What about the empty tomb? (Luke 24:1-12; 1 Cor. 15:19-28)
The text we read together in Luke 24 is Luke’s empty tomb story. When it comes to the appearance stories, all the Gospels have their own unique stories to tell, with the exception of Mark, who does not include an appearance story. But all four Gospels have some version of the empty tomb story. Each story is unique and contains variations from the others (there are differences in the details) but the main point, of course, is the main point of all the stories. The tomb is empty, and Jesus is alive. The question this raises for me is this: Why was the story of the empty tomb considered to be of such importance that each of our canonical Gospels contain a version of it? It’s not, in my estimation, intended to teach that the resurrection of Jesus has to be physical? In 1 Cor. 15, where Paul is responding to questions about the resurrection raised by the Corinthians, Paul struggles to try to explain what the resurrection involves in terms of the body. He says, “fles h an...