However, there was a problem. It seems that the Bonaparte family were quite the interior decorators, and they had changed the draperies in every single one of the three hundred sixty-five rooms of the palace. Ferdinand faced the choice of tearing out all the walls of the palace, or simply taking his losses. The new king decided to take the loss. Over the years it came to be thought that the story of the missing jewels was just an idle tale, a fanciful story of courtly intrigue that probably wasn't really true.
Some people look at the resurrection in a similar light.
They view the accounts of Jesus rising from the dead as a fanciful story that was made up to help stabilize the weak faith of foolish people a long time ago. The resurrection, they say, was a nice thought, but it probably didn't really happen. In the passage before us this morning, we read of the way in which the disciples themselves had difficulty believing the truth of the resurrection. There was a reluctance by the first disciples to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead, and I think there is much we can learn from the pattern of their struggle that first Easter morning. The Dreary Beginning.