We demand evidence when we are accused of almost anything. If you have ever had a car wreck with someone else, you know how quickly the blame game starts but usually the evidence can prove who was really at fault. The best part about a car wreck is how the other person reacts, regardless of whether it is really their fault or not. They always jump out of their vehicle, throw up their arms, and look at you like you ruined their life. No one likes to be accused of wrong-doing, especially those for which there is absolutely no evidence. If you ever see court-room television, it is incredibly funny to watch someone try to argue their case with little or no evidence. Judge Judy is hilarious because she has so many people walk into her court room and basically try to confuse and convince her that what they say is true. Well, if they don’t have any evidence, she throws the case out and kicks them out of her court room.
There is a lawyer by the name of Sir Lionel Luckhoo. I wasn’t familiar with him until recently when I found out that he had 245 consecutive murder acquittals; he weighed the evidence and carefully proved that each one of those men were not guilty. This man is even recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most successful lawyer. He must have been a master of information, precision, and care to help those men and women find freedom from a life of jail. The queen of England knighted Luckhoo twice. He was a master of analyzing the evidence surrounding a case and coming up with the right answer. He once analyzed the evidence for Christianity. In response to the evidence for Christ, he said, “I say unequivocally that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”
Luckhoo would have had to investigate quite a bit of information to come to a conclusion either way. Yet, he only had to answer three questions: 1) Did Jesus die?, 2) Was Jesus in the grave?, 3) Was He seen afterwards? No one does that. No one dies and then is seen next week. When we have a funeral, we leave the body in the grave knowing that we won’t see that body again. Yet, as Christians we claim something that no one else does, we claim that our leader died, was buried, and then lived again on the third day after he died but what proof is there. Don’t Christians just “believe” in Jesus? Don’t they just dream or wish because they are desperate to believe something? Could there be more to Christianity that a bunch of frilly feel good beliefs about love? I want you to listen, analyze, and weigh the facts surrounding the resurrection. God gave us truth and the proof we need to believe. So I am going to answer those three questions so that you may find even more reasons to believe.
Did Jesus die?
Why do we need to prove Jesus died? Everyone dies so why do we need to prove this. There is a theory called the swoon theory which claims that Jesus passed out on the cross and then the cool air of the tomb woke him up or that Jesus was drugged while on the cross to appear as though He died. It is a bit of a silly argument as you will see from the graphic nature of Jesus’ death. There are two phases of Jesus’ death: before the cross and on the cross. Only the worst criminals were sent into this kind of treatment such as men who tried to kill the emperor. Actually, Pilate allowed Jesus to be tortured a bit so that the crowd would have sympathy on Him and let Him go. Yet, after the trial concluded, the real punishment would begin.
They would march Jesus into the soldier’s barracks and into a courtyard with a stump or block in the middle. They would then strip their clothes off and chain them to the stump with their back exposed and face down. Then soldiers would deliver one at a time at least 39 strokes from a leather braided whip. At the end of each of the straps would be found balls of metal and bone fragments. The balls would create deep bruises into the muscle which would break open after other strokes hit the body. The bones would rip into the flesh and even into the muscles themselves exposing veins and even blood carrying arteries. Vivid descriptions always show Christ as unrecognizable. This is the nicest description I can come up with without getting into gory details. “By the end, the skin of His back was left hanging in long ribbons and the entire area was an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue. One witness to a Roman flogging wrote this: "The sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles and tendons and bowels of the victim were open to exposure."” (Lee Strobel, Jesus is Alive – True or False?, http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=72274)
This is just the beginning. By the time the soldiers stopped, Jesus would have lost a massive amount of blood which would send Him into hypovolemic shock. His spine and rib bones would have been easily viewable. Jesus was in serious to critical condition and yet they forced Him to carry the beam on which his arms would be crucified up hill for almost a mile. They would then hammer huge nails into Christ’s wrists and ankles creating excruciating pain. Do you know where we get the word excruciating from? I found out that they had to create a new word to describe the pain crucifixion caused; ex-cruciating or “out of the cross.” They would then hoist Christ up to the cross and set him in place. His body weight would become His own worst enemy as He tried to breathe. He would have to push Himself up on the nail through his ankle just to exhale so he could suck in some more air. At this time, the lining around his heart would have swelled to crushing levels around his heart as well as the lining of his lungs. They would have filled with a white, watery liquid. Jesus died of either heart failure or suffocation. After Jesus gave up His spirit, he would have appeared dead but just to make sure He was, the soldiers took a spear and shoved it into his lung and heart. There is no way Jesus could have survived a Roman crucifixion.
