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PULLING OUT JUST ONE LOOSE THREAD

There’s a game families like to play that usually ends with a big crash. There are maybe several variations around; the one we’ve noticed around here is called “Jenga.” You put up a big tower or stack of these wooden pieces, which come in various shapes and sizes. And then very carefully, one piece at a time, the players try to pull out just one piece without having the entire pile come tumbling down. Here and there you can find a piece that doesn’t look like it’s holding up anything too vital, and if you can ease it out without disturbing the status quo — well, that’s the goal.

Sooner or later, though, there’s one piece that just can’t come out without collapsing the entire structure. And everybody around the table screams “Jenga!” and hits the loser with a wet noodle.

You know, in legal terms, there’s a similar concept — because as you know, one judicial decision piles on top of another one. If your lawyer can quote Smith vs. Jones from 1946, and show that the court ruled in such-and-such a way back then, well, there’s no need to re-discuss it. And your decision here in 2003 might pile on top of Smith vs. Jones and add a bit more to it, until you pretty much have a mountain of precedents built on that one original case.

In fact — and this takes us into our topic of the Resurrection — lawyers and judges generally hold to a judicial philosophy described by these two Latin words: stare decisis (ster-e-di-SI-s?s). Which basically means that once a mountain of rulings has piled up, you don’t reach in and upset the mountain unless you’ve got pretty overwhelming reasons for doing so. Here’s the Webster way of putting this stare decisis:

A doctrine or policy of following rules or principles laid down in previous judicial decisions unless they contravene the ordinary principles of justice.

In the case that probably hits closest to most hearts, the 1973 ruling of Roe vs. Wade, the abortion decision, is the biggest example of this. In the 30 years since that decision came down from the Supreme Court, many, many other rulings have been tacked onto it — dealing with things like parental notification, the rights of demonstrators, when the state can step in and regulate, all the fine-tuned language about viability and trimesters, and so on. And even though there have certainly been justices on the high court who have maybe wanted to overturn Roe vs. Wade or at least modify it, that principle of not overturning Mount Everest has sometimes held them back. And when anti-abortion people have pleaded with them to just reach in and pull out that one bad thread, the Supreme Court comes back and says, “No, that will unravel the entire shirt and the sleeve will fall off. Too many decisions have piled onto this one now, and the mountain can’t be disturbed.” Right or wrong, that’s how laws, even imperfect ones, get cemented into place.

And here on the Thursday before millions of people around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, there are quite a number in the jury who are making the same suggestion, believe it or not. They actually want to get rid of the Resurrection. “Just pull out this one thread,” they say. “Keep the rest: the sayings and teachings of Jesus, all that He taught about love and forgiveness and turning the other cheek. Keep what He said in the Gospels about peace and kindness. But we just can’t buy this business of a dead man coming out of the grave on Sunday morning.” And they basically say to the Christian church, “Can’t we only pull out this one piece and still keep the overall structure?”

Well, friend, right here I’d like to kind of invoke that principle of stare decisis with you. What happens to the tower if we pull out only the Resurrection and let Easter just be another mall day with nothing more to it than eggs and bunny rabbits? Can we simply discard the Resurrection and still be good Christians?

Well, consider some of the other building blocks that immediately have to come out too. First of all, the Bible’s filled with lies then. It’s written by men who looked right into the camera and lied to us. The 11 disciples are either liars or nuts. The Apostle Paul is a prevaricator and a theological madman. So most of the New Testament is gone, as is much of the Old where the resurrection of Christ is predicted.

Is the divinity of Christ gone too? Obviously, since the Resurrection is one of the great proofs that Jesus was the Son of God; Jesus Himself said so in places like Matthew 12:40 and John 2:19. He, the Son of Man, would be dead and in the grave for just three days, like Jonah. So pulling out the resurrection plank also shatters our belief that Jesus is divine — and makes Christ out to be just one more member in this band of liars.

