Why Jesus' Resurrection Is Such A Big Deal

Why Jesus' Resurrection Is Such A Big Deal

Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:1-58

Without the resurrection, all you have is a bunch of disillusioned disciples who were convinced they had wasted 3 years of their lives following a man who turned out to be powerless, just a man, and a dead one at that. Without the resurrection you have nothing but a great moral teacher who really wasn’t so great OR moral because he had just deceived thousands of people into thinking he was something and someone he wasn’t.

And according to Paul the Apostle, the damage is a lot worse than you might imagine.  Take a look at some of his statements in 1st Corinthians 15, an entire chapter he devotes to why the resurrection from the dead is SO vital to Christians.  Paul isn’t just talking about Jesus’ resurrection; he’s talking about OUR resurrection…about the resurrection from the dead of everyone who has ever live, but especially Christians.

Apparently some folks in Corinth were going around teaching the church that there would be NO resurrection of the dead.  It might have been the Gnostics who held that the human body was evil and hopelessly unredeemable and that all that mattered was the soul.  Well, here’s what Paul said to that.

Vs. 13—“If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.”

That’s a pretty easy argument to follow, no?  “If nobody ever rises from the dead, then Jesus couldn’t have risen from the dead.”  Case closed.  Next question?

Well, IF Jesus didn’t rise bodily from the dead, then what are the implications for us and our faith?

Vs. 14—Here are the effects numbers 1 & 2: “And if Christ has not been raised, #1)our preaching is useless and #2)so is your faith.”

Paul says that if Jesus didn’t rise from the both past, present and future preaching about Jesus would and will be completely “useless.”  That means that anyone who has ever shared the Good News about Jesus with anyone, from the Apostle Paul to you and me, has been involved in a completely “useless” endeavor.  Every pastor and priest, every evangelist and chaplain…anybody who has ever bothered to tell anyone else about Christ has been wasting their breath.  In our lifetime alone, that means that over 2 billion people have been completely duped.  Pretty tragic, no?

ILL:  Don’t you just love investing tons of time and energy in something that turns out to be a total waste of time?

Ever spent hours on an assignment or project on the computer only to have it disappear into cyberspace?  Feels great, doesn’t it? My hothouse last year:  Last March (2010) I planted several dozen plastic seed trays full of everything from corn and tomatoes to geraniums and zinnias.  I babied them all through April and into May.  Being a rather cold May, I set them out in a little hotbed I had carefully made out of an old sliding glass door for a lid and old 2x6es for the sides.  Every morning before coming to work, if the day was going to be sunny, I carefully opened the lid so the plants wouldn’t cook.  And every night I was careful to close it so they wouldn’t get frosted.  I watered them carefully about every other day.  They were really looking nice…until… one day when I had left the house early when the sky was overcast.  But as the day wore on, the sun broke through the clouds.  When I got home later in the day, I went out to find that most of my plants were cooked!

I, of course, reacted calmly and spiritually as I always do…throwing the pots against the fence like a professional baseball pitcher and chucking trays full of now-dead plants as far across the yard as I could.  J  That’s when you hope your neighbors aren’t looking out their kitchen windows!

There is something particularly frustrating about working hard at something only to find that your effort has been “useless.”  Without Christ’s resurrection, every who has ever shared the Lord with anyone has been engaged in a completely useless enterprise.  Every Christian martyr has died in vain.  Paul’s life was wasted as was every pastor, priest, elder, church leader through the centuries.  And we’re just wasting each other’s time here today!

But it gets BETTER! J  Not only is every Christian’s work from Paul to you and me useless;

#2.)--our entire Christian faith is useless!

Look at vs. 17—“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”

Basically the billions of people through the history of mankind who have been seeking to get close to God through Jesus have been totally self-deceived.  This thing we call the Christian faith has been a complete fabrication, a hoax.

The problem is, too many of us know how much God has changed us.  Too many millions of Christians through the ages have experienced the power of Christ in a myriad of life-changing ways.  What possible explanation can account for such change IF our entire Christian faith is useless?  It doesn’t fit, does it?

Problem #3—We’re still “in our sins” (vs. 19)  Paul says that without the resurrection of Jesus, there is no divine forgiveness.  With no forgiveness, we will all have to answer personally before God for every evil thought, every wrong action, every hurtful word or damaging neglect we’ve ever done.

We’re not “in Christ.”  We’re “in sin” with no hope of ever getting away from any of them let alone all of them.

