Week 13 - On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;

We’re on week 13 of our series journeying through the creed and today we’re exploring On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;

as we continue exploring the person of God the Word, God the Son, Jesus Christ.

Last week we explored the deep theology of God dying on the cross for us, experiencing the suffering of abandonment, loneliness, the shame of baring the sin of the world, sin being the thing that repels him, and yet he was willing to bare it and destroy it for us, so that we could be free to come back into relationship with him.

As we explore the resurrection of Jesus, we can’t approach it without the death of Christ in our minds.

The crucifixion and the resurrection are like two sides of sides of a coin.

Two sides of the cosmic saving act of God. And we need to hold them together, while exploring the different things God was doing through both.

Karl Barth, a magnificent German theologian wrote “The Crucified is the Risen One and the Risen One is the Crucified” (1936) Credo

This is Christian Hope! An eternity with God.

I understand, that in the 1970’s america, among the backdrop of the continuing cold war, and a financial depression, TV and films were often portraying the mood of the times, quite a depressive mood where hope was in short supply.

When an unknown director gathered together some innovative young minds and came up with a traditional story plot line set in an unusual setting. The story of a princess, locked away in an impregnable dungeon held captive by a dark knight of evil. A young boy discovers a Wizard who takes him on a journey of discovery of the magical arts as a messenger arrives with news from the princess of her imprisonment. A message which read, Wizard, ‘You’re my only hope’.

The Wizard and the boy meet a rogue in a tavern, who agrees to take them in his carriage to rescue the princess, and an epic battle of good verses evil ensues as the boy, who becomes a knight rescues the princess as the wizard battles the dark knight giving his life to save the knight, the rogue, the princess and the messenger.

In 1977 a film unlike others of it’s era was released. A film which should not have worked against that backdrop. In 1977, the film Star Wars, later title ‘A New Hope’ gave a generation a story which spoke of Hope. Hope in the darkest of times. Hope of a life better than the one experienced by others. And Hope of a future which is good, which is full of light and full of life.

We all need Hope. And if you want to delve deeper into the resurrection of Jesus, then I recommend Tom Wright’s book, surprised by Hope!

But there have been many attacks on the resurrection of Jesus.

Richard Dawkins, one of the founders of new-atheism said in 2018 that

'People believe in the Resurrection not because of good evidence (there isn't any) but because, if the Resurrection is not true, Christianity becomes null and void, and their life, they think, meaningless. From this it is grotesquely false logic to conclude that therefore the Resurrection must be true. The alternative – that their religion is indeed null and void – may be unpleasant for Christians to contemplate, but there is no law that says the truth has to be pleasant.' Richard Dawkins

https://www.christiantoday.com/article/the-question-richard-dawkins-cannot-dodge/126945.htm

The Case for Christ, which tells the true story of award-winning US investigative journalist Lee Strobel. An atheist, Strobel is outraged when his wife finds faith, and so sets out to disprove her new-found set of beliefs.

Recently Strobel has written:

'Here's what surprised me. Christianity invites investigation. The apostle Paul said if you can show that the miracle of the resurrection is mythology, make believe, a mistake, a legend or a fairy tale, then you are justified to abandon the faith. When the gospels report supernatural events, they aren't introduced with "Once upon a time..." Rather, they're reported in sober language, with specificity, and within a historical context that can be checked out.' Lee Strobel

Richard Dawkins is wrong in saying that there are no proofs of the resurrection.

Nicky Gumble breaks these down into 4 areas in the alpha course

His absence from the tomb

-- Theories:

Jesus did not die (John 19:33–34)

disciples stole the body

authorities stole the body

robbers stole the body (John 20:1–9)

His presence with the disciples

-- Did they hallucinate?

-- Number of appearances over a six-week period

11+ appearances

500+ people

-- Nature of appearances (Luke 24:36–43) - hands and feet, his body bore the marks of the crucifixion

Immediate effect

-- Birth and growth of Christian church

Effect down the ages

-- Experience of Christians down the ages

-- Over 2,300 million Christians in the world today

If you want to explore these deeper in a film, then I highly recommend the 2016 film Risen which is a high quality epic drama following the Roman centurion given the task of proving that Jesus did not rise from the dead, and beautifully explores the evidences I’ve just shared with you.

So, briefly proving the resurrection happened, now lets turn to what God was doing in raising Jesus from death.

Firstly let’s hear from Paul who writes,

1 Corinthians 15:13–14 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

Without Christ’s resurrection we have no hope of a future with Him, and we can’t know His love with us now.

After all, a Shepherd who gives up His life for His sheep is noble, but the wolf that devoured the sheep will then turn on the sheep.

The resurrection had to happen for a number of reasons.

It reveals that Jesus is in fact God. He is divine. Not just a human raised to life, but

John 10:17–18 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.’

Again I give you the message, which just in case you’d missed it in every sermon between the 6th December and today, Jesus IS GOD! And the resurrection is another proof of His Divinity and equality with the Father and the Spirit

2. It ensures our resurrection

I’ll be unpacking our resurrection in a few weeks time, but this is one of the key meanings of the resurrection for us. Not only did Christ remove the barrier of sin which stopped us knowing God intimately, but He also destroyed the final barrier of death between us and Him, giving us a new life, with new bodies in a recreated heaven and earth after this age.

He can be with us always, because He is alive and will make us alive even after we have died in this age

Romans 4:25 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

3. It enables our new birth, which Christian theology calls regeneration in Christ

(Not that type of regeneration Doctor Who Fans)

You see, it’s not all about the life after this age.

Peter, one of Jesus inner 3 writes:

1 Peter 1:3 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

You see, in His resurrection, Jesus earned for us a new life just like His, leading to greater love and obedience to God, following the best way to live forever. We don’t receive all of this life in our broken earthly bodies, but we do in our Spirit, our inner most us. And we will receive all of the Jesus life when our bodies are also transformed to be just like His body, and our minds brought fully in line with His after we have died and once we have received resurrection life.

4. It means that death is not the end!

1 Corinthians 15:54 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

We are to have no fear of death, we are to have hope in life.

Jesus won for us the end of the sting of death!

The sting of death in the Bible is the sting of eternal separation between us and God, which was due to us before he paid for our sin and wrong doing on the cross.

The death of those we love is still painful, and we know the sting of death as the separation between us and them. And while we are in this broken reality, we will continue to mourn, as we should, but as Paul writes,

1 Thessalonians 4:13–14 NIV (Anglicised, 2011)

13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

So we’ve briefly explored the proofs of the resurrection, and we’ve unpacked 4 things which God was doing through the resurrection.

Does this change your life?

Does this knowledge make you a better disciple of Jesus?

Does this make you more hopeful?

How does this change the way you live going forward?

For me, I look at the mess of the world, the suffering of the world and the troubles we each face and it often seem to pile up.

But Hope is given to us. And not just Hope for a future eternity, but Hope that Jesus will bring restoration to this world.

We won’t see the world transformed full until Jesus comes again, but the God of Hope is working in your life now. The God of resurrection out of crucifixion is working in your life today!

Let’s spend some time with Him now, asking Him where he is bringing resurrection, and asking Him to bring it to those desperate situations in our lives.