SERMON: The Case for Resurrection
(Psalm 19:14) May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Two school children were walking together, and one said to the other, “Easter’s been cancelled this year.” When the other child asked why, the first said, “They found the body.”
Many of us heard that schoolyard joke when we were children ourselves, but recent news stories have brought forth old claims of new findings to support the idea that the body of Christ is not risen, but still dead and buried. The Discovery Channel recently aired a program in which James Cameron, the director of the movie, Titanic, claims that ossuaries, or “bone boxes” containing the bones of Jesus and others have been found in a Jerusalem tomb. The ossuaries were marked with the names “Jesus son of Joseph,” “Mary,” “Maiamne Mara” (that they claim is Mary Magdalene), “Jose” (which is a very uncommon nickname for Joseph), “Matthew,” and “Judah son of Jesus,” which they claim as evidence to support the DaVinci Code nonsense that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and that they had a son Judah.
Opponents of Christianity know that the resurrection is linchpin of our faith. They have known that for abut 20 centuries now, but they still try to lure people away from Jesus with their arguments.
The apostle Paul writes in First Corinthians 15:17: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” That entire chapter is Paul’s explanation of the importance of the resurrection to our salvation.
Without the resurrected Christ, there is no Easter, no salvation, no hope. If no one has paid the price for our sins, we are responsible for paying that bill when it comes due, at the cost of our lives and our immortal souls.
For us, there would be no heaven, no glory, and no redemption — just death and an eternity of separation from God.
And we should remember that when Paul’s letters were written, as well as the Gospels, the people hearing them included thousands of people with first-hand knowledge of Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion, so they would have been right there to contradict any claims that were untrue about his death and resurrection. Yet history records no factual arguments against it, and Christianity spread throughout the entire Roman Empire despite persecution.
This evening we celebrate the Easter vigil. In the early days of Christianity, this vigil would last all night, culminating with an Easter sunrise service and Baptism of the catechists who had been studying scripture for at least the preceding year.
As important as the resurrection is, it would not have been able to happen without Christ’s acceptance of his own slaughter. In His agonizing death on the cross, He brought our own sins with Him to His death. He has already paid for the sins we commit today.
Yet many people don’t believe that Christ’s death on the cross atones for our sins. And many also don’t believe Jesus rose from the dead. Most sadly, many Christian clergy are among them.
Many of the theories that deny Christ’s death and resurrection rely on our ignorance of what crucifixion really entailed. The Bible doesn’t describe the act of crucifixion in great detail, not because of a lack of evidence — but rather the opposite. Everyone in that region at that time in history was personally familiar with crucifixion. Pontius Pilate had crucified thousands of protestors outside the walls of Jerusalem when he had first been appointed governor of Judea just a few years before.
The Gospel writers had no need to describe crucifixions to their readers. We, on the other hand, are generally uninformed and therefore easy prey for goofball theories about fake deaths or missing bodies.
Crucifixion is a cruel and horrific method of execution. It maximizes the agony the victim suffers for the longest possible time. Death usually took about 3 to 4 days of excruciating pain. In fact, the word “excruciating” comes from the Latin words “ex” meaning “from,” and “cruciate” meaning “cross,” translating literally as “from the cross.”
It involved first flogging the condemned man with a whip made of leather strands with pieces of bone and metal tied to them. The victims often died just from the flogging.
After that, the victim carried a hundred-pound crossbar to his crucifixion site. Jesus was nailed to his crossbar. Ever hit your funny bone? That’s the ulna nerve. Now imagine someone driving a nail through it.
After being raised onto the supporting beam, the condemned man would die from suffocation after a few days in that painful position.
Many theories exist about the exact cause of Jesus’ death — whether it was a ruptured heart, suffocation, etc., but the important fact is that modern medical evidence shows that there can be no doubt that Jesus did in fact die a physical death on the cross.
This is very important because the first argument used against the resurrection is that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross. Since you can’t have a resurrection without a death, convincing people that Christ didn’t actually die eliminates the need for any more discussion about resurrection.
This is the approach taken by Mohammed in the Koran, 600 years after the crucifixion. Islam accepts Jesus as a prophet, but claims he never actually died on the cross. Thus, they short-circuit any resurrection claim.
However, since we’ve proven that Jesus did in fact die on the cross, we can move to the next step toward resurrection — his burial.
