You've Got to be "Swooning" Me

I heard a buzzing sound near the window in my office this morning and saw that it was a bee.  I am very allergic to bees.  If I get stung, I have to go right to the ER for a steroid injection.  Since I don’t like to go to the ER for steroid injections, I closed the blinds, trapping the bee between them and the window.  I listened for the buzz and then crushed the bee between my blinds and the window with a very heavy book.  The bee fell down to the window sill, still moving and buzzing a bit.  So I swept him to the ground and smashed him with the book again.  Then I picked him up with a wad of toilet paper and flushed him down the toilet.  Then I flushed again just in case.  I’m fairly certain that by the end of all of that, the bee was as dead as a bee gets. There is no way the bee could have survived that.

This is Easter week, the most sacred holiday in Christianity, and the basis of our faith.  Jesus died for our sins and was raised from the dead, and if we believe in Him for our salvation, we too will be raised to eternal life with Him.  That’s the significance of Easter.  But before there could be an Easter resurrection, Jesus had to have been killed and then buried.  There is no resurrection without His death and burial.

Yet amazingly, in spite of all that was done to Jesus, there are some who argue that Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead because He didn’t actually die on the cross.  Oh yes, they argue, He was beaten beyond recognition, scourged, forced to wear a crown of thorns and carry His cross to the place of crucifixion. He was nailed to a cross, hung there for 6 hours to the very limit of human endurance, was declared dead by the centurion, and stabbed in the heart with a spear just for good measure.  Then He was wrapped in linens and put in a cold dark tomb.  And yet somehow He survived that.  Between Friday night when He was buried and Sunday morning, so the argument goes, the cool air in the tomb combined with a day of rest resuscitated Him.  He was able to recover, wiggle out of His grave clothes, roll the massive stone away, and exit the tomb. He did all of this with feet and wrists that would not have worked because the crucifixion spikes would have severed the nerves in his wrists and feet.  To top it off, He was able to escape the notice of the Roman guards who were stationed at the tomb for the very purpose of guarding the body, under the penalty of death if they failed. 

This is known as the SWOON theory. Its proponents say that medical knowledge at the time was not what it is today, so they all mistakenly believed that He was dead.  He didn’t actually die, he only “swooned”, meaning that He fell unconscious. I find this a whole lot harder to believe than the resurrection, but such is the length that some will go to deny a historical fact.  When I was investigating the Christian faith to decide whether I would believe the claims of Jesus, the fact that the tomb was empty was a tipping point. I looked for an alternate explanation.  If the Swoon theory was the best argument that critics of the resurrection could make, then arguments against the resurrection are extremely weak.  When Jesus was laid in the tomb, He was dead. There is no way Jesus survived what He endured.  

Christianity is a religion based on faith, but it’s also a religion based on facts. You need some facts to have faith.  Paul said, in 1 Cor. 15:16-20, “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.”  Paul should know.  While looking for Christians to arrest, he saw the risen Jesus Himself.  Then he went around for the next 30 years preaching the gospel, and suffering beatings, whippings, torture, stoning, shipwreck, and finally martyrdom for his trouble.  The only explanation for Paul’s changed life is that he saw the risen Lord. That bee I killed did not come back to life.  Jesus did.  The evidence is too compelling to deny.  If you struggle with belief, investigate the facts for yourself, and see if they lead you to faith.