OPEN: Back when I was in High School, I had a poem by John Donne on a poster on my wall that looked like parchment paper. It was cool, and the words sounded impressive. The last few words of the poem read this way: “Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom THE BELL TOLLS, it tolls for thee.
Now, I loved that poem. It sounded so eloquent and profound, but I didn’t really know what a lot of it meant, especially the part about “tolling a bell.”
I’ve since found out that there’s a difference between “ringing” a bell and “tolling” a bell. When you ring a bell, the clapper hits the INSIDE of the bell and gives a loud and sweet sound. But when you TOLL a bell, you hit the OUTSIDE of the bell with a hammer and the sound is somewhat somber and sorrowful. Tolling a bell is what some churches (even today) do when a person has died. The bell is tolled once for every year the deceased had lived.
THAT’S WHAT THEY DO… FOR THE DEAD.
What I found intriguing about our text is that everyone in this part of the story believed Jesus was dead, and that – once they buried Him – He wouldn’t rise from the dead. The Jews, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, and the Roman soldiers - they all believed Jesus was dead and He was not coming back.
That thought raised the question in my mind: What do you with Jesus, if you don’t believe He’s coming back? What do you do with a dead Jesus?
Well, the Jewish leaders wanted Him dead and gone. The sooner He was buried… the better. We’re told that the Jews (probably the High Priest & Sanhedrin) had asked that the legs of those on the cross should be broken and the dead be taken away. The Jewish leaders had no concerns that He would ever rise from the dead because they didn’t believe anyone would come back from the dead. You see, the High Priest and majority of the Sanhedrin were part of a sect called the Sadducees. The Sadducees didn’t believe God could do much of anything, including raising people from the dead. In other words, they believed NO ONE was coming back from the dead. In fact, they furiously opposed that idea! (see Acts 23:6-10)
And they’re not the only ones who’ve ever fought against that doctrine. A few years ago, Newsweek magazine writer named Lisa Miller (March 25th - April 5th , 2010 - on blog) wrote this: “This story (of Christ’s resurrection) has strained the credulity of even the most devoted believer. For, truly, it’s unbelievable… Resurrection presented credibility problems from the outset (Sadducees). Resurrection may be unbelievable, but belief in a traditional heaven requires it. For my part, I don’t buy it.”
ILLUS: In 1804, Thomas Jefferson wrote his own version of the New Testament. And on the dust jacket of that book he wrote that he had: “set out to edit the Gospels in order to uncover the essence of true religion in the simple story of the Life of Jesus. Jefferson was convinced that the authentic message of Jesus could be found only by extracting from the Gospels Jesus’ message of absolute love and service, rather than the miracle of the Annunciation, Virgin Birth, or even the resurrection.” It’s not surprising, then, that the last sentence in the “Gospel According to Jefferson” reads: “There they laid Jesus. And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed.”
As far as Lisa Miller & Thomas Jefferson were concerned - Jesus was STILL in the grave. But it wasn’t enough for them to just believe that. They had to convince you of what they … didn’t believe. They’d become just like the High Priest and Sanhedrin of Jesus’ day. They became missionaries AGAINST Jesus. They deliberately set out to destroy any belief that Jesus would ever rise from the dead. And they’re not the only ones who’ve done this.
You’ll find missionaries who oppose Jesus posing as “experts” on TV channels like “The History Channel” and “PBS”. They write books, they post videos on YouTube, and they aggressively oppose a RISEN Jesus. And if you’re not careful, these “teachers” and “experts” can seriously damage your faith.
I think that’s what happened to Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. John 19:39 tells us that “Nicodemus, who earlier had come to Jesus by night” and John 19:38 explains that “Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews.”
These men were followers of Jesus, but they were afraid of what their friends would say if they found out. When you spend your time with people who ridicule your faith, sometimes it’s hard to hang on to what you believe.
Now, because Nicodemus & Joseph had spent time with those kinds of people, they’d become convinced that Jesus wasn’t coming back from the dead. I mean, it’s not like they didn’t KNOW Jesus said He’d rise from the dead! EVERYBODY KNEW ABOUT THAT!
Matthew 27:62-64 tells us - the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember how that impostor said, while he was still alive, ‘AFTER THREE DAYS I WILL RISE.’ Therefore order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people, ‘He has risen from the dead,’ and the last fraud will be worse than the first.”
Nicodemus and Joseph probably knew what Jesus had said, they just didn’t believe it. And, how do I know these two men didn’t believe Jesus would rise? John 19:39-40 tells us Nicodemus “came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they (apparently Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea) took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.”
75 POUNDS OF MYRRH AND ALOES!!!! That’s a lot of spice. And there’s a lot of money wrapped up in those spices. If they truly believed Jesus would rise from the dead in 3 days that would have been huge waste of money.
ILLUS: I mean, if you believed that – after I’d died – I was going to rise 3 days later, you wouldn’t go and buy me an expansive casket. A cardboard box would do the job.
You see, the problem for Nicodemus and Joseph was that they’d hung out with the wrong people. Their friends and associates rejected Jesus, and had no faith in a God who could raise the dead. So that lack of faith influenced what they believed … or didn’t believe.
The Church in Corinth had that problem. There were false teachers in that church who taught that the dead would not rise. In 1 Corinthians 15:32 Paul wrote: “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’”
If Jesus hasn’t been raised from the dead, you may as well go out and party because it won’t make any difference how you lived! When you died, you’d stay in the grave.