Most of us have some sin or sins that sort of “own us” from time to time, right?  It’s not fun and it’s certainly not healthy.  One of those sins in my life can be anger from time to time.  Something just really frosts my cake and I lash out at someone.  I blame them while I excuse myself.  I show just how misplaced my values and priorities are, usually damaging or destroying relationship over stupid stuff.

ILL:  The day Joanna wanted to take the tarantula she had been loaned by a friend of ours to school with her.  She had gotten permission from the friend. I can still see the scene.

She was standing at the front door landing in our split-level house at the time.  We were in a rush.  She had grabbed this little purple and clear plastic cage from the top when all of a sudden, the bottom dropped out…first of the cage…and then of me. L

I exploded…read her the riot act…and basically showed again that underneath that real “spiritual surface” I like everyone to think goes about 30 miles deep in my soul was a guy just about 1 inch down who cared more about a stupid spider and what our friends were going to think than I did about my traumatized 6th grade daughter.

By the way, the spider later died that day from injuries suffered at the scene of the accident.  But far worse was what I damaged in a little girls heart that day.

Whether it’s anger or lust or ingratitude or substance abuse or hatred or materialism, living “in sin” is always self-destructive and usually other-damaging too.  Without the resurrection of Jesus, we’re all doomed to continue being nothing but slaves to that sort of junk.

Maybe some of you are wondering about now,

“But if Jesus died for my sins on the cross, isn’t that enough?  Didn’t he say as he gasped for that last breath, “It is finished!  Paid in full!”? Wasn’t the way to God opened up in that moment just as the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple was ripped down the middle?  Wasn’t it enough for the Lamb of God to die in order to take away the sins of the world?  Couldn’t we still have redemption and forgiveness of sins without the resurrection?

Well, think of it this way.

ILL:  Ordering Pizza—they may ask for a credit card number when I place the order just to make sure that I’m not going to make a bogus order and then not show, leaving them stuck with the loss.  So technically I’ve become the proud owner of a pepperoni pizza with black olives the moment I give them the credit card number, they charge it and start making my pizza.

But if I tell my kids, “Hey, I just became the proud owner of a brand new, steaming hot, pepperoni pizza…right now!  I just paid for it over the phone.  It’s a done deal.  How about a high-five for dad?”  What are they going to say?

“Really?  We’re SO impressed.  Check in again with us when you get it home, Dad.”

They want to see the PROOF of the deal.

Technically I AM the proud owner of that pizza.  But the only way someone else is going to believe me is if I actually deliver on my statement, right?  Technically I don’t have to bring home the pizza for me to own it.  But I do need to bring it home for me to enjoy it.

That’s what the resurrection of Jesus is to the promises of God about forgiveness, redemption, eternal life and a whole lot of other things that come with the death of Jesus for us.  The only way we could be truly convinced that all those things happened at the death of Jesus for us was for Him to prove he had broken the power of sin and death that day.

Why wait 3 days?

Because God wanted to make sure that the ridiculous theory that Jesus somehow “resuscitated” from something less than death could not stand the test.  Watch The Passion of the Christ and then try telling me that Jesus didn’t really die, he just passed out and 3 days later woke up in the cool tomb, pushed aside the 2-ton rock in blocking the entrance, and overpowered the Roman guard at the entrance, all the while being bound in grave clothes that weighed some 75-100 pounds themselves!

No, God wants everyone to understand that this was no slight of hand.  This was God’s resurrection power that gave Jesus a new, recognizable but immortal and incorruptible body that we who know and love him will one day touch and see and smell and feel just like the hundreds of witnesses Paul mentions at the beginning of this chapter (I Cor. 15:5-7).

Now in vs. 18 of 1 Cor. 15, Paul gives us the 4th major problem we have if Jesus didn’t really rise bodily from the dead.

“Then those also who have fallen asleep [died] in Christ are lost.”  The eternal state of every Christian who has ever lived is separation from God IF Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.  In essence, the hope of eternal life becomes the “joke of eternal life” if Jesus was not raised from the dead.  That’s also what the next verse says:  “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”  (I Cor. 15:19).

If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, it’s far worse than…

…the worst internet scam that promises you hundreds of thousands if you will just wire over to Nigeria $1,500 before midnight. …Barny Madoff’s  biggest Ponzi scheme that bilked thousands of people out of $18 billion dollars.

Nothing we can compare to any loss of wealth or loss of friendships or even loss of family could come close to total disaster it would be, says Paul, IF the resurrection is nothing more than a quaint mythological notion among Christians.  We are hell-bound and forever separated from the life of God in eternity IF Christ did not, in fact, rise from the dead.

