Well, we’ve come to the end of the Book. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last few months and looked at the story of this man: Jesus Christ. We’ve looked at His birth; we’ve looked at the beginnings of His ministry. We’ve looked at the authority that He had over nature, calming the sea and walking on water. We’ve seen the authority that He had over the body by healing all who came to Him, the deaf, the Blind, the leper, the cripple. He drove out demons with a word and resisted direct attacks and temptations by Satan, showing authority that was unequaled by any human over the spiritual realms. We’ve looked at the authority that he had over death, raising a young girl and his friend Lazarus from the grave. We’ve looked at His teachings, as He stood on the side of mountain and amazed the people with His words that showed an authority beyond the established religion and the manmade rules and laws that had governed the Jews to that point. We saw Him feed 5000, we saw Him bless the children, he taught a new way of love and heart change, he stood up to the Pharisees, he ate with tax collectors and sinners. We’ve heard the parables and seen how he fulfilled every Messianic prophecy concerning His birth and ministry and death.
And then last week we looked at why He had truly come, the darkest day in the history of the world. Literally and figuratively. Darkness came over the land from the sixth hour until the ninth hour or from about noon to three PM. The Earth itself was mourning and protesting the death of its Creator and you have the great symbolism of the light of the world being extinguished and the world being plunged into darkness. So, literally, it was a dark day. But it was also a dark day for the disciples and for the early followers of Christ. All that they had sacrificed, all that they had lived for, all that they had believed was seemingly gone. They had identified themselves with this man, whom they were convinced was the Messiah, only to see Him die in the worst possible way. And it wasn’t just that He had died, but He had gone down without a fight. He hadn’t even defended Himself! If He was the Son of God, why didn’t He flex His muscles, why didn’t He show His authority? They had seen Him do it before. They took this death as a sign that He was not who He had claimed to be and all of them had fled and abandoned Christ and turned away whether by their words, like Peter, or their actions. They thought it was over. Think about it. Jesus spent much of His last days teaching these men that this would happen. He taught them that He would suffer, He taught them that He would die, but He always linked it with a triumphal resurrection. He always included that He would rise from the grave and that He would be the conquering Son of God who would provide victory!
MK 8:31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
Jesus had made sure that His disciples would be ready. But because of the way that He died, the disciples lost hope. All of that talk of rebuilding the temple in three days was thrown out the window. They forgot what it was that Christ had taught them. Remember, these are the men that God chose to change the world through, these are the men who knew Jesus better than any other men on Earth, these were the ones who had been taught and trained and invested in for three years, and yet they were so sure of defeat that they couldn’t see the Light at the end of the tunnel and they went away to pout and to regroup and to mourn the way that it had ended.
My sophomore year at Nyack, I remember sitting with a bunch of the guys in the men’s dorm and watching the NCAA basketball tournament on TV. Syracuse was playing Georgia and they had played a pretty good game but down the stretch everything went wrong. They were down 8 points with under a minute to play and in my frustration, I left and went back to my room. I thought the game was over and being a huge Syracuse fan who had very high expectations of this team, I was incredibly disappointed that things weren’t going to turn out the way I had expected them to. I basically went upstairs to pout. As I was upstairs, I missed one of the greatest endings to any college basketball game ever. Syracuse hit two threes and then a fade away at the buzzer to send it into overtime. In OT they went down one with a few seconds left, their guards couldn’t get the ball and John Wallace, who was a 6-10 forward was forced to dribble all the way up the court. This was the last guy you wanted dribbling! With two men in his face, he threw up a running three pointer at the buzzer that dropped cleanly through the net. Someone ran up the stairs and told me that they won, I didn’t believe them. I was so sure that it was over, I was already looking at next year and what their chances would be. They had snatched victory from what everyone figured was a sure defeat. There were some who were faithful and stuck with them and there were others like me who gave up when it seemed hopeless.
Well, the disciples may have given up, but there were those who held out hope. There was a group of women who had faith in who Jesus was despite the circumstances. They hung around, they stayed close, hoping, against all logic, that Jesus would do what they believed He could do, what He had said He would do. These women were looking for that light at the end of the tunnel and as we wrap things up we see that their faith was rewarded, death was not the end of the story. In death the punishment for our sins had been paid, but it was in the resurrection that the victory was truly won. By conquering death, the sacrifice became eternal, once for all. It was no longer necessary to continually sacrifice to pay for our sins, it was done.
Heb 9:25 Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. 26 Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
The resurrection completed the perfect sacrifice and proved beyond all doubt the power and the authority and the identity of this Jesus. In conquering death, the Son of God was shown to be all that He had claimed to be. This morning I want to look at the last chapter and a half of this book. I want to pull out the facts, clear up the lies, and offer proof that Jesus Christ has risen indeed!