The Bible says Jesus was buried in a tomb owned by the Pharisee, Joseph of Arimethea.
But the next argument against the resurrection is that people who were crucified were left on the cross after death or tossed in a nearby ditch for wild dogs to eat. That’s why there is very little archaeological evidence of crucifixion victims even though the Romans crucified more than 250,000 Jews.
Tombs were very expensive, having to be carved into the rock face, and only family members could be buried in the same tomb. A dead body of a non-family member would defile the tomb, and it could not be used by anyone else. And tombs were not thought of as temporary.
In giving Jesus his own tomb, Joseph removed any possibility of him or his family ever using it themselves.
But if it were not true, Joseph of Arimethea — or his family — would definitely have come forward and dismissed the crazy claim that Joseph’s tomb had been used by some itinerant preacher. But they didn’t.
If you’re going to make up a story, you don’t use a prominent, powerful person as a key part of it. You’d use some guy that no one could check on, or someone who didn’t even exist. But they didn’t. Instead, they named a major religious leader, a Pharisee.
So Jesus was buried. But just for three days. The empty tomb is now a major stumbling block for those who would deny the resurrection.
They try various arguments like the disciples stole the body, or the women and the disciples all went to the wrong tomb Sunday morning. But the Jewish leaders and the Romans knew where Jesus was buried.
If Jesus’ followers had merely gone to the wrong tomb, the officials could have easily provided the body and nipped any further resurrection discussion in the bud. But they didn’t. They couldn’t. The body was gone. And the disciples, who had run away in terror when Jesus was arrested, would not have risked their own death by crucifixion for breaking the Roman seal on the tomb in front of Roman guards.
The only real explanation for the empty tomb is the resurrection. There were many witnesses to Jesus’ death and burial. So it makes sense that if we’re going to claim He rose from the dead, someone must have seen Him. Otherwise, who would have believed Paul, preaching all around the Mediterranean that Christ is alive?
The Gospels, Paul’s letters, and the Book of Acts show the Jesus appeared to hundreds of people after His death. Including:
• Mary Magdalene and the other women
• Eleven disciples and others
• James
• Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus
• Paul
• More than 500 other people mentioned by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians
The evidence for the resurrection is overwhelming. And it’s so important to our faith. If God the Father can’t raise his own sinless Son then he can’t raise us either. So, therefore, death becomes all there is for us after our life here on Earth. And everyone who has died in the past 2,000 years believing in Christ and His offer of salvation was a fool, just like each of us who believe in Him now.
But the resurrection is true. And we can prove it beyond any doubt:
Jesus’ burial wrappings
The linen wrappings in the tomb amazed the disciples. Jesus had simply moved through the wrappings, apparently without a struggle, and laid the face cloth aside. If Jesus’ body had been stolen, the thieves would not have taken the time to remove the wrappings or fold the face cloth.
New Testament accounts of the resurrection
Archaeological discoveries have confirmed that New Testament accounts of the resurrection were written within the lifetimes of people who were alive at the time of the resurrection. Those people could certainly have denied the accuracy of the Gospel writers’ accounts.
The earliest witnesses to the empty tomb are women.
If you’re making up a story about events in the Middle East in the 1st century, don’t use women for your first witnesses. Women at that time were not allowed to testify in a court of law. It was believed that women were not able to tell the truth, so they couldn’t testify. A writer would use believable witnesses to verify such an important event if he were making it up.
Disciples Accepting Torture and Death
One thing above all the other evidence convinces me that the resurrection is true — the behavior of His disciples. When Jesus was crucified, his followers saw their whole world collapse. They had hung their hope on Jesus being the Messiah, and now everything was over for them. The movement was stopped in its tracks. I’m sure they wondered what would happen to them now, what they would do for the rest of their lives.
They cowered behind locked doors together, hiding from the Temple guards and Roman soldiers they were sure would come for them next.
But then, very soon after Christ’s death, they abandoned their jobs, re-grouped, and committed themselves to traveling around the region spreading the good news of Jesus’ resurrection.
They spent the rest of their lives facing hardship and poverty, often hungry and cold, sleeping exposed to the elements. They endured ridicule, beatings, stoning, floggings, and even death by various means of torture.
No one endures that kind of an ordeal for a lie. They didn’t just believe Jesus was raised from the dead — they knew it! They had seen him personally! They ate with Him. They broke bread with Him. They grilled fish with Him! Dead guys don’t do that! He is alive!
