What Happened?

Luke 24:1-12   What Happened?  Can a skeptic believe in the resurrection?

SBS:  Glad to have you here.  Some of you may have questions about the faith after the service.  I will be in the narthex for about ten or fifteen minutes and will then meet any and all who have wondered about the truth of the Bible, the reality of the resurrection, or some other question that has troubled you and perhaps keeps you away from church. No question is off limits.  I just may not know the answers to the hard ones. I will try to answer the easy questions and tell you where you can find the answers to the difficult ones.

PRAYER:  Our Father, today we ask that you would be with your word.  Let it go forth strong and powerful in spite of the messenger.  Let it bring glory to you alone.  Let the truth of the resurrection shine forth with power and glory.  In the name of our resurrected savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen

INTRO:  Many of you don’t know me so I thought that I would write a joke especially for today.  The problem is that sometimes what I think is funny, no one else does.  So bear with me on this.

A farmer  had a barn that was destroyed by a flood.  He gets the money from FEMA and decides that this will never happen again.  This time he plans and plans and plans so that the barn will be exactly like what he wants and will never be destroyed by a flood.  He decided to build the barn out of brick.  He plans and plans and plans buys exactly enough bricks for his plan and builds the barn.  In the end he is left with one brick.  He stands there and just throws the brick over his shoulder.     THAT’S IT

The most significant issue in Christianity is the Resurrection of Christ.  It is the central core of our belief.  The question that Peter asks as he runs to the tomb is the same question that we all ask:  Is this all there is?  Peter had given up.  He had given in to the idea that the bad guys had won, the so-called messiah had died, and that the best thing for him to do was to get as far away from him as he could so that he could save his own skin.  Peter was not expecting a resurrection.  He was running for his life so that he didn’t meet the same fate as Jesus. Then he hears this impossible story.  The story was no less impossible in his day than it is in ours.  Jesus is risen from the dead.  This idea is crazy so Peter goes to the first place that he thinks of to check it out: the tomb.

THREE SIGNIFICANT QUESTIONS IF A SKEPTIC IS GOING TO BELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION.

1. DID JESUS REALLY DIE?
1. That Jesus existed and died is accepted by all but the most maverick of historians and theologians.
2. The Roman soldiers were very good at putting people to death.  This is what they did for a living.  Josephus tells us that when Jerusalem was surrounded, the soldiers thought up all different ways to crucify people.
3. Jesus did not just appear dead.  The only scholar who still holds to this theory is JDN Derrett.  Why would the disciples think that Jesus had come back from the dead if he was beat up, bloody, and could barely walk?
2. WAS THE TOMB EMPTY?
1. I admit that just an empty tomb does not prove anything.  There were grave robbers, especially of famous people.  Jewish people were buried in two stages.
2. The story in Matthew- the guards were to tell others that the body had been stolen.
3. The absence of the body in any further narrative except for that of a resurrected body.  That is no one goes and gets the body and says, Jesus did not rise from the dead, here is his body.
3. DID JESUS REALLY APPEAR TO PEOPLE AFTER HIS DEATH?
1. Earliest written evidence is I Cor. 15 where Paul mentions large numbers of people.
2. Presence of the women in the narrative- note that they are not present in I Cor. 15.
3. Transformation of the disciples-THIS IS NOT LIKE LEGENDS OR MYTHS.
4. Existence of the church

I don’t want you to think that I am suggesting that you can somehow be argued into the kingdom of Heaven.  All of these historical pieces of evidence are but candles that we use to examine the inside of an old house.  At some point, however, we must put the candle down and throw open the curtains and look for the sun.  Ultimately you can’t use a candle to find out if the sun has come up.  Ultimately you must ask yourself whether or not your worldview allows for a God of the universe that cared so much about his people that he became one of them.  If you cannot or will not allow that to at least be a possibility, then you will not believe, no matter what the evidence.  But the question is Why?

The evidence for Jesus' resurrection is so strong that nobody would question it except for two things: First, it is a very unusual event. And second, if you believe it happened, you have to change the way you live.

Two people on a train.  A woman with a dog and a man with a cigar.  Woman gets mad and throws the cigar out the window.  The man gets mad and throws the dog out the window.  The conductor stops the train and the DOG COMES RUNNING BACK- GUESS WHAT HE HAS IN HIS MOUTH?  THAT BRICK THE FARMER THROUGH OVER HIS SHOULDER.

IT’S ONLY FUNNY WHEN YOU KNOW THE END OF THE STORY.  THE END OF THE STORY IS THE RESSURECTION.          HEADS BOWED EYES CLOSED.