The Impossible Escape
Easter
The chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while [Jesus] was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’” Matthew 27:62-63
As the clock struck one-minute, Harry Houdini struggled to free himself. Hidden behind a red curtain, he was holding his breath, hanging upside down in a water-filled glass chamber, feet bound in wooden stocks. As the audience fixed their imagination on the drama concealed from their eyes, they wondered if Houdini could do the impossible – escape the clutches of death.
At two minutes, some in the audience ordered the stagehands to pull back the curtain and break the glass, but they did not move. Pushing past three minutes, a dreadful silence filled the room because everyone was convinced that Houdini was dead -bound and buried inside a watery tomb.
But Houdini was not dead. As the red curtain came up, there he stood soaking wet and alive.
On Friday, after Jesus was crucified, soldiers pierced his side to verify his death. Then he was taken down from the cross and placed in a new tomb carved from solid rock. To safeguard the burial space from thieves, the opening was barricaded with a large stone, sealed, and monitored by two security guards. On Sunday morning, Jesus rose from the dead. He removed the funeral cloth covering his face, folded it, and placed it on the ground. Then, Jesus stepped from the dark chamber into the dew-drenched garden and started walking toward Galilee.
When Harry Houdini began performing in 1891 as a playing card illusionist, he had little success. Searching for something that might set him apart, he grabbed a pair of handcuffs and broke free of them in a matter of moments, stunning onlookers. Early posters declared him The World’s Best Handcuff King and Prison Breaker.
Later, surrounded by crowds on the streets of New York City, Houdini gained immense fame as he freed himself from increasingly complex entrapments – chains, straitjackets, ropes, milk jugs, and wooden boxes thrown into the East River. But nothing quite compared to his greatest act – the Chinese Water Torture Chamber first performed in 1912. This electrifying stage performance thrilled audiences, defied imitation, and left audiences scratching their heads, wondering how he did it. Searching for explanations, some accused Houdini of using dark spiritual powers to disappear and reappear on command.
But Houdini’s escape from the Chinese Water Torture Cell was nothing more than a clever illusion. Moments after he was hidden from the audience, Houdini freed himself when the clasping mechanism holding his feet in the wooden stocks quietly opened after being “locked.” A Master of Performance, Houdini was perfectly safe, patiently waiting for the right moment to pull back the curtain, raise his arms in triumph, and bow to thunderous applause.
Through the centuries, the impossibility of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead have sent many searching for a more plausible explanation. Hoping to pull back the curtain and expose the trickery, some have suggested that Jesus slipped into a coma on the cross and woke up after 3 days. Others have speculated that Jesus had a secret twin brother who was seen walking around Galilee. Still others have surmised those visiting the garden in the early morning hours were sleep deprived, got confused and went to the wrong tomb.
Even a mere 20 years after the resurrection, people were already struggling to believe the impossible escape really happened.
The church in Corinth, established by Paul around the year 51, was a community composed of Gentile and Jewish believers. Each group was wrestling with Easter morning and searching for a more plausible explanation. Gentile converts, shaped by Greek philosophical ideas of a body/soul dualism, had no concept of a physical resurrection. Their solution was to turn the resurrection into a spiritual event unrelated to the body. On the other hand, while most Jews believed in a physical resurrection, they expected it to happen far into the future – at the end of time. So, they were doubtful of one person rising before everyone else. Their solution was to deny the third day miracle altogether.
Wondering if Easter might be a masterful illusion, Paul writes a letter to the church and in 1st Corinthians 15 addresses their puzzlement with two compelling arguments.
For the Gentiles, Paul addresses the physical nature of the resurrection by pointing to the powerful evidence that the resurrected body of Jesus was seen by a whole host of people. This section of Paul’s letter is referred to by scholars as “The Corinthian Creed” because in these succinct verses Paul reminds them of the core saving tenets of the Jesus story articulated in Scripture and verified by eyewitnesses –
“that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep” (1 Cor.15:3-6).
Having named the three-act body drama (died, buried, raised) Paul insists that if the third act (bodily raised) was a spiritual event only, then the good news of God’s physical incarnation at Bethlehem culminates in a burial – which is very bad news. Logically, he concludes that anyone with a body who would place their faith in a dead-end storyline for the body would be foolish. Good news must be good news from start to finish.
For the Jews, Paul puts the miracle of Easter morning into a larger context. He clarifies that the resurrection of Jesus on the third day is both a decisive victory over death, and a sign pointing to God’s promise to wipe away death entirely at the end of time. The miracle–now, not later–is a down payment on that future reality which also works to strengthen those who are suffering hardship in the present moment (30). Christians, with this down payment deposited in their hearts, can face persecution, poverty, and powerlessness with courage and patient endurance trusting in God’s promise of everlasting life.
On Halloween 1926, at the age of 52, Houdini died in a Detroit hospital when his appendix ruptured. Immediately rumors started circulating that Houdini would escape his bronze casket even as pallbearers carried it to his grave plot in Queens, New York. But Houdini never escaped. In the end, no hidden key or clever trick could unlock the chains of death holding him captive.
On Friday, Jesus died on a cross and was buried. On Sunday, God did the impossible – broke the handcuffs of sin and rescued Jesus from the prison of death. Still, the curious fact remains that the actual moment of resurrection was hidden behind a “curtain” of stone.
Ultimately, no argument can answer every doubt, and no explanation can convince a hardened heart that Easter wasn’t more magic trick than miracle.
Rather than an airtight case of irrefutable facts, Paul issues a call to faith and a hope rooted in that faith. This invitation extends to the first Christians and every generation since who feel a deep longing in their bones for a good news story line from beginning to everlasting end: hold the Corinthian creed close to your heart and believe the impossible escape really happened.