The Proof of the Resurrection

How do we know that the resurrection is true? It is a question that Christians wrestle with and are asked every Easter. How can we know that this story of Jesus being raised by God after being dead for days is true? 

There are many good spirited Christians who attempt to provide a material response, or proof, to this question. They might point to an empty tomb. They might point to the stories in the Bible of first-hand witnesses. They might point to some relic of the past or some physical location to bolster the truth claim that Jesus was raised. Given our current levels of suspicion and skepticism, it seems that even if there was video footage of the empty tomb there would not be universal acceptance of the resurrection. And when we think about it, more people have converted to Christianity who have not seen an empty tomb than those who have seen an empty tomb. This suggests that the early Christians understood something that we may have forgotten: We know the resurrection is true and that Jesus is alive not because the tomb is empty but because we are not afraid of death. 

St. Athanasius of Alexandra makes this claim in his book “On the Incarnation of the Word” when he says, “A very strong proof of this destruction of death and its conquest by the cross is supplied by a present fact, namely this. All the disciples of Christ despise death; they take the offensive against it and, instead of fearing it, by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ trample on it as on something dead.” 

The Easter is the season we are invited to witness that death has died on the cross and therefore no longer has any power. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:55, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” It is in these days we come to witness that in the death of Jesus, the power of death is destroyed.

Christ leaving an empty tomb may change your mind, but Christ defeating death will change your heart.

Expecting Traditional Nurses to Treat Hospice Patience

Recently a friend of mine shared that she worked for a nursing company. It was in the economic interest of the company to get into the hospice care market. The nurses were put on a rotation of patients, however now some of the patients had received hospice orders. The nurses moved through their rounds going from home to home and engaging with different patients as they always had done.

It was a disaster.

The nurses did very well with the regular patients, but were not good for the hospice patients. It all stemmed back to the way the nurses were trained. These nurses were trained to help people recover their health. However, these same nurses were not equipped to work with patients that were not going to ever recover their health. The nurses were not bad nurses but they were the wrong person for the patient on hospice.

The Universal Church faces a similar situation. Clergy are trained like these nurses were - to help churches recover health. But the current reality is that many churches are not going to recover health because the role of church in America is in decline. The Church has congregations who need help recovering health and yet other congregations need a hospice nurse.

Clergy are not equipped to work in churches on hospice and there are many churches on hospice.

I understand that this is a bit of a taboo to speak. Nurses are trained to think in terms of health and not in terms of dying. The irony is clergy have the language of death and the hope of resurrection in Jesus, yet clergy resist talking about churches dying. It is as though clergy forget that death is not the last thing and that resurrection is what we testify to! Could it be that we as clergy have a resistance to talk about dying because we have an underdeveloped theology of hope and resurrection?

The problem of having clergy trained to bring churches back to health is similar to the problem of having nurses working with patience on hospice - there are misplaced expectations, clergy feeling like they cannot midwife the church into the next stages, and congregations are harmed. We as a Church ought to take seriously the questions of what it means to be clergy leaders to an institution that has major sections on hospice.

Will we continue to operate out of fear? Will we re-tool clergy so that we are equipped to this new challenge. Will congregations accept hospice care?

As a people of the Resurrection we ought not fear death. Rather, we hope that resurrection is the Truth of creation and that nothing, life, or death or life beyond death, can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Tyranny of Metrics

Jerry Muller's book, The Tyranny of Metrics, examines how fixating on creates a number of problems. The author states:, 

This book is not about the evils of measuring. It is about the unintended negative consequences of trying to substitute standardized measures of performance for personal judgment based on experience. The problem is not measurement, but excessive measurement and inappropriate measurement—not metrics, but metric fixation.

The book reads as a cautionary tale for the Church. The more the Church reads reports that "our numbers are in decline" the tighter we cling to metrics. As the Church faces a legitimacy and relevancy crisis in the culture, there is a temptation to fixate on metrics as a way to show legitimacy and relevancy. 

As the author says, metrics are not evil. It is difficult to diagnose a problem if there are not some measurements we can look at over time to make adjustments. It was once said to me that the numbers we look at in the church are similar to the numbers a doctor looks at when you go in for a check up. These "check up" numbers do not tell you everything about your health, but they are a starting point. If your breathing is consistently slow it could mean you are a super healthy marathoner but it could also mean you are close to death.

