Life & Living: What is God's DNA
We may need it and the sooner the better! After all, the church is nearing the end of the Lenten season, forty days that lead to the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. That is, if there was a resurrection. If not, there are a fair number of us wasting a lot of time and energy trying to pump life into a gigantic myth! So it is as an answer to the question of the resurrection, or at least to Jesus' humanity, that "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" purports to be.
Surely you have heard the flap that has been cruising the airways the past few weeks about a supposed archeological discovery of the funeral box that contains the bones of the dead Jesus, and not only His (whoops, I should have used a lower case for "his" given that Jesus was only a man) but also boxes containing the bones of Jesus' wife (who else but Mary Magdalene; she is Jesus' wife no matter what the "discovery"), son, and his sidekick, Matthew. This isn't the first time I have heard that archaeologists (and scholars?) have proven Christianity's belief in the resurrection to be no more than an old wife's tale. But there is going to be a movie, or something like a movie, of this discovery in the future. As you can imagine, claims like this send Christians into a frenzy.
Many of us remember "The Last Temptation of Christ," a controversial movie released in 1988 on the theme of Jesus' susecptability to the human weaknesses of doubt, reluctance, fear, and lust. On the cross Jesus is tempted by an alluring image of a peaceful and meaningful life with Mary Magdalene in an attempt to get him to reject the sacrifice he must make. "The Lost Tomb of Jesus," not based on a novel but on a novel idea, may give new life to "Last Temptation," or reopen the "Quest of the Historical Jesus," originally fathered by the genius Albert Schweitzer in 1910. We are searching for Jesus...and that is a good thing. Finding Him, however, may require a confession of sin rather than picking up a shovel.
Establishing the historicity of Jesus the Nazarene is crucial to Christianity. That He lived an ordinary life some of the time is not offset by the divine life He lived the rest of the time ... and that He lives now. It is important to us to know that He was, as the Hebrews' writer says, tempted in every way like we are...and yet triumphed over those temptations. So we welcome any hint that Jesus was fully human and likewise any hint that we have witnessed something of His divinity. The likelihood that we have an osuary containing the bones of Jesus the Nazarene makes any present-day claim extremely thin. Naturally I do not think we will ever see those bones since I believe that shortly after His death the body of Jesus ascended into heaven, so He could continue His saving work for the world.
It is not possible for me to rehearse the arguments for the divinity of Jesus, a divinity so wonderful that the church speaks of Him in its confession of faith as part of the Trinity. I do not think Christians need to be frustrated over so-called current archeological discoveries. I do think we need to be about preaching the Gospel, of which Jesus is the center, and ministering in His Name to the marginalized of the world.
Jerry Mercer
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