And now they had to deal with that, to figure out how to re-establish their lives without him. And that understanding, that knowledge, was true for the small band of Jesus’ disciples, as well. We do not attend funerals with the expectation that the deceased will return home with us or appear just a bit later. This is what I’m expected to believe.Ĭan I believe it? Is there sufficient evidence for this impossible thing? Well, frankly, it runs contrary to everything we know, to the whole of human experience. Granted, it was a glorified human body capable of appearing behind locked doors and disappearing at will: more than an ordinary human body or perhaps a human body as it was created to be, but, either way, still a human body continuous with the one laid in the tomb. ![]() Not a ghost, not a figment of imagination, not a religious longing turned delusion, not the continuation of an ideal by faithful disciples, but a flesh and blood, scar-bearing, fish eating body. Take the impossible thing of the Resurrection of Jesus, for example, and apply these questions.ĭo I understand it? Do I really know what I am expected to believe? Well, yes, I think I do: that a man, brutally beaten and executed by Roman soldiers - merchants of death who verified that he was truly good and dead - came to life again three days later, body and all. What must I do about the impossible thing if I were to believe it? Can I believe it? Is there sufficient evidence for the impossible thing or else insufficient evidence to refute it? There is a corollary to this: do I already believe something that commends this new impossible thing or which compels me to accept it also?ģ. Do I understand it? In other words, do I really know what I am expected to believe?Ģ. When confronted with an impossible thing - and you know I say “impossible” with tongue firmly in cheek - when confronted with an impossible thing, I find it helpful to ask three questions:ġ. ![]() ![]() that he will come again to judge us all - those living at his return and those dead whom he shall raise to life.Īnd all this before breakfast: for Anglicans, as for the Queen, believing impossible things just takes a little practice.that he ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of his Father, at the place of power and glory.that he rose again from the dead three days later.that this Son, Jesus the Christ, God the Son, was crucified, died, and was buried.that God the Father had a Son, conceived by God the Holy Spirit and born of a human woman - a virgin, of all things.that God, whom we call Father, created all things in heaven and on earth.Why, the Creed alone proclaims more than six impossible things, though these six are particularly noteworthy and impossible: The Queen, in this passage from Alice in Wonderland, might well be speaking of Morning Prayer: it takes half an hour or less each day to read it is often read before breakfast and it’s filled with impossible things that we are expected to believe. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ![]() “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. ALICE LAUGHED: “There’s no use trying,” she said “one can’t believe impossible things.”
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