Midweek Musing- 2/19/2025

One of the things I miss most about my time in college now years ago was the time my classmates and I all seemed to have—time to debate, time to question, time to wrestle with big ideas. There was something about those years when everything felt open for discussion. I hear in the age of cell phones and continual obligations even for college kids that time has all but disappeared.

But back in the early 1990s before smartphones and Facebook I had more than my fair share of deep debates, many occurring though maybe not ending in Greenville Dining Hall at Presbyterian College.

It seemed almost any time I could walk in for a quick lunch and leave two hours later, still locked in a battle of ideas with friends who were just as convinced as I was that they were right.

One of those debates has stuck with me more than most. It started in class, where a professor posed a simple but loaded question:

“Would the lack of a resurrection change the greatness of Jesus’ teaching?”

At first, it seemed like a trick question. After all, Jesus taught love, forgiveness, mercy, and justice—things that stand on their own, right? Even if you strip away the miracles and the resurrection, don’t his teachings still hold up?

That was the argument as we carried the debate out of the classroom and into the dining hall. Plates were pushed aside, notebooks and Bibles opened, and the discussion went deep. We threw around ideas—what if Jesus were just another great moral teacher like Socrates or Confucius? What if the resurrection was only a symbolic way of saying his message lives on? What if faith didn’t need it?

And then, long after lunch was over, we stumbled onto 1 Corinthians 15:12-20. Considering the class was on Paul’s letters, that might have been our professor’s hope all along.

It seems Paul won this debate centuries before ours ever began.

And if I understand the text Paul doesn’t leave any room for a “Jesus the great teacher” argument. He flat-out says:

“If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”

That stopped us cold. Because Paul doesn’t say, “Well, even if Jesus wasn’t raised, his teachings are still great and worth following.” He says without the resurrection, faith is empty.

And he keeps going:

   •   If Christ isn’t raised, then sin still rules.

   •   If Christ isn’t raised, then death wins.

   •   If Christ isn’t raised, then Christianity is a lie, and we are to be pitied.

That was the moment when I realized: Christianity isn’t built on Jesus’ teaching alone—it’s built on what God did through him.

Jesus didn’t come just to give us wisdom; he came to give us life. Without the resurrection, we’re left with inspiring words but no real hope. We can debate good and evil, morality and justice, but in the end, if death still wins, then we’re just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Now if you are like me, we want things to make sense. We want faith to fit neatly into logic and reason. But Paul makes it clear—resurrection doesn’t have to be logical to be true. It only has to be real.

Just like a seed doesn’t look anything like the wheat it will become, our current bodies, our current world, even our understanding of life itself, are only the beginning. They are the seed of something far greater that God is bringing to life.

And because Christ has been raised, we know that death is not the end, that sin does not have the final word, and that the kingdom of God is not just an idea—it is a reality we are moving toward. As I often say we are eagerly awaiting the promised day of God..

That day in Greenville Dining Hall, we left with fewer arguments and more awe. Because if Paul is right, and if Christ has been raised, then that changes everything. It means we live differently. We hope differently. We love differently.

We are not just following the teachings of a great man. We are following the risen Christ.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Alleluia. Amen.