More from my essay on the resurrection (click link for sources):

[One] proof of the resurrection [is] its resonance

with the human story and its ability to change hearts throughout

the ages. Christianity started out as a religion of a few

followers of Jesus, no education, no armies, just the Good News

of Christ’s resurrection. And now Christianity is all over

the world and has had billions of adherents throughout history.

It is because of the Story! [JRR] Tolkien sums up well the qualities of

the Christian Story:

The Gospel contains a fairy-story, or a story of a

larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy stories. They

contain many marvels - peculiarly artistic, beautiful and

moving: ‘mythical’ in their perfect self-contained

significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most

complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has

entered history and the primary world; the desire and aspiration

of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation.

Thus, Christianity is the fulfillment of and answer to all of

our human longings everywhere and at all times. It is the

entering of myth into human history. The Story of Jesus resonates

with our hopes and conquers our fears. We can never go back in

time to prove it, but it proves itself to us today, especially

when we worship Christ and encounter him through the Sacraments

and mysteries of the Church. It is best to end the bulk of this

essay on a quote by Tolkien which sums up well the reality of the

resurrection:

The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s

history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the

story of the Incarnation. The story begins and ends in joy. It

has pre-eminently the ‘inner consistency of reality.’ There is

no tale ever told which men would rather find was true, and none

which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own

merits. For the art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art that is of Creation.

To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.