The Verdict on the Resurrection

Call to Worship

He is Risen

He is Risen Indeed

Psalm 98:1–3 ESV

Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. The Lord has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Sermon

This morning we’re going to be talking about the most important event in history of the entire world. Every other thing that has ever happened in human history hinges on this event. Everything before it leads to it, and everything after it has been affected by it. And given that you’re here this morning, it likely won’t shock you that the event I am talking about is the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Over the past few weeks, we have been going through the life and ministry of Jesus which have led up to this weekend. On Friday, we went to Centreville Baptist, and together we remembered the death of Jesus. The beautiful thing about Jesus’s death and resurrection is that they aren’t just stories, they are historically accurate accounts of things that really happened, and because they’re real they actually affect us, even here over 2000 years later.

If you’ll open your bibles with me, we’re able to read eye witness accounts, with details of what happened on the day Jesus came back to life. How cool is that?! What we’re reading this morning is one of the most well documented pieces of history available to us today. So let’s read it together:

Read: Luke 23:50-24:35 (This passage picks up right after Jesus has died)

Luke 23:50–24:35 ESV

Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened. That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

It’s weird to think about the resurrection being a historical event. It makes for a good story, but for it to actually have happened, is really mind blowing. It’s one of the things that makes Christians seem really weird to other people, why would you think that once someone has actually died that they would be able to come back to life?

And yet, this event has been proven, lot’s of people have tried to find ways that it isn’t a historical fact, that somehow people either dreamed it up, or have misinterpretted it, but the conclusion that people keep coming back to time after time is that it really did happen.

Here are some alternate theories to a historical resurrection that people have come up with:

1. Wrong Tomb

Some people have proposed that the women in the story actually went to the wrong tomb. But from the passage we just read, we see that the women went with Joseph of Arimathea to the tomb.

Luke 23:55 “The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid.”

Given that they saw him placed there, it doesn’t seem very likely that they went back to the wrong one, also, they found the linens that Jesus had been wrapped in there, which leads to the next one people sometimes propose.

2. Swoon and Revival

Some propose that Jesus was placed in the tomb but He never actually died. However, there’s several things that make this seem unlikely. The first is the wounds that Jesus sustained on the cross.

On Friday, those of us who had the priviledge of going to Centreville Baptist for their service will recall the song we sang, Were You There when They Crucified my Lord, and the last verse of this song rightfully recalls, that Jesus was stabbed in the side so that the soldiers could make sure that He was dead.

When they stabbed Him a mixture of blood and water came out.

John 19:32–35 ESV

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 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 at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe.

So the Romans were convinced that Jesus was did, these guys were experts on death, they killed thousands of people through means of crucifixion, and so if they pronounced Him dead. He was dead.

But if, hypotentically, He actually didn’t die, somehow He was just in a coma. Jesus would then be in the tomb, bleeding out due to His many wounds, and somehow if He revived Himself. He now would have to move the stone that was placed in front of the tomb.

But according to archaeologists the stones used to block tombs were between 4-6 ft in diameter, 1 ft in thickness, and weighed around 3000lbs. It would be impossible for man who had suffered the wounds Jesus did, and had the lack of food and water that Jesus would have had in the tomb to move it by themselves without miraculous power.

3. Disciples stole the Body

Now some have proposed that the disciples went and took the body, given that there were now eleven of them they would have been able to move the stone. But several things make this highly unlikely as well, first there soldiers posted at the tomb.

Matthew 27:62–66 ESV

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

So the disciples would have had to overtake armed trained military guards. Not likely.

Next, if they had stolen the body why would the women still have gone to put the burial spices on the body? Why would the disciples come running to look inside the tomb? And why would there be so many of them that claim to have seen Him risen from the grave?

4. Disciples lied, Mass Hallucination Theory, Legend

When faced this question, people have proposed three options.

First, that the disciples lied. However, this seems that many of them died because of their claims. All of the twelve disciples were killed for saying that Jesus had been resurrected. And many others were also killed for their claims. If they had made it up and lied about it they certainly wouldn’t have died for it. Also, the first people to see the resurrection were women. In the first century, women were not seen as valid witnesses, and so this would severely take away from the credibility of their story if they were lying.

Second, some have said, what if they all hallucinated it. However, psychologists will tell you that it is impossible for multiple people to hallucinate the exact same thing. More than 500 people claimed see Jesus after His death, it is impossible for that many people to have hallucinated that.

Third, more recently people have suggested that the resurrection, in fact, Jesus’s life and death as a whole were originally just a moral legend and over the years people have misinterpreted it, and taken it literally. However, it is clear from early accounts that that’s not how the disciples understood it, nor is it how anyone reputable in churches in the 2000 years since have understood it, they have always seen it as a historical event. Even within the passage we read with Jesus appearing to the men on the road, what would be the metaphorical significance of Him eating bread with them, it seems like an incredibly unnecessary detail, unless it was written as a historical account, in which case, it is an absolutely crucial detail for seeing Jesus resurrected.

