Easter Sunday: Lord I believe!

The Symbol of the Cross

Long before the cross was a symbol of Christianity it was a symbol for another group: the almighty power of Rome!

Rome was the superpower of the day in the time of Jesus. And the cross was their favourite form of law enforcement for foreigners. It said to all who would challenge Rome’s power and authority - you mess with us, this is what will happen to you. You will be destroyed… and in the most painful way we can devise.

No one successfully challenges the power of Rome!

And of course Israel was under Roman occupation.

Despite having a wonderful three year ministry the Lord Jesus had just a few people who followed him.

Those people thought that he was amazing. Teaching, healing, miracle-working… their hopes were sky high.

As His ministry progressed the evidence mounted… they became increasingly convinced that Jesus is God’s Messiah who will set up his kingdom in Jerusalem, throw out the hated Roman overlords and restore Israel to the former glory she enjoyed under Kings David and Solomon.

But by Friday afternoon the reality was obvious for all to see.

The followers of this so-called Messiah had backed the wrong horse!

Jesus was dying on the cross. By Friday night he was dead and buried!

Rome had won once again!

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus summed it up pretty well on Monday afternoon. As they walk back home from Jerusalem to Emmaus, this traveller on the road joins them and asks what they are discussing.

Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet powerful in word and deed before God and the people. We had hoped he was the one who was going to redeem Israel, but the chief priests handed him over to the Romans and they crucified him.

We had hoped… but… they crucified him.

That’s the end… isn’t it?

O BOY! Was their world about to change. Transformed completely and (it is no exaggeration to say)… forever!

Jesus explained to them from the OT all that was said about him… and suddenly it all clicked together for them.

But it seems to me that there are still plenty of people in churches that, like the disciples after the crucifixion... are Good Friday Christians.

At some stage in their lives they hoped that Jesus might be the Messiah.

But over the years they’ve become jaded.

Go to church… don’t go to church.

Be good or don’t be good. What’s it matter?

Everyone lives for a while.

Everyone enjoys some pleasures.

Everyone endures pain and suffering to a large… or less large degree.

Everyone dies and… well, who knows?

That’s a Good Friday Christian.

Are you still stuck as a Good Friday person… or have you become an Easter Christian?

What do you believe about the resurrection of Jesus?

Now I grant you that it is a matter of belief.

Science deals with repeatable evidence… and where science cannot deal with repeatable evidence it merges into a faith.

Water boils at 100 deg C at sea level. Science. Testable, repeatable, provable.

Evolution is the (science… or belief) that single cell organisms evolved to the wonderful world in which we live today. That’s not true science. That’s a belief.

So what about human death? Science… or belief?

Well, at one level that would be as repeatable science as you would find.

People die every single day, hour, minute!

And the evidence and our experience says they stay dead.

One week after they are buried, 1000 years after they are buried… they stay dead. ALWAYS! EVERY SINGLE TIME!

Dig up graves as often as you like. Dead people stay dead.

Yet something happened on that Easter Sunday morning?

Something pretty amazing happened!

Here we are 2000 years later and on the other side of the planet… in a church built on the belief of the resurrection and is discussing it again.

Something significant happened on Easter Sunday!

Anyone who takes any history seriously says something significant happened after the death of Jesus?

Some say he didn’t really die, he swooned… and in the tomb he revived and came to life and broke out of the tomb, overcame the guards and showed himself to be the resurrected Lord of life.

REALLY? That takes more belief in unlikely things than I can muster.

Some say the apostles overcame the guards and stole the body? Really? The same apostles who deny him to a servant girl on Thursday night and hid behind locked doors a week later overcame a Roman guard? Don’t think so.

Perhaps the Roman guard took the body and hid it elsewhere. No Way! If that had happened what would the Roman guard have done when rumours started flying about a resurrection? Produce the body… and everyone go back home. They didn’t because they couldn’t!

Tom Wright, an Anglican clergyman, scholar from England writes how we often miss the evidence in the gospel records.

The four gospel writers all have written fairly independent records of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

They are four different portraits, obviously of the same person but equally obviously painted by four different artists.

Tom points out that the gospel records don’t give the sophisticated, thought through, search the OT Scriptures to reach new understanding of the resurrection of Jesus that we see in the rest of the NT.

They just report, each in their own way, the events of Sunday morning.

They didn’t try and corroborate… were there one or two angels at the empty tomb? (Mk says 1. Jn says 2)

These four records look like an early record of the events that happened. They don’t quote the OT to back up their stories.

In fact John says,

John 20:9 NIV84

9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

Whatever objections we may have to such a thought, in the days of Jesus a woman was an unreliable witness that could not give evidence in a trial.

Yet it is the women who go to the tomb, see it empty, report back to the apostles AND are the first to meet Jesus. Don’t see that in Paul… but clear in the gospels.

No first century writer would make that up!

They reported it for one reason: That’s what happened!

Notice also: Nobody said, O well, at least he’s in a better place now.

Nobody said, O well, at least he’s now with God.

