A. Once a singing group called The Resurrection was scheduled to sing at a church.
1. Unfortunately, a big snowstorm postponed the performance, so the minister fixed the sign outside the church to read, “The Resurrection is postponed.” I’m sure that created some alarm!
2. Aren’t you glad the resurrection of Jesus was not postponed?
B. The story is told of a man who stood looking through a shop window at a beautiful picture of the crucifixion.
1. Standing next to him was a ragged little boy who was also captivated by the picture.
2. Wondering if the boy really understood what he was looking at, the man asked him, “Sonny, what does that picture mean?”
3. “Doncha know?” the boy answered, “that there man is Jesus, and them others is Roman soldiers, and the woman cryin’ is His mother, and…they killed him.”
4. The man thanked the boy and walked away. In a moment he heard pattering footsteps behind him.
5. The little boy said breathlessly, “Say, mister, I forgot to tell you, but He rose again!”
C. That little boy felt the need to tell the rest of the story, and so must we!
1. Last week we talked about the death of Jesus, and thank God that the story does not end there.
2. Paul tells us that this is “of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time…” (1 Corinthians 15:3-6)
3. The triumphal rest of the story of Jesus is that He arose from the dead.
4. His story did not end with the cruel cross, but with the empty tomb.
5. And since the moment of the resurrection of Jesus, none of us have to look at death the same way ever again.
D. Most of us are familiar with grief and death.
1. The reality of death came early in my life as many important men began checking out.
2. When I was 10 years old, my dad died, then a few years later my grandfather died, and a year later my father’s brother.
3. Since then, two more grandfathers, and three grandmothers, great aunts and uncles and many dear friends.
4. I’ve conducted over 60 funerals during my ministry; 8 of them this year!
5. Death brings with it the harsh lesson of irreversibility. Those who die, stay dead.
6. But the amazing promise of Jesus is the awesome promise of reversibility.
7. With Jesus, nothing – not even death – was final. Even that could be reversed.
E. The resurrection is so important that our entire faith and hope as Christians rests on that foundation.
1. Paul told the Corinthians, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” (1 Cor. 15:13-14)
2. In my devotional time on Thursday morning, I was reading from Philippians 3, when I came across this passage, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Phil. 3:20-21)
3. What a glorious hope we have, indeed!
F. But how can we be sure? How can we know for sure that Jesus arose from the dead?
1. People who try to discount or deny the resurrection of Jesus tend to portray the disciples in one of two ways: either as gullible people who would believe anything, or as shrewd conspirators who dreamed up the whole story and who pulled a big one over on the world.
2. The Bible paints a distinctly different picture of the disciples.
3. With regard to being gullible, the Gospels portray Jesus’ followers as being very leery of the initial rumors about the resurrection.
4. Although Thomas got labeled “doubting Thomas,” in reality all the disciples showed a lack of faith.
5. None of them believed the wild report the women brought back from their early morning visit to the tomb.
6. Even after Jesus appeared to them in person, Matthew reports, “some doubted.” (Mt. 28:18)
7. So they were not gullible – initially it was hard for them to believe the resurrection.
G. As for the conspiracy theory, it falls apart on close examination.
1. If the disciples had set out to concoct a seamless cover-up story, they failed miserably.
2. Chuck Colson, who participated in a feeble conspiracy after the Watergate break-in, says that cover-ups only work if all participants maintain a unified front.
3. That is something the disciples surely did not do.
4. The Gospels show the disciples hiding in locked rooms, terrified that the thing that happened to Jesus on the cross might happen to them.
5. So afraid of it all, most of them did not attend the crucifixion, nor the burial of Jesus.
6. The disciples seemed utterly incapable of faking a resurrection or risking their lives by stealing a body; nor did it likely even occur to them in their state of despair and confusion.
H. According to all four Gospels, women were the first witnesses of the resurrection.
1. This is a fact that no conspirator in the first century would have invented.
2. Jewish courts of the time did not even accept the testimony of female witnesses.
3. A deliberate cover-up would have put Peter or John, or Nicodemus in the spotlight.
4. Since the Gospels were written several decades after the events, the authors had plenty of time to straighten out the difficulty of the women being the first witnesses.
5. But as we believe, they were not concocting a legend, they were just recording the facts.
I. A conspiracy would also have tidied up the first witnesses’ stories.
1. Were there two white-clad figures or just one?
2. Why did Mary Magdalene mistake Jesus for a gardener?
3. Was Mary alone, or were other women with her?
4. Jesus makes no dramatic, well-orchestrated entrance to dispel all doubts, rather the early reports seem fragmentary, mysterious and confused.
5. Surely conspirators could have done a neater job!
J. The Gospels do not present the resurrection of Jesus in a polished courtroom presentation with arguments to prove each main point.
1. Rather, the Gospels present the resurrection as the shocking intrusion that no one was expecting, least of all, Jesus’ fearful disciples.
2. The first witnesses reacted as any of us would react if we answered the doorbell and suddenly saw a long dead relative standing on our front porch.
3. We would react with great fear and with great joy!
K. The only conspiracy about the resurrection was the one set in motion by the authorities who had to deal with the embarrassing and worrisome fact of the empty tomb.
1. Matthew tells us, “When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, ‘You are to say, “His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.” If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’ So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.” (Mt. 28:12-15)
2. It is always comical for me to think about the illogical nature of that story.
3. How could the disciples have rolled way the huge stone without waking up the soldiers?
4. And how could the soldiers identify the disciples if they had been asleep?
5. I like the cartoon that shows two soldiers standing by the empty tomb. One soldier looks very worried, but the other one is shrugging his shoulders saying, “Don’t worry about it. A hundred years from now, who will remember?”