It is the fixation on metrics that is creeping into the Church that is a cause for concern. 

So what does metric fixation look like? Muller describes it in this way:

• The belief that it is possible and desirable to replace judgment, acquired by personal experience and talent, with numerical indicators of comparative performance based upon standardized data (metrics)
• The belief that making such metrics public (transparent) assures that institutions are actually carrying out their purposes (accountability)
• The belief that the best way to motivate people within these organizations is by attaching rewards and penalties to their measured performance, rewards that are either monetary (pay-for-performance) or reputational (rankings)

Paradoxically using metrics as the means to gain a sense of clarity of a situation and using metrics as the primary measure of success creates misaligned incentives. For instance, the surgeon who wants to have more patients may talk about how many successful surgeries they have preformed. However, what she/he fails to communicate is that the they only take cases that have a high probably of success to begin with. Thus the "successful' surgeon may not who you want for your complicated surgery. This example might be called, "creaming" the numbers. That is the surgeon counts only the "cream of the crop." The patient and the surgeon have misaligned incentives. 

Muller points out a series of reoccurring flaws in using metrics:

1. Measuring the things that are easy to measure (such as people in worship) 
2. Measuring inputs (such as money) over outcomes (such as a transformed life)
3. Creaming (counting only the best)
4. Lowering standards (calling a gathering a worship, then add those numbers to weekly worship total)
5. Omitting or distorting data (such as double counting a person who attends more than worship hour on Sunday)
6. Cheating (such as when the preacher adds to the numbers because "it felt like there were more people there...")

The reality is metric fixation is killing clergy and creating cultures where churches are dominantly assessed through what is easily counted rather than through the Spirit. How we overcome metric fixation is a difficult but not impossible process. Metrics are only a small picture of reality, but because it is a number it weighted heavier. Metrics give the impression of concreteness and accessibility to situations that are ambiguous and complex. There is a desire to simplify the complexities of the world giving us a false sense of control and understanding. 

Fixating on metrics means that when a church provides their "check up" numbers, we forget that sometimes the heartbeat of the church looks good because there is a pacemaker modifying the heartbeat. Just because a church looks strong in the metrics might mean they are "juicing" in subtle (and even purely motivated) ways. Just because a church looks weak in the metrics does not mean that the church is dying or failing. 

And even if it is dying, the Church of Jesus Christ is not dead for too long because Sunday is coming. 

Thank God this Scripture is false

The final verse in the original ending of the gospel of Mark reads:

So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. - Mark 16:8

But we know this is false. the women said something to someone otherwise we would not know of this story at all. So this scripture is false. Thank God it is. 

Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash

If my loved one was resurrected I bet that I would be shouting it from the mountain tops! There is a whole industry of books that exist that intrigue so many people. These books share stories of "near death experiences." You may not believe these books, but there is little denial that there is much fear around when people "come back from the dead." So why were these women afraid? 

Perhaps they were afraid because for the most part, stories of people coming back is bad news. The story of Zeus coming back and banishing Cronos is bad news. The Nero Redivivus Legend was the story of how emperor Nero (who had died around the time Mark wrote this gospel) was coming back. The movie depicts Harry Potter's return from the dead was one build on killing (he shot a fireball killing some Death Eaters) and revenge ("We have to kill the snake!").

It may be no wonder the women were fearful when they heard of Jesus' return/resurrection. These women were a part of the group that abandoned, disowned and betrayed Jesus. Maybe they thought he was coming back, like all others who come back from the dead, to bring death and revenge for the sake of "justice." I find it difficult to believe that it would be at this moment the followers of Jesus would have "gotten" his message, when they had yet to understand even while he was alive. I find it difficult to believe that they would have "gotten it" and believed Jesus' resurrection would be a peaceful one. I think they ran because they did not "get it" once more. 

Perhaps the reason the women did say something to someone so that we have this story, is because Jesus does not come back fro revenge or violence. His resurrection is of peace, forgiveness and love. This resurrection, unlike so many others told of old, was Good News. 

So yes, "they said nothing to anyone" is false. Thank God it is. Because if it was true that the women said nothing to anyone and we did not have this story, then Jesus' resurrection would not be Good News, but just more bad news of revenge and death having the final word. 

He is risen, indeed!