Nor did anyone even consider saying, O well, we’ll see. He said he would be crucified and gone for a few days, let’s have a couple of days rest and we’ll go and see if we can find him on Monday!

Didn’t happen? Jesus was dead and buried. Don’t you get it? He’s dead! Gone. Not coming back!

Why? Because death always wins. It’s invincible. Rome can’t be beaten.

The disciples of Jesus knew that and saw that dramatically played out before their eyes on Friday.

So, we’re left with the facts.

Jesus had been seized, crucified, dead and buried.

But on Sunday morning the tomb was empty… except for some empty grave clothes and spices.

And beginning Sunday and extending for about 6 six weeks on numerous occasions… numerous people, sometimes just one or two other times by up to 500 at once testified that Jesus had appeared to them.

His closest friends testified that the person they saw was indeed Jesus… risen from the dead.

He was still a man, mistaken at one time for a gardener, not recognised at other times, but generally instantly recognised as the same person they had known for years… and yet also different.

He appeared behind locked doors in their midst. He disappeared from sight. He ate fish with them on the beach. He taught them.

Just like old times… but different. Transformed.

And notice in the gospel records what the conclusion was...

We thought Jesus was God’s Messiah, but they killed him.

But he’s back.

He IS GOD’S MESSIAH… and we are his heralds.

We must tell the whole world God has come to restore Israel to its former glory.

In Acts 1 we read…

3 After his suffering, he showed himself to his apostles and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.... 6 So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

The Dawn of the New Creation

Let me give a new twist to all this.

What if what happened on that first Easter Sunday was not a very odd, one in many billions of chance, single happening anomaly within the world as it now is

BUT RATHER an utterly characteristic, typical, first of millions, foundational event in God’s new creation?

Mostly when we see something entirely new it comes in iterations so we get used to the idea.

For example… these days most people have cars. But (suppose) for thousands of years cars always had petrol or diesel internal combustion engines. That’s how cars work. Everyone knows that. It’s just how it is.

But imagine if suddenly someone arrived with a Tesla electric car. Popped the bonnet and no engine! What?

No engine? No that’s not possible. It can’t happen.

It can happen, and it has happened. Indeed, what if one day every car will be electric. This is the first, foundational event in the world that will one day be only electric cars.

The resurrection of Jesus bursts the bounds of history.

It is beyond the purview of science to test it in repeated experiments.

But the evidence is that it really did happen… and indeed what happened to Jesus… born of a woman, lived and died in the world, dead and buried… but one day resurrected, transformed… and part of the new created order… just as God promised.

Thomas’s Journey

Perhaps too many of us are like Thomas.

John says that on Sunday evening the disciples met together and Jesus suddenly appeared in their midst… and they were overjoyed when they saw the Lord!

But Thomas was elsewhere and missed out on seeing Jesus.

When the others told Thomas that they had seen Jesus he gave the predictable and typical response. Don’t be stupid! Dead people die and stay dead. Belief in fairy tales finishes by the time we turn 6!

Unless I see the nail marks and poke my finger in the holes in his hands and side… I WILL NOT BELIEVE!

A week later the disciples were again in the same house, and this time Thomas wasn’t going to miss out… and suddenly Jesus appears again in their midst.

“Peace be with you” he said…

John 20:27 NIV84

27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Do you think Thomas did put his finger there?

I don’t think he did. He now knows beyond what that sort of evidence can confirm. He has seen the risen Lord.

He responds, “My Lord and my God!”

Now his world, his life is transformed.

He will literally never be the same again. He will spend a few more years in this old order of creation, tradition has it that Thomas took the gospel down into India… but now he’s a part of God’s new created order.

Jesus’ resurrection from the cross and the grave shows that the old order of things has been overthrown. I can’t prove to you or anyone that the resurrection happened. Thousands die everyday, Christian or not their bodies stay dead.

Perhaps it’s a bit like Israel. God through Moses promised to take them to a land flowing with milk and honey where God’s promises for his people would take place.

Finally they were thrown out of Egypt and made it to the shore of the Red Sea. Then Pharaoh changed his mind and gathered his army and pursued and caught them.

Israel has the old way behind them. Pharaoh is powerful and bent on revenge… but the Red Sea is in front of them.

Moses stands up and says the new world is on the other side. Israel… march into the sea and chaos and… watch God move.

The world and death and sneering is behind us… but Jesus passed through to the other side. He beckons us to follow.

It’ll never be proved. It’ll never seem safe. it’s always a risk. But it’s the way to God’s new creation.

Will you follow the risen Lord?

Good Friday person. Been with Jesus but no longer sure whether or not he rose from the dead. Needing some proof? Unless you see the nail marks… There’s too much evidence to the contrary! Dead people stay dead! Everyone knows that!

I grant you that is true… but something happened one Sunday morning 2000 years ago.

Easter Sunday person. Jesus died and rose again. He is the firstborn of many. I believe! And I join with everyone else who believes in heralding his resurrection victory because God’s new creation has begun!