L. We who read the Gospels from so many years after the resurrection often forget how hard it was for the disciples to believe.
1. The empty tomb, in and of itself, did not convince them. It proved that “He is not here,” but not necessarily, “He is risen.”
2. Convincing those early doubters would require intimate, personal encounters with Jesus, and that is exactly what Jesus provided over the next 6 weeks.
3. It is interesting to consider the unglamorous quality of Jesus’ appearances after the resurrection.
4. There were no angels in the sky singing choruses, and no kings from afar bearing gifts.
5. Jesus showed up in the most ordinary places and circumstances – a private dinner, two men walking along a road, a woman weeping in a garden, and some fisherman wetting a worm.
6. For nearly six weeks, Jesus comes and goes. He is there, and then he’s gone.
7. The 12 or so appearances show a definite pattern – Jesus visited small groups of followers in remote or private gatherings.
8. As far as we know, not a single unbeliever saw Jesus after His death (except the vision of Jesus given to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road.
M. Have you ever wondered why Jesus did not make even more appearances?
1. And why did He limit His visits to his disciples?
2. Why not make an appearance at the Temple, or on Pilate’s porch or before the Sanhedrin?
3. A partial answer to those questions is found in Jesus’ words to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (Jn. 20:29)
4. In a sense, Jesus broke his own rules about faith.
5. He made His identity so obvious that no disciple could ever deny Him again, and none did.
6. Anyone who saw the resurrected Jesus lost the freedom of choice to believe or disbelieve.
7. For them, Jesus was now irrefutable.
8. The church would stand or fall based on how persuasive those eyewitnesses would be for all who had not seen, which includes us today.
9. Jesus had six weeks to establish His identity for all time with those few witnesses.
N. And did it work?
1. Yes, indeed.
2. That fearful band of unreliable followers turned into fearless evangelists.
3. Those eleven men who had deserted Him all went to their graves proclaiming a resurrected Christ.
4. And they set into motion the church that has stood the test of time and attack.
5. For them, once they were convinced that Jesus was arisen, everything changed.
6. In one sense nothing had changed – Rome still occupied Palestine, the religious authorities still had them in their crosshairs, and death and evil still were a part of reality.
7. But because of the resurrection they were filled with courage, and joy and peace.
O. And that’s where I would like to go as we finish up this lesson – what difference does the resurrection make in our lives?
P. First of all, let me say that the resurrection makes a difference in what we think about Jesus.
1. The resurrection of Jesus proves that He is who He claimed to be.
a. While on earth Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, equal with God the Father, and His resurrection confirms that fact.
2. The resurrection of Jesus proves that He has the power He claimed to have.
3. The resurrection of Jesus proves that He has the power to do what He has promised.
a. So, when Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” (Jn. 11:25-26)
b. Because of His resurrection we know that Jesus can make good on all of His promises, including that one.
Q. Second, let me say that the resurrection makes a difference in how we live today.
1. The resurrection means that our sins are forgiven.
a. Paul wrote, “For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” (1 Cor. 15:16-17)
b. The apostle John reminds us, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from every sin.” (1 Jn. 1:7)
c. How wonderful to know that our sins are forgiven because of Jesus death and resurrection.
d. What wonderful peace comes over us as we are freed from the guilt and condemnation of our sins.
2. The resurrection means that we have a purpose for living.
a. The last verse of 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul has been discussing the importance of the resurrection of Jesus, reads, “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:58)
b. Our purpose is to give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord – the work of sharing the good news about Jesus; the work of helping the hurting in the name of Jesus.
c. When we faithfully do so, we know that there is great reward – our labor in the Lord is not in vain. There is a purpose for our work and for us.
3. The resurrection means that we have a home in heaven.
a. Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (Jn. 14:1-3)
b. How great is that? Jesus has gone to prepare a place for you and for me.
c. We are going to spend eternity with Him in our home in heaven!
R. And because we know we are forgiven, we have purpose and we have a home in heaven, we can live confidently, gratefully and hopefully.
1. Confidently, because we know God’s great resurrection power is at work in us.
2. Gratefully, because we know God’s wonderful love and the sacrifice given for us.
3. Hopefully, because we know that death is not the end, there is life beyond the grave.
S. I ran into the elderly gentleman who is the owner of Suburban Hardware the other day.
1. I’ve gotten to know his two sons, Sal and Mark, who now run the store.
2. I always ask Sal about how his dad is doing, because his dad has several health issues. Sal tells me that his dad is always talking about dying.
3. So, when I saw the dad and asked him, “So how are you feeling today?”
4. His reply was, “We are all terminal, we just don’t know when.”
T. And how true that is, we are all going to die sooner or later, unless we are alive when Jesus returns.
1. Let me ask you: where are you going to go when you die?
2. We can go where Jesus went, where Jesus is, but we must be prepared to do so.
3. When time is no more for us (no matter how or when it comes), all that really will matter is that we truly believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
4. And today, all that truly matters is that our faith is in Christ and that we are living for Him.
5. Is that what you are saying and doing with your life?
6. Jesus said, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (Jn. 6:40)
7. Jesus also said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself…Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.” (Jn. 5:24-29)
8. Praise God for the resurrection of Jesus and the life that is found in Christ – abundant life and eternal life.
9. What do you believe about Jesus and what are you doing about that belief?
10. Are there commitments or resolutions you need to make today with regard to Christ?
11. If there are, then I would implore you to do so right now…
Resource: The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancy, chapter eleven.
