The Center That Holds

At the core of every faith there has to be a commonly held belief that is the foundation of the faith. It has to be unshakeable and unchangeable or otherwise the faith becomes a target for scoffers to tear it apart and the center cannot hold. The passages for today Luke 23:44-24:12 are at the core of Christianity. These words should not be read lightly, or quickly. Each phrase needs to be savored in the mind and listened to because each moment in this part of the story is so important. Why?

This is the part of the story that is both an ending and a beginning. One cannot happen without the other. Both stand with incredible significance to the faith. They form the foundation of the understanding that Jesus of Nazareth was no prophet. He was no great teacher or philosopher. He was who He said He was. He was the Son of God. He was the Christ- the messiah. He was Immanuel.  And here, in these passages we get the final indelible proof.

 It begins with many supernatural things that happen as Jesus is crucified.  Listen to the story: "darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining" The History Channel or Discovery have tried to show us that this was probably just a really bad storm that darkened the region. Plausible of course, but why at that very hour and moment as the death of Christ is occurring on the cross, does the sun stop shining? Coincidence, is a quick answer to that question but it is coupled with another event: "And the curtain of the temple was torn in two." This is a very significant element because it was the curtain of the Holiest of Holies. It was the curtain that separated the outside from the place where God was to dwell in the temple and thus, being  the ultimate place in the temple, the curtains ripping apart becomes huge. Now, it does not sound impossible for a  curtain to be  torn until one discovers what this curtain was like. This was not an ordinary drapery hanging in a window. The temple curtain was a thick buttress like a wall. It was indeed a phenomena that it would tear.

In other accounts of the last moments of Christ's life, we hear that the earth rumbled and shook. The scoffers point to the possibility of an earthquake. Yes, another possibility, that is plausible. Yet it continues to raise the question as to why these things would happened at the very moment when Jesus cries, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." 

Yet, there is another phenomena that the scoffers cannot explain. It is the account of the Roman centurion, a pagan, a non-Jew, non-believing, idol worshipping man, who stands at the cross  and  "seeing what had happened, praised God and said, "Surely this was a righteous man." How is it that this man would come to believe in God—in Christ – by simply watching the death of a man he knew only as a criminal? What happened here that could change a mind raised as a Roman legionnaire, empowered by his role as a soldier, in a foreign land full of rebellious Jewish people who  he must have had only contempt for as an occupying force. I challenge the History Channel on this one.

However,  the greatest supernatural phenomena was yet to happen-the resurrection. Once again we must savor the words. Here is where the scoffers can fathom all sorts of scenarios as to how this could have happened. Surely,  a boulder could have been rolled away and a body could have been removed. But who were the "two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning" who told the women,   "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' " Then they remembered his words."

Yes, they remembered. And when they told their story to the apostles, hiding out in Jerusalem, Peter and the rest had a hard time believing that this could have happened. Maybe the darkened sky, the sun blotted out, the earth trembling and centurions conversion were not even enough for the apostles. But the empty tomb is the blockbuster, the crowning jewel, the magnum opus, the undeniable truth, the unremitting and indefatigable proof. And no one, not even all the skeptics with all the DNA and techno-wizardy have been able to recreate a walking, talking man who was once dead, drained of all life, laid in a tomb for days, to rise up and appear to the living.

I think of the film, Jesus of Nazareth, by Franco Zeffereli, made back in the early 1970's and of this great scene when the Rabbi's and priests of the Sanhedrin get the news that  Jesus has risen. They have done everything to prevent this possibility. They were the ones who, after all, asked that Roman guards would be posted outside the tomb to prevent the removal of the body. But something happened, not one person can claim to explain. Jesus is gone. All that is left are "the strips of linen lying by themselves."  In dismay and awareness they gasp and resolve that, "now it all begins."

Indeed, the center holds. The bedrock to Christianity lies in these short passages. Read them carefully.

Laurie Erdman

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