Come to think of it, if the Bible is filled with lies and misrepresentations, then what does that tell us about the Holy Spirit, who inspired this Book? Maybe He doesn’t even exist. Perhaps the doctrine of the Trinity is down, not just to two, but clear down to one, since we’ve already taken out Jesus being part of the Godhead as the Son of God.

But wait! What about God the Father? If the Resurrection is a lie, then we find here a couple of disturbing facts. God permits His own Book to be infected by concocted stories and lies. Can we even trust HIM? What’s much more serious is the fact that God doesn’t even have the power to raise up this person who claims to be His Son. So we lose both the Sonship of Christ and the omnipotence of God the Father in one fell swoop.

And what does the loss of the Resurrection doctrine do to us on a day-to-day basis. Maybe as a grownup you don’t address your prayers to Jesus any longer — but did you as a child? Did you pray to a dead-and-buried Judean wanderer all those years? Even today, when you close your prayer “(quote) in Jesus’ name,” why in the world would you do that any longer — if Christ is dead? What power is there, what gain, in invoking the name of a dead hero?

Or what about faith? Living by faith? Who do we have faith in? Here on this radio ministry we teach and encourage one another to live a life in a daily faith relationship with Jesus, communing with Him each day in prayer and Bible study. Well, no need to keep that up any longer. And maybe some respond right here, “Wait a minute. Our faith is in God the Father, not in Christ. We live by trusting in the Father.” But without the Resurrection, why would a person choose to live a life having faith in God? There’s no resurrection for any of us; that’s for sure. If Christ Himself didn’t come out of the tomb, neither will anyone else. If there’s not eternal life in heaven for Jesus, the rest of us can put that doctrine in a drawer immediately. And obviously, if Jesus is dead, there’s no such thing as the Second Coming . . . and believe me, that would mean the instant demise of the Voice of Prophecy.

And you know, friend, the bricks just keep on tumbling. Without the resurrection of Jesus, Satan is a victor, not a defeated foe. Do you want that? If Jesus is a decomposing corpse somewhere in Old Jerusalem, then He’s not alive in heaven today interceding on our behalf with the Father; He’s not available to give us power for daily Christian living. If Christ isn’t alive today — and the book of John tells us that Jesus was the active party in first creating this world — then He certainly isn’t available to RE-create it as promised in Revelation. But of course we got rid of all of Revelation about five minutes ago, didn’t we?

How about forgiveness of sins? Is that an important part of your Christian faith? Is that a platform plank you could easily surrender? And does it have anything to do with Calvary and the Resurrection? Jesus Himself, in that Upper Room on the Thursday night before He died, said to the disciples:

“This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

But without the Resurrection, Christ’s death on the cross is no different than fifty thousand other Roman crucifixions; there’s no significance whatever to the shed blood of just one more itinerant preacher. If Jesus didn’t come out of the tomb, we’d have no evidence whatsoever that His sacrifice accomplished anything or that He was even sent by God to make this sacrifice. So First John 1:9, which promises us that our sins can be wiped away, is an invalid promise.

Well, friend, we could go on and on but the clock is ticking, and — praise God — we’re talking about a scenario that thankfully is completely and absolutely and totally MOOT! True, we can’t pull out the foundation of the Resurrection without having the whole building collapse . . . but we don’t have to pull out the foundation because you and I serve a risen Savior! We actually do! So the divinity of Jesus, the power of God, the truthfulness of the Bible, the Second Coming, forgiveness of sins — all of these things are real and true and guaranteed by the shed blood and the shattered tomb.

No wonder Christian apologist C. H. Dodd tells us:

“The Resurrection is the EPICENTER of belief. It’s not a belief that grew up within the church; it is the belief around which the church itself grew up, and the ‘given’ upon which its faith was based.”

I like that, don’t you? And friend, the Resurrection isn’t just a “given” . . . it’s the greatest GIFT this old world and this rejoicing radio preacher ever got.