Most scholars don’t debate this fact. Those that do debate this fact do so because they cannot find a flaw in any of the other parts of the story.
Jesus definitely died on the cross. There is no way He lived through all of that. Everyone dies sooner or later, however, so this is nothing special by itself. The other two questions remain; “Was He buried in the tomb?” and “Was He seen again?” Let’s take a different approach to these two questions. Allow me to lay out for you the evidence that confirms Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Lee Strobel lists these as three E’s.
The E’s of Evidence (Ibid. – Adaptation of sermon by Lee Strobel)
EARLY Evidence – 1 Corinthians 15:3-7
Some believe that the whole story about Jesus is myth or legend. It came about after many years as people began to make more and more extravagant claims about Jesus. It wouldn’t be the first time in history where someone was made better by word of mouth. Even today we have what I call fish stories. My father was fishing once with a very large fishing pole and he was having the fight of his life. He was pulling left and right, letting some string go and then reeling it back up. When he finally brought the fish up to the shore, it couldn’t have been more than four inches long, two inches tall, and more than a few ounces. By the time we had gotten home, that was the biggest fish he had ever caught. Now, we were all joking at the time but it is still an example of things growing bigger over time.
Didn’t the stories about Jesus come up the same way? In 1 Corinthians 15 we find a very short little passage which is commonly called a creed. Very few scholars doubt that Paul wrote this book of the bible or that this short section is a creed of the early church. If Paul learned this creed from the early church and Paul was converted in 34 A.D., he could have learned this creed as early as 4 years after the death of Christ. Some scholars say it could have originated as early as 32 A.D. or within 2 years of Christ’s death. That is amazingly early but what does the creed say? Paul says, “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of who remain until now, but some have fallen asleep.”
This creed confirms the key concepts that the Gospels record; Jesus died, was buried, rose on the third day, and then appeared to many people. If this creed can be confirmed to be so close to the day of Jesus death, it is hard to believe that any significant legend managed to slip into the story. This isn’t the only evidence that exists but it is one of the best. There is no logical reason not to accept this information as an actual creed of the early church that could not have been tampered with in such a short time frame. This isn’t the only evidence; we have an empty tomb to explain as well.
EMPTY Tomb –
The second “E” refers to the word empty. A few radical scholars argue that Jesus’ body never made it to the tomb or that the disciples went to the wrong tomb. According to the Gospels, a man named Joseph of Arimathea went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Joseph would then go and bury Jesus in his personal tomb after first embalming Jesus. Did this really happen? Well, Mark, the earliest gospel, was written somewhere around 50 A.D. this would mean that is was within 20 years of the death of Christ and that is a liberal dating much less a much more conservative number. This is still too short a time for legend. Also, why would Joseph dare to take such a chance unless he was sure of his belief? Joseph was a part of the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of the Jews, and by doing this he would have made himself an enemy of them. Joseph even gave up his own grave site which could easily have been defamed or himself killed for such an act. He would have to be pretty sure about this action before letting everyone know where the body was buried.
