The question is loaded. I found the question in a brochure that challenged the church’s response to some moral questions. Our contemporary world asks us to change and keep up rather than sink back to traditional ideas that no longer apply and appear to be outdated.

But it’s a fair question and needs an answer. The idea of change is raised about issues that are just as volatile as contemporary moral dilemmas. Should the church change its worship forms? Should we change our approach to attract more people? Do we change to meet the challenge of our postmodern or post-Christian audience?

I don’t really think anyone else will care about a couple of words in a Lutheran magazine, but I believe that there are three answers: no, yes, and maybe. At first that might seem like a way not to answer the question, but the questions involved are complex and in some cases posed by people emotionally tied to their own answers or agendas.

The first answer is easy for us as confessional Lutherans: no. We might even capitalize the answer and add an exclamation point for emphasis so it is written: NO! We believe God has revealed absolute truth in the New and Old Testament Scriptures. Not only does God not change but also the truth he revealed does not change. So we do not change our confession of God’s truth.

Part of the world wants to have scientific proof or some reasonable understanding. Even if it cannot prove something, it must at least have some rational plausibility. But Christian truth is different. We walk by faith and believe even when we do not understand how it could be as God said it is. We don’t change the truth to accommodate what some might think is believable or acceptable.

In a few weeks we will celebrate a most improbable and impossible event: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. None of us can imagine how such an event could ever happen. We have not experienced someone defying the persistent and unchangeable reality that all humans die. If we exclude the witness of the prophets and apostles, we don’t know anyone who has ever heard or seen someone rise from the dead. But the Christian witness is clear: Jesus rose from the dead.

Over the centuries many have doubted it. Others have explained it as a myth, a desperate hope, or wishful thinking. Some flatly deny it as impossible and ridiculous. Still others, even in Christian churches, speak of new life but have difficulty announcing that the grave of Jesus is empty. Those churches have changed what they teach but the Scripture clearly says: He is risen!