“Excuse me, Mr. Alton, but could I have a moment with you after everyone leaves?” Michael asked. The rest of the class was filing out, as the bell ending school had just rang and everyone was more than anxious to go home for the weekend. Even me, but apparently Michael was intent on staying.

The kindly old man nodded, his silver hair shining from the fluorescent lights above in the classroom. “Sure,” he said, a slight smile forming on the corners of his lips. Alton is one of those teachers who is willing to dedicate time to his students outside of the classroom, as long as they do what they’re told to do when school is in session.

“Thanks,” Michael said, resting his bag on the lab bench beside him. He waited patiently for all the other students to leave the room and soon there was no one left except for him, Alton and me, of course. “You can go home if you like, Samantha,” he whispered to me.

I shook my head. “Nah, I’d better not,” I answered. My brother would be walking home with his girlfriend, and they have been arguing over anything and everything that comes up recently, so it’s a heck of a lot more peaceful here at school.

Michael shrugged. “It won’t be too long then,” he answered, “because we have youth group tonight at church. Don’t forget to bring your book and notes.” In youth group, we have been studying Lee Strobel’s Case for Christ recently. The last lecture was on historical evidence about whether or not the Gospels were true, but I know Michael loves to read ahead in his books and he has probably finished the entire book by now.

Mr. Alton finished erasing the chalkboard and walked over to where Michael and I were standing. He sat down on one of the stools and motioned for both Michael and I to do the same. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked.

Michael took a deep breath and began. “Do you remember how you were talking about medical terminology last week?” Alton nodded, signaling for Michael to continue. “And you mentioned something about how if an animal or human looses too much blood, they can die?”

Once again, Alton nodded. “It’s called hypovelemic shock,” he said in a calm voice, not much different than his typical lecturing voice that he uses in the classroom. “If a person looses too much blood over a short period of time, it is very likely they will wind up dead. Remember that the body needs blood to carry the essential nutrients to the brain and, more importantly, to transport oxygen.” For a moment, Alton looked uncomfortable, something I hadn’t seen him like before. He was always able to maintain his perfect composure while lecturing about biology or anatomy during class. But apparently, Michael wasn’t a bit surprised by Alton’s uneasiness.

Michael smiled slightly, the same smile that he always gives when he has a plan. “Mr. Alton, could you describe what a person’s physical condition might have to experience in order to go into hypovelemic shock?”

“Sure,” the teacher smiled back, but this smile was almost challenging, as if daring Michael to outsmart him. Most other teachers would know better than to do that because Michael’s one of those people who will take advantage of that in any sort of debate, which is probably what this’ll eventually turn into. “Well, to begin with, most people who loose large amounts of blood have been in an accident of some sort. If any of the major arteries or veins is pierced, this could also contribute to a person going into hypovelemic shock. Does this answer your question?”

Michael nodded again, pausing for a moment to think. “Yes, it does,” he said slowly, as if unsure what to say next. “But would you mind clarifying a bit? I mean, what kind of physical torture would have to happen- and does it have to be the result of an accident?”

Alton shook his head. “Kensington would be a better person to clarify details on this, but if a person undergoes extreme physical torture, he or she can go into shock,” he answered. Kensington is one of the history teachers at our school. He specializes in European history during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. “In fact, if my historical memory serves correctly, some of the medieval torture methods regularly put people into such a condition, but their scientific and medical know-how wasn’t usually sufficient enough to describe it like we do today.”

Michael gave me that same infamous look, his way of conspicuously answering the challenge that Alton had put forth. Turning back to Alton, he said, “How would a person’s physical be if they just experienced extreme torture, and thus hypovelemic shock?”

“Almost dead,” Alton replied quickly. This was definitely a no-brainer and anyone, especially someone like Alton, would be able to figure it out quickly. “If untreated, they’d likely die quickly.”

Michael nodded, momentarily lost in thought. Suddenly, without warning, he took me to the side and signed, ‘Help me. I need a couple more ideas on what to ask next.’ Sign language is our semi-secret way of communicating because both of us know it. Me because my dad is almost deaf, and he learned it in elementary school. I nodded slightly. ‘Let me take ask something,’ I signed back quickly. Good thing Alton doesn’t know sign language.

“Mr. Alton,” I said, looking him straight in the eyes. “Is it possible for someone who is dead to become alive again?” It was the simplest question I could think of and likely to bring the conversation back on track to where I think Michael wants it.

