Easter talk, No.1
Let’s suppose some components arrive in a factory. They’re inspected. They pass the inspection and they continue into the factory. There was a fact: the components passed the inspection. The fact led to a decision: the components are received.
We may not work in business or manufacturing, but we intuitively follow the same process. Here’s an example. On Friday morning, a man called Edgar was expecting to fly from Heathrow to Paris to see his goddaughter. Then he heard on the news that Heathrow had closed due to a power failure. Edgar didn’t want to cancel his trip. He acted quickly. He expected that Eurostar would be very busy. But he could get his car onto a ferry. So, he did that. Edgar grasped a fact, he understood the significance of the fact and he made a decision based on that fact.
Facts are important. If the facts we have are wrong, the decision is likely to be wrong.
I became a Christian when I was about ten. When I was about 12, I went to a boarding school. I hadn’t hidden the fact that I was a Christian. After a while, I found it was really hard to be a Christian. Being a Christian made me different. I didn’t want to be a Christian. But I remember thinking to myself: if it’s true, I can’t quit. I need to know if it’s true. At the age of 14 or 15, I started to investigate. I found facts. I understood the significance of the facts. I made a decision. I would continue as a Christian.
Our faith as Christians is founded on facts. We become Christians on the basis of facts and we continue as Christians on the basis of facts. We need to be confident that our facts are true, and we need to understand the significance of those facts.
For Christians, there is one fact that towers above all other facts in its importance. It is that God raised Jesus from the dead.
I said that when I was at school, I decided to investigate. One thing I did was to read a booklet titled ‘The Evidence for the Resurrection.’ The author, Sir Norman Anderson, started as follows: ‘Easter is not primarily a comfort, but a challenge. Its message is either THE SUPREME FACT IN HISTORY or else a gigantic hoax.’ As far as Sir Norman Anderson was concerned, Easter – in other words, Jesus’ resurrection – isn’t simply the most important fact FOR CHRISTIANS. It’s THE SUPREME FACT IN HISTORY.
We might be surprised at this. We might think, ‘Is Jesus’ resurrection more important than his crucifixion?!’ That’s a bit like asking if water is more important than oxygen. We need them both. Jesus’ crucifixion and his resurrection are also both vital. But Jesus himself pointed to his resurrection as THE vital sign.
There was an occasion when some scribes and Pharisees told Jesus, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.’ Jesus replied: ‘An evil and adulterous generation craves a sign. Yet no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah, because just as Jonah was in the stomach of the sea creature for three days and three nights, SO THE SON OF MAN WILL BE IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH FOR THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS’ [Matthew 12:38-42].
Jesus was clearly talking about his resurrection. He knew that he would die, but he also knew that after three days, God would raise him back to life. That would be the sign.
Sir Norman Anderson believed that Easter is the supreme fact in history.
Jesus said that no sign would be given to his generation except this sign – that is, his resurrection. If there would be no sign except this sign, then this is the only sign. And if it’s the only sign it is of course the most important sign. There are no competitors.
It doesn’t matter much if we call Jesus’ resurrection the supreme fact in history or the most important sign. Jesus’ resurrection is the fact, above any other fact, that establishes the truth of the Christian faith.
If we’re thinking of BECOMING a Christian but we aren’t sure, Jesus’ resurrection is the place to come to.
In the 1970s, Lee Strobel was a journalist for the Chicago Tribune. He was married to Leslie, and at some point, Leslie became a Christian. Lee was an atheist, and he wasn’t happy that Leslie had become a Christian. He decided to use his skills as a journalist to disprove Christianity. A Christian colleague told him that the resurrection of Christ is a key linchpin. If he could disprove Jesus’ resurrection, then the whole Christian faith would crumble. Lee set to work – but his research brought him to a very different conclusion. He later wrote, ‘It was the evidence from science and history that prompted me to abandon my atheism and become a Christian.’
If we’re thinking of GIVING UP as a Christian, Jesus’ resurrection is also the place to come to. I’ve already mentioned my own experience. When I thought of quitting as a Christian, I looked at the arguments for the resurrection. I saw that the evidence was very, very, solid. That was one of the things which persuaded me not to give up.
So, you may ask, what IS the evidence? Sir Norman Anderson was a lawyer. He takes what I think is probably a lawyer’s approach. He checks if THE DOCUMENTS are reliable. He checks if THE WITNESSES are reliable. He checks if THE ACCOUNT makes sense. He asks if SOME OTHER EXPLANATION would make more sense. Could Jesus’ disciples have stolen his body? Could the Jewish authorities have stolen his body? Perhaps Jesus wasn’t actually dead when he was laid in the tomb? Anderson looks at all sorts of suggestions and shows that none of them hold water. Then Anderson comes to what, for me, is the most convincing piece of evidence of all: the change in Jesus’ disciples. After Jesus’ disciples realised that Jesus was alive, they were transformed! They defended themselves at the Jewish council. They worked miracles. They travelled to Europe, Asia and Africa, proclaiming that Jesus was alive. They would never have done all those things if they didn’t believe that Jesus really was alive. That’s just a taste of Sir Norman Anderson’s arguments.
