Evidence for Jesus’ Resurrection

Introduction:

We have learned from Acts how vital the resurrection is:

It provides evidence for how we understand God.

It provides evidence for how we understand Jesus.

It compels us to assemble for worship, to pray, to learn, to obey, to anticipate.

We know it is essential to everything.

In recent years, on this occasion, we have walked through the evidence for the resurrection.

We will do it again.

We will focus on those things that are consistent across the Gospels.

We will also focus on what Luke’s account signals about Jesus’ disciples.

What they thought in real time versus what they came to conclude.

A Normal Sunday

In the midst of that which is unexpected, Luke also prepares the reader for his disciples’ misunderstanding of the events.

That case begins with women, those most unlikely of witnesses, who carry on their lives with normalcy. Despite the nearness of the Sabbath, they still prepared spices to give Jesus a proper burial when they could. But, they had every intention of returning to the tomb once the Sabbath ended, and they had every expectation that Jesus’ dead body would still be there.

The writers often use different wording or idioms, but they all say the women came extremely early in the morning.

Mark 16:3 alone tells us the women did not think about moving the stone from the tomb, a detail consistent with Second Temple period elite burials.

They prepared for a normal situation not one with the kind of tomb where Joseph placed Jesus.

The entrance: already opened.

The body: gone.

An Unexpected Find

Luke challenges us to consider why they would act in this way when Jesus had already taught them something different.

The two men who spoke with the women inside the tomb certainly made this point.

They speak from the perspective that the women should not have expected Jesus’ body to be there because they had heard and known his word.

They provide the kind of eyewitnesses that should make us sit up and take notice. They had not listened to the words of Jesus, so they expected him to be dead. Something changed their minds about what happened to him. And, it convinced them of His identity.

Their changed minds provide further evidence for us. What convinced them of his resurrection? (It wasn’t his teaching, sadly.)

Note the emphasis by the two men on the necessity of what would happen to Jesus. It was necessary because of the prophecy of scripture. It was necessary to fulfill the plan and purpose of God. It was, thus, necessary for us to have forgiveness of sins and to be reconciled and at peace with our righteous and holy Creator.

An Unexpected Report

Notice how Luke describes the reaction of the Eleven.

So unexpected was the account of the women, that the eleven dismissed their words as idle chatter or utter nonsense.

This is how the accounts of women were viewed in general. Thus, from a Jewish perspective at least, women were considered incapable of providing a trustworthy account of events. Hence, they could not be called to testify as witnesses in a court case. If the apostles were inventing a religion at the time, they were incompetent to do it this way.

According to Lk. 24:9-12, especially Lk. 24:12, Peter ran to the tomb and only saw the burial clothes.

Jn. 19:40 says that Joseph and Nicodemus put him in this stripped cloth when they placed the body in the tomb.

Jesus did not wander out of the tomb with his burial cloths.

No one stole his body because they would not have left them.

He body was not present while his burial linens were.

Something physical yet not physical occurred here.

This amazed everyone because they had not expected such an event to occur.