Alton looked at me like I was an idiot. Yeah, the answer should be obvious. “Nope,” he replied bluntly. “That would be absolutely impossible!”

I smiled towards Michael, giving him the I-think-you-can-take-over-from-here look. “Thanks,” he whispered, almost silently. He turned back towards Alton. “Well, what if I told you that there was proof that Jesus Christ raised himself from the dead?”

Alton blinked a few times. “I would say that you’re crazy, Michael,” he answered. “People don’t resurrect themselves. Once you’re dead, you stay dead. But if Jesus had come back to life, he couldn’t have been dead in the first place.”

“Okay,” Michael smiled, willing to play along with Alton for the time being. “So basically you are saying that all of the physical torture didn’t kill Jesus and He was actually still alive when they buried Him?”

Alton nodded. “He had to be. There was no way that He could have been dead.”

“Samantha, could you please get my Bible for me? It’s in the front pocket of my backpack.” I nodded and retrieved his mini-Bible from his stuff. It was one of those little orange ones that has the New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs in it. “Could you do me a favor and read John 19:33-35?”

I nodded, flipping to the page that Michael already had marked with a sticky note. “‘But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe’,” I read from the text.

“Thanks,” Michael replied. “There’s some significance of ‘blood and water’, right, Mr. Alton?”

Alton nodded slowly. “But you already know it, don’t you?”

Michael shrugged. “As a science teacher, I was hoping that you would be willing to explain.”

“If you insist,” Alton replied. “If someone really did have blood and water coming from their side, like you say happened, it would have meant they were dead for sure. What probably happened (if the Gospels are a true account) is that the spear pierced Him in the side and pierced both his heart and his lungs. Given the fact that Jesus was probably still in hypovelemic shock at this point, it would have made perfect sense.”

Michael nodded slightly. “So, we agree that He was dead?”

Alton shook his head once more. “I’m still not convinced, Michael.” Michael sighed and looked to me for help again. It’s probably a good thing I decided to stay rather than going home with my brother and Julianna.

“You know that Jesus was crucified, right?” I asked. Alton nodded, so I continued. “Crucifixion was reserved for horrible criminals in the Roman world. It was a slow and painful death by suffocation.” That should provide Michael with something to expand on.

And Michael saw the opportunity. “In fact,” he said, “the Roman soldiers were supposed to break the legs of the other two criminals to speed up their dying process, but Jesus was already dead at that point. Breaking the legs would prevent them from pushing themselves up to breathe and they would logically die sooner.”

“What if He did manage to survive?” Alton asked. This was probably more of a question to test Michael rather than an honest inquiry on his part.

Michael smiled. “He couldn’t have lived through it. The Roman punishment of whipping was much worse than most other torture. That combined with hypovelemic shock and suffocation would have killed anyone,” he answered.

“Let’s say He managed to.” Once again, this was Alton speaking.

Michael shrugged. “If He had managed to live through it, He would have been much too weak to stand up after spending the time in the tomb, much less too weak to walk around and see His disciples. It’s kind of like in athletics. Would an athlete who just got a major concussion be able to walk off the field just fine as if nothing had happened?”

Alton sighed. “You got me there,” he said.

Michael smiled. “Okay, good,” he answered. “So we have established that He did die when He was crucified, right?”

Alton nodded. “Yes,” he replied, regaining his formal, but friendly manner. “But you still have yet to convince me that the so-called resurrection was not a hoax.”

Michael grinned. “I’m ready if you are,” he said. Well, I guess we have to finish the rest of the debate, so here we go... “I’ll let you start this time.”

Alton smiled slightly, seemingly pleased that Michael would let him go first in the informal debate. “Before you ask, I am familiar with the account that the Bible gives about this, just to let you know,” he began. “If the Gospels are reliable, why are there different accounts of the resurrection given by each of the different authors?”

“Could you give any specific examples?” Michael asked. Michael is definitely no historian- he dislikes history class and everything related with a strong passion, but anyone would have to note the fact that he chose to put Alton in a defensive stance.

Alton nodded. “Sure,” he said. “The number and appearance of angels vary, the women that were there varies and the women’s reactions to the whole situation varies.”

“Could I answer that one?” I asked. Both Michael and Mr. Alton nodded. “If you look at any of the four Gospels, each writer mentions different things. This doesn’t mean that any one account is false, but rather it is a different person’s perspective on events. Mr. Alton, would you describe what happens in a typical AP Chemistry class the same way that Sharpe would?”