With all of this in mind we are left with only one option, the resurrection of Jesus is legitimately a historical event. Which begs the question: how? If Jesus really died, and really came back to life then what does that mean about Jesus? When I die I won’t be able to physically resurrect my self, when you die you won’t be able to either. No mere human is capable of resurrection. Throughout the history of the bible the only being capable of raising the dead was God, and so if Jesus raised Himself, then that means that His claims to be God are accurate. The resurrection being a historical event proves that Jesus is God.

So what do we make of that? The author C.S. Lewis put it like this:

“A man said [and did] the sort of things Jesus [did]. He would either be a lunatic… or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God”

We aren’t left with any other options. The resurrection actually happened, Jesus actually came back to life, and we can choose to ignore Him, we can choose to reject Him, or we can choose to bow down and worship Him.

The choice belongs to each one of us, how will you respond to the resurrection of Jesus?

I’m going to be real with you, your life and death hang in the balance when you make that decision. Choosing to ignore Jesus, and choosing to reject Him ultimately lead to the same place: death, and death apart from God, and the reason for that is sin.

Sin came into the world with the first people, Adam and Eve, and ever since every single last one of us have had to deal with our own sin and with the consequences of sin. Sin is any time that we fall short of the moral standard that God set in place since the beginning, and because all of us have missed that mark at some point we have all sinned. We’ve acted selfishly, lied, cheated, stolen, hated, and every time we’ve done so we’ve removed ourselves from the unity we were made to have with God. But its not about trying to always do the right thing and missing the mark, because even if we had only ever missed the mark one time in our lives we would still be separated from God.

But that’s why Jesus died in the first place.

Isaiah 53:5-6 “But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all.”

The bible makes it very clear, every single one of us have sinned and deserve to die, and not just dying physically, being separated from God for eternity once we die. Our sin separates us from Him forever once we die. But Jesus paid that price for us because He loved us. He allowed Himself to be taken to the cross, the only one that never sinned, to pay the price for us on our behalf. And then, like we just talked about He was legitimately resurrected. Leaving us with this choice. To die the same death as Him, death separated from God, or to live in new life with Him, to be in a perfect loving relationship with God forever.

Christ’s resurrection is the only thing that gives us hope for new life, both an eternal life with God once we die, but also a better life here and now.

Jesus said: John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that [you] may have life… [life to the fullest].”

Choosing to accept Christ’s sacrifice for us is the best thing we could ever possibly do. But it also requires something of us. Christ’s gift of new life is free to accept, but new life with Christ means an 180 degree change from how you were living before.

The apostle Paul put it like this: Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Jesus Christ was actually resurrected, both a, proving He was God, and b, promising us the ability to enter into new life with Him. But like Christ new life requires our death as well, not a physical death, but a surrender of control in our own lives. We no longer call the shots in our own lives, instead we surrender that control to Jesus, and life like Paul says, “by faith” as our act of love back to Jesus because He was the one that first gave up His life for us.

To live by faith, is the same idea as having allegiance to someone. If you think about a kingdom, those in the king’s court would swear allegiance to Him, they would do His will, but not begrudgingly, because the reward was a life far better than they could get on their own. It’s the same way when we accept the gift that Jesus gives us through His deaht and resurrection. He paid the price for our sin, and He offers us new life if we choose to swear our allegiance to Him as our King. And there are many things, difficult things even, that He will ask us to do as people who have sworn allegiance to Him, but in the end the reward is life better than we could ever imagine, hope for an eternal life spent in perfect unity with Him forever, and strength for each day of our lives because of His promise that the Holy Spirit, our helper will be right beside us to help us through all of the problems in life.

The resurrection of Jesus demands a verdict, either we reject it or we accept it. And if we accept it then He promises us hope, strength, and life better and more abundantly than we could possibly fathom. If you’ve never thought through what the resurrection of Jesus means to you, and if you’ve never sworn allegiance to Jesus as the King of your life, then I would encourage you to pray about it, ask Him for forgiveness for your sins, and ask Him to give you this new life, and if you have any questions at all about this I’ll be free after the service and would love to talk with you about this.

Let’s pray.

Communion

One of the things that Christ commanded His followers to do before He died was to regularly take communion in remembrance of his body and blood that was shed for us. This is something that we take part in both to remember the sacrifice made for us, and to celebrate the new life that we have in Him. If you have chosen to be a follower of Jesus then this is a time for us to contemplate what Christ has done for you, and as we take this together I would encourage you to reflect on this. If you have not yet chosen to follow Jesus, than I would encourage you to let the bread and cup pass you for now, and as I said I would love to have a conversation with you after the service so that next time you will be able to celebrate what Christ has done for you.

Let us bless the bread...

Let us bless the cup...

Closing & Benediction

Tea and Coffee, and time for fellowship

Hebrews 13:20–21 ESV

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.