I’m sure you’ve heard of the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks at church services in Sri Lanka. It was done by Islamic terrorists, killing Christians worshiping together on arguably the church’s most important worship day of the year. Over 320 people were killed, and there is chilling video of one of the suicide bombers walking into his assigned church building moments before taking his own life along with the lives of many others. We pray for the families of our brothers and sisters on the other side of the world; and we are confident that said brothers and sisters are with their Master even now.
Union “Theology”
Yesterday, Serene Jones, president of Union Seminary in New York (and who describes herself as a “fierce theologian”) was interviewed in an opinion piece in the NYT about Easter and the theology behind it. In the article she made several odd (yet unfortunately typical at Union) theological statements: that the virgin birth is a “bizarre claim,” that we can’t know what comes after death, that God is not all-powerful but is “vulnerable” (a typical descriptor of God among current liberal theologians), and so on.
But perhaps the most odd are a couple of statements toward the beginning of the interview: Referring to whether or not the resurrection happened, she says, “Those who claim to know whether or not it happened are kidding themselves. But that empty tomb symbolizes that the ultimate love in our lives cannot be crucified and killed.” She continues to add, when asked about the crucifixion that, “Crucifixion is not something that God is orchestrating from upstairs.”
Directly Contradictory to the New Testament
First, the Apostle Paul would utterly rebuke her for claiming that he and the rest of the apostles are kidding themselves for claiming to know what happened. The gospel of John claims that Jesus appeared to the disciples three times alive after the crucifixion (John 21:14). And the message they preached, according to Acts, was the resurrection of Jesus and its theological meaning. Further, Paul claims that the resurrected Jesus appeared not only to him but to no less than five-hundred people at one time (1 Corinthians 15:6-8). And what does this mean? That Jesus is the Son of God who alone is capable of saving (Romans 1:4-5). Being the only truly holy man (untainted with sin), and having maintained perfection through His whole life, his resurrection proves that he thus is the One who can save.
Second, regarding the claim that God didn’t orchestrate the cross, one has only to read the first four chapters of Acts to see the Apostles claiming no less than three times that the cross was sovereignly orchestrated by God (2:23, 3:18, 4:28). While this doesn’t mitigate the responsibility of those involved in the crucifixion, yet, in the same way that God was working good in the midst of Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery (see Genesis 50:20), God was here working salvation through the evil actions of the murderers of Jesus. Considering the Acts passages above, to claim that God wasn’t in control is to directly contradict what He says about it.
Dead in Vain?
But these aren’t the things that bother me the most about Miss Jones’s interview. My best friend texted me this morning with an astute observation: According to Jones’s claim that the real message of Easter is not the resurrection of Jesus but that love is stronger than death, the murdered Sri Lankan Christians died with no hope, and their death was just a waste. True. If Easter isn't about Jesus' resurrection, then these brothers died in vain, and since they're dead and can't love anymore, which is what Easter must be about, the resurrection doesn't include them, but only us who are still alive now.
But hear me loud and clear. The message of Easter is that Jesus rose again, defeating death and darkness. Yes the message of salvation is a loving message, and anyone can get in on this. But the message nonetheless is that Jesus rose again, so that whatever befalls the believer in this life, whether awake or asleep, they are the Lord’s (Rom. 14:15) and won’t be abandoned (Psalm 16:10).
Because of this, we can be confident that our Sri Lankan brothers and sisters who died on Sunday yet live. While I’ve never seen any of them, I will one day. We as Christians are called to love our enemies however they would treat us, and in doing this, we show our adoption into God's family by Jesus' work. And if they take our lives, we know that we will be with the Lord, who loved us, gave himself for us, and rose again.
If you ask me, that is a fierce theology.