Many aspects of Lee Strobel’s approach are similar to Sir Norman Anderson’s. But he goes into more detail and enlists the help of specialists.
Could Jesus have survived his crucifixion? Strobel goes to a famous forensic pathologist. The pathologist tells him that there was no way Jesus could have survived his crucifixion.
Was Jesus’ empty tomb really empty? Strobel goes to a famous philosopher and Christian apologist. He convinces him that Jesus’ tomb was indeed empty.
Finally, Strobel asks, can we believe the account of all the people who the Bible tells us saw the risen Jesus? Strobel goes to a professor of apologetics and philosophy. He convinces Strobel that we have good reason to believe the Bible’s record of all the people who saw Jesus, risen from the dead.
I’ve mentioned Sir Norman Anderson and Lee Strobel. They are just two of the people who asked, did God really raise Jesus from the dead? Many others have, with the same result. [There’s a good summary in this clip: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=978803368978294.]
The evidence is there, and it’s persuasive. But are we open to being persuaded?
About 15 years ago, I bought a book titled ‘The Death of Truth.’ The book is a compilation of essays by different people. The first essay is by someone called Dennis Callum. He writes, ‘Postmodernism, as it applies to our everyday lives, IS THE DEATH OF TRUTH AS WE KNOW IT.’ Wow!
In 2018, someone called Michiko Kakutani also published book titled ‘The Death of Truth.’ In her book Kakutani sets out to examine ‘how a disregard for facts, the displacement of reason by emotion, and the corrosion of language ARE DIMINISHING THE VERY VALUE OF TRUTH.’
I went to Britannica – what used to be Encyclopaedia Brittanica – with the question, ‘What do postmodernists believe?’ It told me, ‘Many postmodernists hold one or more of the following views: (1) there is no objective reality; (2) THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC OR HISTORICAL TRUTH.’
Václav Havel, who was once the president of the Czech Republic, gave a speech in which he said, ‘We live in the postmodern world, where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain.’
In the past, if you had an X and a Y chromosome you were male. In the past, if the medical profession told you that a vaccine would protect you, you would probably believe them. In the present, the vast majority of scientists say that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity. But people today are sceptical of all these things. People today don’t just accept something as ‘truth’. In fact, people today question the very concept of truth.
For us as Christians this may seems very alarming. We base our faith on FACTS and above all on the fact of Jesus’ resurrection. But if people aren’t willing to accept that anything is true, if they don’t even accept the concept of truth, how do we share our faith?!
It seems very difficult. But I don’t think everyone has moved over to postmodern thinking. I think lots of people know that there is such a thing as truth, seek truth, and know truth when they find it. Let me offer a little illustration.
On March 4th, President Trump made his first speech to Congress following his re-election as president. In his speech, he said the following:
‘We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors and that our seniors and people that we love rely on.’
President Trump then gave some facts in support of his assertion. He reeled out the number of people of various ages in the US Social Security system. Millions were impossibly old. ‘Money is being paid to many of them’, President Trump said.
After President Trump’s speech there was a flurry of ‘fact-checking’ reports. And a few weeks after President Trump’s speech I got a copy of the magazine ‘Time’ through my letterbox. It discussed President Trump’s speech in an editorial section. The writers commented, ‘The figures he [President Trump] quoted had been thoroughly debunked … there’s no proof any of those “people” are getting monthly checks. BUT FACTS WERE NOT THE POINT. The night of March 4 was entirely about feelings.’
What does this show?
At the start of this talk, I mentioned Edgar, who booked his car on a ferry to France. He knew that facts are important. He paid attention to facts.
There are people out there, people like Edgar, people like the fact-checkers, people like the writers of the Time magazine editorial, who know that facts are important. Facts are important if we want to make correct decisions. And THE SUPREME FACT IN HISTORY is VITALLY important. It is a fact that should fundamentally change the way we live our lives.
In the coming weeks, we’ll look at HOW Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection should affect us.
But first, we need to be confident of our facts. Did God really raise Jesus from the dead? What’s your answer? Our answer to that question determines the course of our lives.
If you have any doubt, do what Lee Strobel did. Investigate. The answer is there to be found.
TALK GIVEN AT ROSEBERY PARK BAPTIST CHURCH, BOURNEMOUTH, UK, 10.30 A.M. SERVICE, 23RD MARCH 2025
