The Real Revenant

Leonardo DiCaprio won an Oscar for “Revenant” but his return from near death in the movie was child’s play compared to the real thing. His return to life came after barely surviving a vicious mauling by a bear. Left for dead, bleeding profusely, he was betrayed, abandoned and buried alive. But reality trumps the movie by far!

In a well- documented event in 32 AD, Jesus arose. He walked out of a tomb. Over the next forty days, he appeared to as many as five hundred eyewitnesses. Dr. Luke wrote that his resurrection had “many infallible proofs.” When he arose, his frightened followers lost their fear of death. Neither the military might of Imperial Rome, nor demons or sorcerers; not even the religious enforcers of the ISIS-like Jewish sect of the Pharisees could intimidate them. They saw death defeated! That’s the only reason the church was able to make it out of the first century and still be thriving today.

Jesus’ death was grisly. It came after being falsely accused and tried, lashed by cruel whips, slapped, reviled, spat upon, and having a crown of thorns pressed on his head. (These bloody marks all show up on the Shroud of Turin.) He was led away from Pilate’s court by Roman soldiers, forced to carry his own cross to a hill outside Jerusalem. There he was crucified.

Crucifixion was an especially cruel form of execution perfected by the Romans. David, by the Holy Spirit, described it in Psalms 22 hundreds of years before it was invented. It was done by nailing a living man to a cross or tree. Jesus hung there until he died and a soldier’s spear was thrust into his side. Messy, bloody, horrifying.

The resurrection of Jesus was not a simple resuscitation. He did not survive and then wake up. His brutalized body was battered. The physiological processes of life had ceased. The body of Jesus was a lifeless corpse. He died, period. He was in a sealed tomb for two nights. Roman guards verified it. End of story. Or was it?

The recent movie “Risen” portrayed this event accurately. That film shows a Roman officer searching for the body of Jesus after his tomb was found empty the morning of the third day. That officer reluctantly became a believer after he interrogated the disciples and then met the risen Lord. The story is fiction but it fits the facts of the Bible very well.

During high school, I studied Latin for four years. We watched historical movies like Quo Vadis, about Nero’s persecution of Christians. I read a lot of Rome’s history in its original language. The Bible’s story fits secular history perfectly. The spread of Christianity after the resurrection of Jesus did not occur in a vacuum. It happened in the midst of two civilizations - Jews and Romans - who kept good records. They paid attention to legal matters, to events of history, and they wrote it down. History agrees with the Holy Bible that our Lord Jesus arose!

Years ago I was confronted by a psychologist. He challenged me by saying I was a Christian only because I had been raised in church. I replied, “No, that is not why I’m a follower of Jesus.” He went away but returned later and asked, “Why are you a Christian then?”

I answered, “When I was a boy, my mother, a devout Christian, contracted tuberculosis. She was isolated in a sanatorium for months and we missed her badly. But we prayed for the Lord to heal her. One night in her hospital room, she awoke to see the outline of a man beside her bed. He wore a white robe and had nail-scarred hands. His hand passed through her chest and he spoke to her saying, “Myrtle, when they take the X-rays, it will be gone.”

This “Jesus sighting” is one of thousands that have occurred throughout the ages. Our risen Savior is alive! After Jesus ascended to heaven, an angel told the watching disciples, “This same Jesus will come again!”