And Paul writes in I Corinthians 15:12-20 “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
(Put the next verse on a screen by itself)
“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
You see, the resurrection from the dead is the core of our faith. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, we’re doomed to be dead in our sins. Our faith is empty if Jesus didn’t rise. But Jesus DID rise from the dead!
And since Jesus rose from the dead… we will too!!!
In fact, that truth (that we’ll rise from the grave) is driven home to us when we’re baptized into Christ. In baptism we die to our sins; we’re buried in watery grave; and we rise from that grave to walk in newness of life.
Now, my point is this: it’s critical that we be careful WHO we listen to. There are people out there who will damage your faith because they’ll try to convince you of what they don’t believe. They do what men have always done who believe that Jesus is dead. That happened to me when I went to Purdue University back in the 70s. There were professors there who made it their mission to destroy the faith of Christians. They were committed to convincing us what THEY DIDN’T BELIEVE!
In one philosophy class, the professor said “Jesus did not die on the cross, and I can prove it” and then he went on to prove his case. “When a person dies,” he said “their heart stops pumping and gravity takes over. Thus, if you were to die right now, seated at your desks, your blood would eventually settle in your waist and below. But, when Jesus ‘died’ on the cross, a Roman soldier pierced his side and blood and water came out. That proves he hadn’t died. If he’d been dead, the blood would not have been there.”
That made sense to my mind, and created a crisis of faith. I went back to my dorm room and sat down to talk to God. I told Him (in no uncertain terms) that if He couldn’t answer this objection I’d go sell insurance or something – because I wasn’t about to go stand in a pulpit and find myself preaching out of a book I couldn’t defend.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t go looking for the answer to my crisis. I didn’t talk to a preacher or to the campus minister; I just waited on God to deal with it. And, to my amazement, He did. About a month later I was sitting in another Philosophy class. The class had ended - small group of students was gathered around professor’s desk. Curious to hear what they were talking about, I joined their group… and then I heard the teacher say this: “I just learned the most intriguing thing this past weekend. Do you remember where the Bible says Jesus died on the cross? (This got my immediately got my attention). Do you remember where it says that a Romans soldier pierced Christ’s side and blood and water? (Now the man really had my attention). Apparently, there’s a condition known as ‘cardiac tamponade’. What causes cardiac tamponade is that some people can literally undergo so much stress in their lives that their hearts actually burst. When that happens, the blood from the heart mixes with the liquid in the pericardium – a sack that surrounds the heart. If you were to pierce that sack, what you’d see come out would be ‘blood and water.’”
That made sense to me on two levels: 1) If I cut your arm, blood and water don’t come out. Only blood. 2) Biblically, it would be logical for the physical heart of Jesus to burst from “stress”. The Scriptures tell us that when Jesus died on the cross, He bore all the sins of mankind on that one body, at that one point in time. When Jesus died, it wasn’t from the cross. Luke 23:46 tells us “Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.” Jesus’ physical body died when He gave up control of it at that specific time. And at that point, all the pressure of all of our sins would have overwhelmed His mortal body - and I can visualize His heart snapping like a rubber band stretched to its breaking point.
To say the least, I was impressed. In fact, I was so impressed that when I went to Bible college the next year I was determined to share this wonderful insight with my Bible College professors. But, of course, Bible College Professors often know things like this… that’s why they’re professors. As I shared my story with one of them, he smiled and said, “Oh Jeff, it’s even better than that.” He continued by saying “When Jesus died, they put Him on the cross at 9 in the morning, and He died at 3 in the afternoon. Passover, was one of the biggest sacrifice days of the year, but folks could only offer their sacrifices while the Temple was open. The first sacrifice was offered at 9 in the morning and the last sacrifice was offered at 3 in the afternoon. “On Passover, people were lined up around the block with their lambs to be sacrificed, and a lot of blood was shed at the Temple that day. What do you think they did to clean up all that blood? Well, they had developed a way to pump water up from beneath the Temple floor, and they washed down the altar, the utensils and floor. But where do suppose that liquid went then? Well, they had a trench and the liquid was carried out beneath the walls of Jerusalem and was deposited into the Kidron Valley which lies between Jerusalem and the Garden of Gethsemane. The blood from the sacrifices so drenched the mud of Kidron brook’s banks that farmers would come and collect the mud to put on their fields, because of the nutrients it held. “Now,” he continued, “if you’d been sitting outside the walls of Jerusalem about 3:30 or so that afternoon, what do you suppose you’d have seen coming out of the pipes from the Temple? Blood and water.”
What intrigues me the most about this story is that there is only ONE Gospel that records the Roman soldier piercing Jesus’ side - the Gospel of John. And John doesn’t even care. The part about the “blood and water” was just an aside that he mentions because it proves his main point: “The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken,’ and, as another scripture says, ‘They will look on the one they have pierced.’” John 19:35-37.
John didn’t care if it had been blood and water, or just blood. He just wanted to prove that Jesus’ bones didn’t need to be broken, because a Passover sacrifice was unacceptable if its bones were broken.
CLOSE: From that day on I’ve never trusted “experts” who try to get folks to accept what they DON’T BELIEVE about Jesus. Such skeptics and critics do what all such people have done with what they believe is a "dead" Jesus - they criticize and sow seeds of doubt.
But we serve a risen savior... in fact there's an old hymn that says (recite the words) “I SERVE A RISEN SAVIOUR, He's in the world today. I know that He is living, WHATEVER MEN MAY SAY. I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer. And just the time I need Him He's always near."
Sing the chorus with me: "He lives (He lives), He lives (He lives), Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way. He lives (He lives), He lives (He lives), Salvation to impart
You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.”
INVITATION
