By Donald M. Tuttle

The term “apologetics” is not one we have used much in recent years. And that is too bad because it is an important term in Christianity. “Apologetics” is not, as some might suppose, “apologizing” for the faith. It is explaining or defending the faith—something all of us should be able to do. Fortunately, “apologetics” appears to be making a comeback, at least in some circles, and that is good news.

But author Sara Maitland is critical of how some people are doing apologetics these days. In critiquing a book by theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, Maitland says some folks “take the bits of the faith [they] like, denounce the rest as ‘cultural accretions,’ apply some syncretic glue, and carry on regardless.”

That is certainly a strong indictment—one that is, I fear, too often true. But it doesn’t just apply to theologians today. A selective embrace of the Christianity has long been common. For example, Thomas Jefferson did not believe that Jesus was divine, so he took the Gospels and cut out the bits he liked and pasted them together to create his own version.

Or consider Martin Luther—one of the key figures of the Protestant Reformation. Luther took what he liked—the Apostle Paul’s “saved by grace through faith”—and denounced what he didn’t—James’ “faith without works is dead.” If it would have been up to Luther, he would even have removed the Letter of James from the New Testament.

And in the second century—a little more than a hundred years after Jesus’ death and resurrection—there was Marcion. He was the son of a bishop who became very anti-Jewish, among other things. Ultimately he rejected any part of the faith that he thought was “too Jewish,” including all of the Old Testament, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, and all the Letters not written by the Apostle Paul. In fact, he started his own church, one that rivaled the true church for years.

With that kind of history, it shouldn’t surprise us that theologians and others who play favorites with parts of the faith. What may surprise us is that we probably do to.

It was only a couple of weeks ago when we celebrated Easter. It was a great day here at First. The sanctuary was filled with light, the Table was covered in our new gold and white paraments, the choir outdid itself with glorious music. It was truly a celebration of life—abundant and eternal. It was a celebration we all wanted to share, and we did. Oh, the pews were not as full as we might like, but we did have a great crowd.

Yet it was only hours earlier that we had also met for worship. It was noon on Friday, Good Friday. The sanctuary lights were dim, the communion table was covered in black, the music was somber and haunting. Together we read the story of our Lord’s passion—the account of his final days, hours, minutes. It was a powerful service. But on Friday we didn’t have a problem with seating. Maybe a third of those who came on Easter to celebrate came on Good Friday to mourn.

Why? Maybe it is because we too take the bits of faith we like and skip the rest.

u Given the choice between crucifixion or resurrection, we choose resurrection.

u Given the choice between the suffering or the victory, we choose the victory.

u Given the choice between the cost of sin or the blessing of grace, we choose grace.

All of us are tempted to approach the faith the way we approach the serving line at Luby’s. We look over the selections, pick this dish over that, this doctrine over against that one. We take the bits of the faith we like and denounce the rest.

The danger is that such a faith may well have little to do with the faith that was handed down to us, the faith we received from Jesus Christ through his apostles. It may be only a pale imitation of what once was.

Steve Bruce is a professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. He is also an author of note. In an interview about his latest book, God is Dead: Secularization in the West, Bruce says that:

Once individuals start to decide what they are going to believe...people will not set for themselves arduous conditions. When people get to invent their own gods, they invent easy gods that demand very little of them. They don’t invent difficult gods. Once people claim for themselves the power to determine how they will believe and what they will believe in...the tradition...doesn’t disappear, it dissipates. The tradition just gradually dissolves.

In other words, when we pick and choose, when we take this part of the tradition but denounce that, we inevitably skip the hard parts. We focus on the stuff that is easy, that makes us feel better, that requires little of us. We celebrate Easter without Good Friday.

But followers of Jesus Christ do not have that luxury. For us, struggle and victory, death and life, crucifixion and resurrection are of one piece because they were of one piece in our Lord. We cannot pick the easy and ignore the hard. We pass through the pain on the way to the promise.

That is what the disciples discovered. It had been quite a day. Early in the morning the women had told them that the tomb was empty. Peter and John even went there and found it to be true. Later a couple of disciples who had left to go home to Emmaus had come breathlessly back to Jerusalem, claiming that they had seen the Lord.

“Could it be?” the disciples hoped. Yet, how? They had seen him die.

Then, all of a sudden, in the midst of that dark, locked room, Jesus appeared.

Can you imagine? The disciples couldn’t. They were startled. They were terrified. They thought he was a ghost. Nothing in their experience had prepared them for such a moment, and they had no earthly idea what to think or say or do.

So Jesus took charge. He showed them his hands and his feet. That doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it was because they were scarred. The nail prints on his hands and feet were evidence that the Christ of Easter was one and the same with the Jesus of Good Friday. They were proof that he had not escaped suffering and death but had passed through them and been victorious over them.

And that is significant. Fred Craddock, the great Disciples preacher, points out that the continuity between the Jesus of Friday and the Christ of Sunday is, in fact, critical. He points out that if Jesus is dead and gone but has been replaced by some spiritual, eternal Christ, then his followers are free to retreat into an abstract other-worldly devotion. We can hide out, focusing on some ethereal otherness detached from the harsh reality of life. We can be about light and air, warmth and fuzziness. But the fact that his hands and feet were scarred means we have no such luxury. Like our Lord, we have to live in the world, to suffer for others, carry the cross and engage in the rough and tumble of life. Because his hands and feet were scarred, because he had suffered the cross on the way to the empty tomb, we don’t have the luxury of picking Easter, of choosing just what we like, what is easy or comfortable. We are called to follow his lead, to serve and suffer on our way to resurrection and eternal life.

Let me ask you to do something for me today. Look at your hands. Come on, hold them up. Turn them over. If they were a measure of the faith you embraced, what would they say about it? What kind of shape are they in? Are they Easter hands or are they marked by Good Friday? Are they white-gloved hands, given only to occasional prayer or worship, or are they bruised because you have so lived your faith that you have needed to defend it? Are the soft from tending only to your own needs or are they calloused from the helping hand you have offered others in the name of Jesus Christ? Are they smooth, having held tightly to all that was yours and yours alone, or are they scratched and scarred by the sacrifices you have made--by the time you have given others, by the tithes you have shared for the work of God, by the talents you have used for the sake of Christ and his kingdom? What kind of shape are they in? Are they like the hands of Jesus Christ, suffering servant and risen Lord?