Alton shook his head. “Sharpe sees it differently because he is actually teaching the class and he specializes in chemistry. I’d just be observing the class and coming from a biology point of view.”

I nodded. “Exactly. Each of the writers has his different perspective on what happened. Matthew was a Jewish tax collector, so he was writing for the Jewish people. Mark was giving a brief, but powerful, account of what happened. Luke was a physician and a historian, so he chose to mention things he would think as important to his fields of study. I’m sure if you were talking about science to someone, you’d mention that biology was very important, while Sharpe might say chemistry is very important. Does that make either of you incorrect?”

“Well done, Sam,” Michael whispered. “I probably couldn’t have said it better. Also, don’t forget that each of the writers may have gotten their information from a different person who visited the tomb.”

“That’s because I’m an author so I have an idea about where they’re coming from,” I answered.

“Okay then,” Alton said. “Let’s assume that this is what happened and that everything can be sorted out from there regarding the details. But why would the women go to visit in the first place? If they were his ‘friends’, how can we trust the accounts they gave? It could all be a conspiracy that the early so-called Christians made up.”

Michael glanced in my direction, giving the idea he wanted me to answer again, so I did. “Mr. Alton, you know enough history to know that women weren’t always respected in society, right?” I started off with a simple question. He nodded. “Up until the turn of the century in America, women were looked upon as second-class citizens. Even most of the Middle Eastern countries today, women don’t have most of the rights that men do. It was like that in Biblical Israel.” I paused for a moment to let Alton think.

“Keep going, Samantha,” he said. “I’m still listening.”

I continued. “All of the Gospels report women as the ones seeing the empty tomb. If the authors were stretching the truth, they would have written that men were the first to discover it, but they didn’t. If each of the writers wrote about the women visiting the tomb, even if the idea would have been extremely unpopular for their culture, they obviously had a point about telling the truth in regards to what happened.”

Michael nodded. “With the culture, it would have been shocking for women to be considered as important,” he added. “It is a similar situation to someone proposing the idea that black people were equal status to white people during the Civil War era in the South.”

Alton smiled. “Since women of that time weren’t educated, wouldn’t it be possible if they went to the wrong tomb by mistake?” he asked.

Michael shook his head. “Firstly, there was some sort of heavenly being there, angels of some sort. Angels wouldn’t go to the wrong tomb. Secondly, the Jewish authorities knew where the tomb was, so they wouldn’t have let the Christians get away with the wrong tomb idea for very long.”

Alton nodded, but his face harbored an uneasy look. His brow was twisted over his small eyes. “I’m still not quite convinced how Jesus could have resurrected himself, even if the whole thing about the tomb is true,” he said slowly. “No human being could have been dead then come back alive again. It contradicts the laws of science.”

Michael listened carefully. “True,” he said in a cautious voice, the same voice he uses when answering questions in various classes during school hours, “but God can transcend the laws of the universe. After all, He’s the One who made them. While Jesus rising naturally from the dead would have disobeyed the laws of the universe, God raising Jesus from the dead doesn’t.

“And since we have already established that God exists and the credibility of the Old Testament, I don’t think anyone would see anything wrong with Him putting aside the laws that He created in order to do something that was in His plan.”

Alton smiled once again. “Is that all you wanted to talk about, Michael?” he asked.

Michael nodded. “Thanks for helping me out,” he said. “I’m sure Sam appreciated listening to a complex debate before Natalia (youth group co-leader) asks someone if they want to debate in front of the group.” So, this was some sort of staged debate after all?

“Any time, Michael,” Alton grinned. “If you need someone to play the part of an atheist when you debate, you know where to find me.”


Epilogue:

As Michael and I were walking home from school (by this time, it was almost four o’clock), I asked him what was going on with the discussion he and Alton were having.

“What was going on with that, anyways?” I asked, turning my head to look at him.

“Mr. Alton goes to our church,” he replied. Like always, he avoided making much eye contact with me as he spoke. “You realize that, don’t you?”

I shook my head. “Explain, please.”

“It’s a long story, Sam,” Michael replied. “When he saw me put my Bible back in my trench coat pocket one day, he asked me if I was a Christian. Then we started talking about biblical evidence and his favorite topic of evidence that favors creation. The whole debate we were having, well, it was planned ahead of time. But I hope you enjoyed it, Sam, and I wish Scott and Julianna would have stayed to listen.”

I nodded in agreement with Michael’s last statement. Michael quickly changed the subject to that Shakespeare passage we were talking about in English. And with that being said, we walked home, talking about literature the rest of the way.