That’s what drove them. They knew at that point that everything He had promised them was in fact true! And there was no way they could keep that wonderful news to themselves.
Although Christ’s atoning death saved us from the penalty of our own sins, it’s His victory over death that guarantees us eternal life! Because Christ has been raised from the dead, we know that it’s possible for us to be raised also.
Since that possibility exists, we can have faith and hope in Christ, because He has been able to do what we thought impossible, and has promised the same reward for those who have faith in Him.
Ah, but what about that box of bones that James Cameron discovered? Well, he didn’t really discover it, and it isn’t a new discovery. Lee Strobel gives us multiple reasons that prove Cameron’s claim is bogus.
The ossuaries were found when the Talpiot tomb was excavated in 1980, and scholars then knew that they had merely found the burial place of a wealthy, 1st-century Jerusalem family.
The names on the boxes were also quite common. Joseph was the 2nd most common name, Jude was the 4th, and Matthew the 9th. That is the equivalent of finding the names John, Michael, and Joseph in the same American family today. As for women, one out of every four Jewish women in the 1st century was named Mary.
The name “Yeshua” or Jesus isn’t even clear on the inscription. Plus, he would have been designated by his hometown as Jesus of Nazareth, not Jesus son of Joseph. And he would have been buried in Galilee, not Jerusalem.
Cameron’s claims have been rejected by nearly all scholars — Christian, Jewish, and even secular — as nonsense. Ancient historian Paul Maier said, “This is merely naked hype, baseless sensationalism, and nothing less than a media fraud.”
So why do so many people believe stories like these, instead of historical and biblical truth that has withstood 20 centuries of investigation? I believe it’s because a risen Christ means his other claims and statements are also true. A risen Christ shows that sin exists and we are held accountable for our actions. That we can’t take a little bit of this religion and a little bit of that religion, like we’re in a cafeteria.
The buried bones of Jesus Christ allow us to continue to behave whatever way we want, and believe whatever we want, with no consequences for our actions. This material world becomes all that matters for us; it becomes all that there is.
But a risen Christ shows that all this is temporary, that our physical lives are a mere blink of the eye compared to all eternity, and that we were wrong.
A buried Christ lets us continue to think we’re special; we think we are too important for God not to listen to our opinion and accept our rationale for why we chose to do the things we’ve done.
A resurrected Christ threatens our autonomy. Journalists like to claim that their role in society is to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. When you think about it, that’s also the threat of a risen Christ. He brings hope to the hopeless and humility to the haughty. He has conquered death and brought us eternal life. It’s ours for the asking. Yet too often, our pride prevents us from asking.
A risen Christ proves that we are not in charge of our own destiny, and that admission is too humbling for some of us.
Winston Churchill had the right attitude toward the afterlife when he arranged the details of his pending funeral. There were stately hymns in St. Paul’s Cathedral and an impressive liturgy. But at the end of the service, Churchill had an unusual event planned. When they said the benediction, a bugler high in the dome of the Cathedral on one side played Taps, the universal signal that the day is over. There was a long pause. Then a bugler on the other side played Reveille, the military wake-up call.
Today should be our own wake up call, as we realize the sacrifice and glory Christ brings to us on Easter. The resurrection is our guarantee of salvation.
It’s a gift that Jesus gives to us if we are willing to accept it. He asks us to turn away from our sins. To turn away from the temporary things in this life that we follow, and to follow Him instead. To trust Him by faith in all He promises for us. To receive Him in our hearts by opening them to Him. And to believe in Him.
Not in the sense of the word “believe” as we know it today. The original Greek word used for "believe" in the Bible, (pis-TAY-oh), means to entrust or have total confidence in. To hang all your hopes on. That’s the kind of belief Christ means.
But you need to make sure. You may never have another night like this. That little voice in your heart right now is God urging you to come to Him.
I’m asking you now, whether you accepted Jesus as your Savior years ago, last month, or for the first time tonight, to say the following prayer after me, either out loud or in your heart — God will hear it either way:
Lord Jesus,
I’m a sinner.
Have mercy on me.
I don’t want to continue a life of emptiness.
I turn away from my sins and welcome you into my life.
I’m sorry for my sins and ask you to be with me and guide me.
I pledge to follow you from now on in the fellowship of your church.
Amen.
