Forgiveness and Miracles: Part 4

Class Date: April 13th, 2022

“The Miracle of Easter is Not the Easter Bunny”

This class focuses on the one essential miracle the virtually created the Christian faith as a “religion”, separate from the Judaism from which it grew. The stories of Jesus’ resurrection display a man who is no longer human in the conventional sense of the word. His body has changed in some ways. For example: he can enter rooms without going through a door, he can appear and disappear at will, and his appearance seems to have changed.

All four gospels tell the story of Jesus’ appearances differently. Some people have suggested that this suggests that the gospels are therefore not reliable historical sources of what happened that first Easter morning. We can safely say that how the gospel writers record Jesus’ appearances depend on what they want to express about its meaning. Their concern was not for details, but that people experience the redemption Christ had accomplished. The stories of Jesus were adopted to their audience, and this resulted in variations of detail. Over time, these stories were collected and turned into narratives we call the gospels. The ultimate message is that repentance (returning to God), and forgiveness of sins – the royal road to salvation for all the peoples of the earth, are to be proclaimed throughout the earth.