Let’s begin by looking at:
I. The Facts
There are certain things that we know, they are not in question. These are documented not only by the historical record of the Bible, but by every other reliable book of history that we have. These are facts that were accepted by all at that time, even those who opposed everything that Christ stood for and did.
A. Christ Died on that Cross.
The death of Christ was never in question. There are some today who try to explain away the post resurrection appearances by saying that Christ never really died on that cross. We know that He died for several reasons.
1) The Romans were Experts
We talked last week about the fact that the Romans had perfected the art of torture and crucifixion. They crucified hundreds of thousands of people during the years of their empire. They knew what they were doing. So, when the soldiers came to Christ in order to break His legs and found that he was already dead, you can be sure that He knew what death looked like.
2) Pilate Made Sure
Read 57-61. Here you have the account of what happened with Jesus’ body after He had hung on the cross and given up His Spirit. The normal protocol for a crucifixion would have called for the body to hang there for several days. The Romans wanted a visual reminder to the people of who was in charge and what the consequences were for stepping out of line. So, in order for Joseph to get the body, He would have to ask permission from Pilate. Mark tells us that Joseph is a prominent member of the Sanhedrin, the very body that had sentenced Jesus to death. Joseph would have been alienating himself from other Jews and aligning Himself with Christ. This was a man who was going to stick by Christ even when the disciples wouldn’t.
When Joseph asks for the Body, Mark tells us that Pilate is surprised and sends someone to make sure. So, we know He was dead because careful examination was made of the body.
3) He was handled in preparation for burial
This passage tells us that the body was wrapped in a linen cloth by Joseph and other gospels tell us that Nicodemus was also there helping. They would have been moving the body about in such a way that if there was any life left it would have become obvious. Christ was dead, that’s a fact.
B. Christ was Buried in that Tomb
In verse 61 we’re told that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were watching the burial of Christ. As the stone is rolled into place, these women are sitting there watching. Verse 1 of chapter 28 tells us that these same women were on their way to look at the tomb on Sunday morning. They were witnesses, we have their testimony that Christ was placed in the tomb of Joseph. But there’s more:
Read 62-66
The Pharisees were concerned that the disciples would try and steal the Body and that this deception would be worse than the first. They had taken care of the first deception, that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, by killing Him. If the Body was taken then the disciples would point to Him as the risen Son of God and all their hard work of disposing of the threat would be undone. They had a Roman guard placed in front of the tomb and they sealed the stone. The Pharisees were careful, before they sealed the stone, they would have made sure that it contained the Body of Jesus. So, we know that He was buried in the tomb of Joseph and that it was under a Roman guard.
The third fact that we know is that:
C. That Tomb was Empty
The guards saw it, the women saw it, the disciples saw it. The tomb that Jesus was laid to rest in, was occupied no more. Those are the facts, they don’t change. Since that day, men have been forced to decide how they’ll interpret those facts. When the Truth is not something that you want to get out, it’s amazing what stories you can come up with. When both of our kids were little, they would make up incredible stories to keep from getting into trouble. You could catch them with the marker in their hand and the lid off and ask who how the marker got on the wall and they would tell you anything but the Truth that they did it. I watched Catherine tear out the page to a book once when she was two. I asked her if she did it, the page was still in her hand, she said Ethan did it. She got spanked but the story stayed the same, Ethan did it! It didn’t matter that I had witnessed it, she wanted the Truth covered up. With the empty tomb, the Truth was devastating to the Pharisees. See, there is one of two possible explanations, either the empty tomb was of divine origins, or it was of human origins. The Pharisees knew that the Truth had to be explained away or they were in big trouble and so a lie was invented to make the empty tomb a work of men, not God.
II. The Human Theories
There have been multiple theories that have been presented by men to explain the resurrection. If you can prove that the empty tomb was a result of the work of men, Christianity crumbles.
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 1 Corinthians 15:17
From the swoon theory that says Jesus never really died, to the wrong tomb theory that says that everyone, including the owner of the tomb simply forgot where Jesus was buried, each theory has major holes in it and can be refuted with the facts that we’ve just looked at. The major theory that was put forth that day, the cover up by the Pharisees and chief priests that continues to be used by many skeptics today is:
A. The Theft Theory
This theory says that Christ’s body was stolen by one of three groups: The disciples, the Jews, or the Romans.
Let’s deal with the Romans and the Jews first because these are the simplest to refute. The Romans would not have taken the body because the very reason that Pilate crucified Jesus was to keep the peace. The missing body stirred up all sorts of trouble and problems in Jerusalem. If the Romans had the body, they would have produced it and ended the matter immediately. The same is true for the Jews. As soon as the disciples began preaching the resurrected Christ and Jews began turning away from tradition and entering into a relationship with Christ, the Jews would have said, hold it, we have the body, it’s right here and the matter would have been put to rest.
The most popular belief was that the disciples had taken the body.
