they were scattered far and wide and each person had to rest on the fact of the truth that he had come to know in Jesus that he was for real. It is not possible that each one of them would have given his life for a lie. Sensible people do not lay down their lives for falsehoods. They will live and die on the authenticity of the truth they believe in.

It is the disciples witness to the saving power of God more than anything else that convinced me of the resurrection of Jesus. They were closest to the event, and so I can believe Peter when he wrote to the Christians in the dispersion that they did not follow cunningly devised fables when they made known the power of the coming of the Lord Jesus, for they were eyewitnesses of his majesty (2 Peter 1:16).

Today the Christian lives his or her life in the power of the resurrected Christ. He does not live below the true levels of his capabilities. The message of Easter is one of renewal, redemption and reconciliation, but it is also one of hope, authentic hope founded on the fact that Jesus lived, died and rose again. Thus Peter can say that those who believe are begotten again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1: 3). The Christian must live in that hope walking victoriously towards the future to which God in Christ is beckoning him.

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest and social commentator. Send comments to the Observer orstead6655@aol.com