If Jesus was in the tomb, however, where is the tomb and how come we cannot find His body? Lee Strobel says that just recently archaeologists have found the tomb of Caiaphas and his family, the leader of the Jews who condemned Jesus, and yet they still haven’t found Jesus’ body. When Jesus was placed in the tomb, they would have rolled a very large and very heavy stone in front of the door. The Jews even had a roman guard placed at the tomb to guard it from grave robbers. The disciples were cowering in fear and dismay at the loss of their leader. They didn’t have any ambitions to steal the body. Even if they had tried, they would have died in the act by those Roman soldiers.
Allow me to give you the most poignant evidence: no one ever claims the tomb is anything but empty. Everyone in Jerusalem would have known exactly where the tomb was. The Jews and Romans would have gladly shown anyone their victorious triumph over Jesus Christ. Yet, on Easter morning, they all had to admit that they had no idea where Jesus’ body was. “The disciples had nothing to gain and everything to lose by stealing the body. Why would they want to live a life of deprivation and suffering and then be tortured to death for a lie? If this had been a charade, certainly one of them would have broken ranks under torture and told the truth.” Examine the evidence yourself but there is no good explanation of the empty tomb on the earth except the super-natural.
The evidence that supports Christianity is both extremely early and reliable. The tomb was never once questioned as anything less than empty. It was empty which left everyone with the question, “So where is the body?” No good explanation has been given to this day. Now, there is one more piece of evidence which is the answer to the last question: “Did people see Jesus after His death and burial?”
EYEWITNESSES Testimony
Scripture as well as Paul himself both claim that many people actually witnessed the resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ. Yet, as many scholars have noted, no one watched Jesus get up, wrap up his linens, push the stone out of the way, and walk out. How could there be any evidence since no one saw that? Do you believe in dinosaurs or black holes or the wind? We do not study dinosaurs. We study the bones they left behind. We don’t truly study black holes. We theorize that they exist to take up space that has no other explanation. We cannot see the wind but we can see the effects of wind such as a tree limb bending. In the same way, we can study Jesus Christ and the appearances without having to see Him leap out of the tomb. If He really died and people saw Him alive afterwards, then the resurrection had to have happened.
Lee Strobel makes a very good point about how many witnesses that were recorded. He says there were at least 515 different witnesses to the appearances of Christ. Strobel says, “If we were holding a trial to determine the facts concerning the resurrection, and if we were to call to the witness stand every eyewitness who personally encountered the resurrected Jesus and we cross-examined each of them for only 15 minutes, and if we went around the clock without a break, how long do you think we’d be sitting here? This first-hand, eyewitness testimony would continue through tonight, through all day Sunday and Sunday night, through all day Monday and Monday night, through all day Tuesday and Tuesday night, through all day Wednesday and Wednesday night, through all day Thursday -- and we’d be listening to the last eyewitness account at about 3 o’clock next Friday morning!”
Normally in cases, the court is lucky to have one or two witnesses much less around five-hundred. How do you explain so many people claiming to have seen Jesus? Maybe they were all hallucinating? One scholar said that “It would be a bigger miracle for those people to have hallucinated the same thing than for Jesus to have risen from the dead.” Maybe they were all conspiring to say the same thing? These men suffered and died in horrible ways for their belief in Jesus Christ; why in the world would you die for an idea you either a) know is wrong or b) only believe because other people do? They had nothing to gain from lying, considering they were despised and hated by pretty much everyone. What explanation can their possibly be for having so many witnesses? I would say that only the true resurrection of the Son of God could possibly explain it?
So, go ahead, do what so many before you have done, including myself; examine the facts surrounding the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Do your best to explain away the facts! You will find that the only reasonable and logical explanation is that Jesus Christ really did die, was buried, and then was resurrected again. In my experience no one dies and is seen next week. By all means, this is impossible. It just doesn’t make sense to believe in a “God” who dies, and then lives again to save people. What better explanation do you have?
THIS SERMON IS BASED ON LEE STROBEL’S BOOK "THE CASE FOR CHRST"
