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Context No. 1396 of 4322 · Acts

Context · Reflection

Acts 25:12-21: in context

12Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you shall go.” 13Now when some days had passed, King Agrippa and Bernice arrived at Caesarea and greeted Festus. 14As he stayed there many days, Festus laid Paul’s case before the king, saying, “There is a certain man left a prisoner by Felix; 15about whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, asking for a sentence against him. 16I answered them that it is not the custom of the Romans to give up any man to destruction before the accused has met the accusers face to face and has had opportunity to make his defense concerning the matter laid against him. 17When therefore they had come together here, I didn’t delay, but on the next day sat on the judgment seat and commanded the man to be brought. 18When the accusers stood up, they brought no charges against him of such things as I supposed; 19but had certain questions against him about their own religion and about one Jesus, who was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. 20Being perplexed how to inquire concerning these things, I asked whether he was willing to go to Jerusalem and there be judged concerning these matters. 21But when Paul had appealed to be kept for the decision of the emperor, I commanded him to be kept until I could send him to Caesar.”

Festus, the Roman governor, lays out Paul's case to the visiting King Agrippa. Paul had been left in prison by the previous governor; the Jewish leaders wanted him condemned, but Festus explains that Roman custom does not hand a man over before he has faced his accusers and had a chance to defend himself. When the accusers did appear, Festus says, they brought none of the charges he expected; instead the dispute turned on points of their own religion, and on one Jesus, who was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. Baffled by it all, Festus had offered to move the trial to Jerusalem, but Paul appealed to Caesar, and so to Caesar he would go.

The telling line is the way Festus, an outsider with no stake in the matter, reduces the whole controversy: a dispute about one Jesus, who was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. To Festus this was a baffling religious quarrel, a strange point of Jewish belief he could not follow and did not much care about. But in that puzzled, dismissive sentence he has, without knowing it, put his finger on the exact center of everything. The whole of the Christian faith turns on precisely this: a man who was dead, whom his followers affirm to be alive. If Paul was wrong, it is a curiosity, a dead man some people irrationally insisted was living. If Paul was right, it is the hinge of history, and nothing is more important. There is no middle position, no way to treat the resurrection as a minor religious detail; either a dead man is alive, changing everything, or he is not. Festus filed it away as a perplexing matter beyond his interest, and many since have done the same, hearing the claim that Jesus rose and setting it aside as a religious curiosity not worth deciding. But the claim will not stay filed away. Everything hangs on whether the one who was dead is in fact alive. Festus stated the question exactly and then walked past it. The question he stated is the one every person must finally answer.

Have I treated the resurrection as Festus did, a curious religious detail to be filed away, or have I faced the question his puzzled words state exactly, whether the one who was dead is in fact alive, on which everything hangs?

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