Read 28:11-15
The guards knew that the empty tomb meant that they were responsible and could face the death penalty, so they approached the chief priests instead of reporting back to Pilate. The Chief Priests were faced with their worst nightmare, the tomb that they had under guard to contain the Body of Christ was empty. They had to think fast. The Chief priests paid them and promised to protect them if they would spread a lie about what had happened. The problem with the story is that A) if they were sleeping, they would not have known who took the body, and B) the disciples could not have pulled off a heist like this. They would have had to overpower those guards (whose own testimony refuted that that took place) to even have a chance to get into the tomb. 11 ordinary men would never have stood a chance against highly trained Roman soldiers. If they could have gotten in, they would have grabbed the body and bolted. Instead, the grave clothes were laid neatly in the grave where they had been. They wouldn’t have wasted time with the graves clothes, they would have been in a hurry to leave. Also, we see how brave they are when each one flees and deserts Christ. This is a group who has been humiliated and they are depressed, and defeated. Their actions show that they believed it was over and being good Jews, they would have wanted the body of Christ to rest and would not have defiled it or themselves by moving it. There is also the fact that they still didn’t understand Christ’s teaching about Himself, the fact that He would rise. In John, when Peter and John go to the tomb and see that its empty, John says that they still didn’t understand that He had risen. The disciples were just as confused by the empty tomb as the chief priests and John says they returned to their homes. Luke says that Peter saw the grave clothes and walked away, “wondering what had happened.” Mary didn’t know what was happening either. She was crying outside the tomb because someone had taken the body, if the disciples were involved, she would have known. As she cried, Jesus appeared and she understood that the empty tomb was not a work of any man. She knew that it must have been a work of God and Christ indeed rose from the dead as He said He would. No one moved the body, the Romans and Jews had no reason to and the disciples lacked the means to.
III. The Divine Proofs
A. The Angel – Just as His birth was announced by angels, an angel was
there to proclaim the Good News of His resurrection. Read 28:2-7. God wanted there to be no mistaking what had happened and by what power and authority it had been done. So, He sent His angel as proof to the Truth and to comfort and explain that Jesus’ teaching was being fulfilled.
B. The Eye Witnesses
Another proof that Jesus did indeed rise is the number of witnesses to His bodily resurrection. If I tell you that I saw something happen, you might believe me. If I tell you and then two other people tell you the same thing, you’re more likely going to believe it. If a huge group says they saw the same thing, you’re going to be convinced. Jesus appeared to many people and they gave eyewitness accounts of what happened that are documented in Scripture and in the books of history of that time.
1CO 15:3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
The resurrection appearances are a historically documented fact. The eyewitnesses were there and they were able to testify to the Truth that Jesus is alive. They taught and proclaimed that they had seen the risen Christ.
Another proof is the:
C. The Changed Lives
There is nothing that could have taken a group of cowards and weak willed individuals and turned them into the world changers that we read about in Acts other than a bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. They endured prison, beatings, ridicule, poverty, and all but one met a violent death. All of that could have been avoided if they had stopped preaching, but they had seen proof that Jesus was the Son of God because they had seen the Risen Savior. Their lives now had meaning and purpose and it’s the change that we see in these men that is one of the most convincing proofs of the resurrection. People don’t die for what they are not convinced in their mind is true. Seeing Christ again forever changed these men and through them, the world was changed.
D. Christ in Us!
Finally, the most personal proof of the resurrection is the reality of what the resurrection means to us. The proof is in the change that only a resurrected and living Christ could make in our lives. It’s a rebirth:
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 1Peter 1:3
It’s also the reality that the risen Savior that dwells in our hearts.
Col 1:27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart. I can have the head knowledge of these other convincing proofs but I can also testify to the resurrection through the relationship that I now enjoy with the living Christ in my life. The light at the end of the tunnel, the Light of the World, is the light that shines in me.
As we close the book, and as He left the disciples, He commanded that they take His Good News to the ends of the Earth.
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go (literally means while you are going, whatever you are doing, use it for God) and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
They had failed Jesus once, they had experienced the agony of shattered dreams. But then they saw Jesus. They had seen Him die and yet here He was again in their midst. It was this truth and reality that drove them to carry that light, the message of the empty tomb, and to become a light themselves to point others towards the Christ that they loved. The cross was the reason Christ came, but without the resurrection that death would have been a waste. It’s in the resurrected Lord that we find hope, purpose, forgiveness, and the salvation of our souls. This is the greatest Story ever told. I hope that as you hear it and as you share it, that it never grows old for you but that you are always filled with wonder and awe at the love of God and the sacrifice that He made for you. This is what sets Christianity apart from any other religion or belief, it’s the cross and the empty tomb. Buddha’s Tomb is occupied. Confucius is right where they laid him when he died. Mohamed’s tomb is full, but the tomb of Jesus Christ is empty, the stone has been rolled away and the angel has proclaimed: He is not here! He is risen just as He said! Go and tell others. This is the Good News of the Gospel.