That may not seem like a very big deal to you IF you’re 12 or 16 or 24 and have never had anyone you loved deeply die.  But it matters more than you can imagine when someone you love dies.  It matters immensely when your child dies…or your parent passes away…or your best friend is killed in an accident…or your spouse who you adore dies of a heart attack.

I’ve stood at the graveside with parents grieving the loss of a little baby, of children, and of teenagers.  I’ve stood dozens of times at that dark 6-foot hole in the ground that will shortly swallow what is physically left of a son killed in action…or a wife taken by cancer…or a mother snatched by death through an unexpected car accident.  Try telling someone at that moment that it really doesn’t matter at all whether or not there is life after death in which they will be reunited with this unique, one-of-a-kind person.  It matters more than you can imagine.

And I’ve seen the difference it makes between people who “have no hope” because they do not have or know Jesus Christ and the Christian who knows that a day is coming when their loved one will rise from that ground where they are burying them.  IF there is no resurrection, there is no hope of ever seeing that person again who you laughed and cried with, worked and labored with, fought and embraced… never again.

If Jesus did not rise from the dead, neither you nor I nor anyone else will.  As Eugene Peterson puts it in his paraphrase of this chapter in The Message, “if there's no resurrection for Christ, everything we've told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you've staked your life on is smoke and mirrors.”

In fact, I find Peterson’s paraphrase of this passage in 1st Corinthians so compelling, allow me to read an extended portion of it to you for a moment.

12-15Now, let me ask you something profound yet troubling. If you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive, risen from the dead, how can you let people say that there is no such thing as a resurrection? If there's no resurrection, there's no living Christ. And face it—if there's no resurrection for Christ, everything we've told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you've staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ—sheer fabrications, if there's no resurrection.

16-20If corpses can't be raised, then Christ wasn't, because he was indeed dead. And if Christ weren't raised, then all you're doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It's even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they're already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.

21-28There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man, and resurrection from death came by a man. Everybody dies in Adam; everybody comes alive in Christ. But we have to wait our turn: Christ is first, then those with him at his Coming, the grand consummation when, after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father. He won't let up until the last enemy is down—and the very last enemy is death! As the psalmist said, "He laid them low, one and all; he walked all over them." When Scripture says that "he walked all over them," it's obvious that he couldn't at the same time be walked on. When everything and everyone is finally under God's rule, the Son will step down, taking his place with everyone else, showing that God's rule is absolutely comprehensive—a perfect ending!

34Think straight. Awaken to the holiness of life. No more playing fast and loose with resurrection facts. Ignorance of God is a luxury you can't afford in times like these. Aren't you embarrassed that you've let this kind of thing go on as long as you have?

35-38Some skeptic is sure to ask, "Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this 'resurrection body' look like?" If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a "dead" seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don't look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.

39-41You will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning. Just as there are different kinds of seeds, there are different kinds of bodies—humans, animals, birds, fish—each unprecedented in its form. You get a hint at the diversity of resurrection glory by looking at the diversity of bodies not only on earth but in the skies—sun, moon, stars—all these varieties of beauty and brightness. And we're only looking at pre-resurrection "seeds"—who can imagine what the resurrection "plants" will be like!

42-44This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we're raised, we're raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that's planted is no beauty, but when it's raised, it's glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!

51-57But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I'll probably never fully understand. We're not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it's over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we'll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:    Death swallowed by triumphant Life!    Who got the last word, oh, Death?    Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now? It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!

SO MUCH rests on the resurrection of Jesus.  That’s why we celebrate it annually.  Without it

1.)    Our talking about Jesus is useless.

2.)    Our faith in Jesus is meaningless.

3.)    We’re still “in sin” rather than “in Christ.”

4.)    This hope we have of eternal life with God is but a cruel joke.

But SINCE Jesus did rise from the dead, as billions of believes through the ages have experienced first-hand, what Paul says in Romans 8:11 is true:  “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”

You and I are destined for the same miracle, IF we have come to know Jesus Christ personally through faith in Him.  (Call to faith in Christ.)

And in the meantime, until Christ returns or death takes us first, God invites every child of His to experience “the power of his resurrection” (Phil. 3:10) in our everyday lives.

What needs “resurrection power” in your life?  What seems to have died but you know God wants to bring it back to life some day for His glory?

How about inviting Him to pour out His resurrection power in you afresh this day and every day to come?