And where has this forgetfulness led to? Is it to the suicide bomber? If it is, what a price to pay for denying that the crucifixion ever took place! The suicide bomber probably imagines he is doing the will of Allah. But is he? No doubt he discounts the popular idea of being rewarded in a paradise of sensuality. There could be no worse degradation; without humour, and without drama. But like Samson eyeless in Gaza, I expect he seeks to expiate his impotent inability to run a decent just society. If he does dream about paradise, my guess is that once dead, he will find it existed only in his imagination, and nowhere else. But surely the reality is that he will find himself shunned; shunned by those he knew in this world who are ashamed of him, and shunned by those he meets in the next? For who will trust him? If his fate is to be shunned by all who want peace for an eternity, I can think of no worse hell.
Even when being actually crucified, Jesus taught that we should love our enemies; and he was willing to try to save his enemies from themselves, by teaching that love is better than hate, goodness better than evil, life better than death. One cannot do much better than that! And doubting Thomas’ punishment was to be told that others might be more blessed than he. In contrast the fundamentalists of any religion, and the Christian Inquisition of the Middle Ages and afterwards were within this group, have got themselves into the position that they are bound to condemn anyone who differs from themselves; and nowadays instead of trying to adjust to modern thought as Teilhard de Chardin urged them to do, they defy modern thought. How are they able to do this? By the simple expedient of not thinking.
So was Jesus the Messiah? Generally speaking, a country’s saviour knows there is nobody else capable of doing what he knows has to be done. The Elder Pitt, when out of power, and possibly suffering from manic depression, claimed that he could save England and nobody else could. Both statements were correct; and he did! But he was speaking of England’s political future and what England stood for, not the overcoming of evil. In the wilderness, Jesus was tempted to doubt that he was the Messiah; he is not recorded as being tempted to believe he was the Messiah. He evidently did believe it; and then had doubts, which is what you would expect. Suppose the truth is he was right to doubt it; because however correct he was in seeing that integrity is always dragged down by the men of Lilliput, it was irresponsible to teach men to seek a place in heaven, and throw the welfare of society contemptuously to the winds? How could the God of Newton and Einstein, of Darwin and Goethe who both grasped the truth of evolution, approve of throwing the future of society to the winds? Did Jesus misunderstand his mission; did he not understand God’s purposes? Is it enough to say that your Kingdom is not of this world?
Of course if the Resurrection happened, as I believe it did, it is pretty obvious who had the Divine Writ. But suppose I am wrong; and that the resurrection was an apparition conjured up by those intoxicated by the charisma of the friend they had lost? Would they not have given anything to believe that the crucifixion was not the end? How much do we know about group hysteria? Do we understand how it was the German people, with their tradition of music, philosophy, and literature embracing Bach, Luther, and Goethe, could end up so intoxicated with Adolph Hitler as to call him “Saviour”, and in SS units fight for him to the bitter end? Jung, who understood more of the German character than most of us, was fascinated by the topic of Flying Saucers. I was sceptical of everything about them, until I read a report in the papers of two smart young Police constables chasing one at 60mph. along country lanes in the South-West of England. And Jung’s view was that many of the sightings were indeed genuine, although there was nothing there to be seen! In other words probably it was the phenomenon of a group hysteria in society, which manifested itself in a sighting by different people, now here now there. Is there a parallel with the resurrection? And there are more mysteries in heaven and earth than are commonly experienced in suburbia.
The early disciples believed he had risen from the dead, whether this belief was grounded on fact or illusion; they would never have embraced martyrdom if it had been otherwise.