I thought we’d start this morning with the top ten list of excuses the Roman guards might have given for the empty tomb.
10. "I thought he was the pizza delivery guy leaving. No wondered he smiled when I tried to give him a tip!"
9. "I was putting another denarius in the chariot meter!"
8. "With the earth shakin’ and all the bright lights, we figgered we was abducted by aliens!"
7. "Since the tomb was already empty when the stone was rolled away, I’m afraid you’re speaking to the wrong department. Let me give you a BR#245-A-Res form and direct you to Burial Services."
6. "As we’ve already stated several times before, according to the legal definition of "escape", we emphatically deny any wrongdoing in this matter!"
5. "We was HYPNO-TIZED! Centurion Bobicus is still clucking like a chicken!"
4. "You told us to secure the tomb as best as we know how (Mat. 27:65). We did! May I suggest an assessment of our current training program?
3. "All I know is, this better not mess up my early retirement package!
2. "Hey! What’d you expect? Did you tell us we were guarding the Son of God?- NOOOOOOOOO!"
1. "What’s the big deal? He said He’d be back!"
Jesus Christ superstar – why is it typical? about the life of someone ends with his death – but misses the point it stops before the resurrection
N T Wright said
"Why did christianity arise, and why did it take the shape it did? The early Christians themselves reply: We exist because of Jesus’ resurrection…. There is no evidence for a form of early Christianity in which the resurrection was not a central belief. Nor was this belief, as it were, bolted on to Christianity at the edge. It was the central driving force, informing the whole movement."...
The resurrection stands at the very heart of Christianity. The cross is important as we looked at on Friday, although much more could have been said about the centrality and importance of the cross, those of you who were there weer probably happy that it was not. But the fact remains that it would have been useless without the resurrection which followed. It is so central that the whole Christian calendar is centred round it. The Jews worshiped God on the sabbath which was the last day of the week due to the fact that God rested on the seventh day. We worship on the first day of the week. This because the early Christians used to meet together on the first day of the week to celebrate and remember the resurrection. In the gospel of John, John explores the idea of the resurrection through a particular angle which we will look at, the idea of new creation.
Makeover programs my fiancée loves UK style and all the house and garden makover programs, they take an old room and some old stuff and completely remake it into something beautiful (yes, this was one makeover program that did actually produce something nice) Battered trumpet and trombone -> lights, old shelves -> into base for the lamp, floor -> floor boards. New creation, making something new out of the old.
This theme first begins write at the start of the book in John 1:1, where we are told “In the beginning was the word ...”, which is clearly meant as an echo of Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God ...”. What follows are then some ideas of a new creation Jesus is the new creation, the theme is then echoed in the story of the water turned to wine. The theme does not come up in the rest of the book until we come to the crucifixion and resurrection. Suddenly this whole new creation idea comes back to the fore. Again John’s style is to not only tell the story but to choose the details carefully and tell it in such a way to bring to mind echoes of other things and familiar stories, these help us to understand what is really going on.
The first echo we find is when in the trial before Pilate, when Pilate finds Jesus innocent, he presents Jesus to the crowd with the word “Here is the man”. This takes place on the sixth day of the week, the day man was created. Like on so many occasions in John’s gospel what is being said goes beyond the simple statements as understood by the person making the statement but has a deeper meaning that John intends for his readers to understand. Jesus is being presented as the real man, the new creation, the true Adam who was made in the image of God and is God’s representative on earth.
On the 7th day God rested and Jesus remained in the tomb. However, on the 8th day a new thing happens, a new creation. Jesus is raised to new life. There is a kind of two stage process here. Firstly, when Jesus came to earth to be born as a man, then he was the new creation, but he was also identifying with the old creation. Becoming like us, so that he could save us. He delivered that old humanity up to death. But he came through death to new life. And that new life was the second part of the new creation. Now the new creation is made complete.
It is important to notice what we mean by a resurrection. This is not the same as resuscitation, nor even the same as the raising of Lazarus to life in John 11. If you look at the two accounts of Lazarus and Jesus you can see that there are significant differences between the two accounts and the story is told that way to highlight the differences between what happened to Lazarus and Jesus. We’re not going to go into all those differences this morning, but if you’re interested and have a copy of the Bible then you will be able to look at the two accounts and note the differences. What is important is why there are differences. What is the difference between what happened to Lazarus and what happened to Jesus.
Lazarus was restored to life. He could still get sick, he would still grow old and in time he would die again. Lazarus was not a new creation, he was merely the reanimation of an old one. Jesus was a new creation. His new body was different to his old one. Some people that should have recognised Jesus, didn’t for a while. Partly this has to do what you expect to see, his disciples thought that Jesus was dead and so they were not expecting to see him. But there is more to it than this. Jesus does things that he did not do before, he enters and leaves locked rooms seemingly at will, and he is somehow not the same. Jesus would never again have to die. But we also need to recognise that this was not simply a Spiritual resurrection in the sense that it was only Jesus’ Spirit hanging around before it drifted up to heaven. Jesus was not a ghost. He had a real physical body, even if it was somewhat different to the ones we had. The exact details of what Jesus’ new body was like are not provided. We know that somehow it was different and somehow it was the same. It wasn’t a completely new body but was some how related to the old body because well the old body was gone. It had continuity. The tomb was empty. The old body was changed. What we do know is that it was eternal, incorruptible and yet also physical. To some Christians this idea of a physical resurrection might not be familiar, I hope it is because it has been the bedrock of Easter and the Christian faith since its inception. I remind you of the quote from N. T. Wright that we started with "Why did christianity arise, and why did it take the shape it did? The early Christians themselves reply: We exist because of Jesus’ resurrection…. There is no evidence for a form of early Christianity in which the resurrection was not a central belief. Nor was this belief, as it were, bolted on to Christianity at the edge. It was the central driving force, informing the whole movement." The Apostle’s creed which dates from around the middle of the second century says “The third day He arose again from the dead.” While the Nicene-Constantinople Creed, which has been the cornerstone of Christian authenticity throughout the world since it was revised in 381AD it says “On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; ”
The resurrection was an idea in the ancient world that didn’t really gain much acceptance at the time of Christ. The idea was that the resurrection was a physical thing which happened and gave people immortality. Most people in the ancient world didn’t think much of the idea and regarded it as impossible, they were quite happy with some sort of Spiritual after life or someone rising from the dead to die again but the idea of permanent physical resurrection, nah don’t be stupid. However, most Jewish, with the except of the Sadducees accepted the idea of the resurrection but they put it a time in the future when the Kingdom of God came into existence and then all the righteous would raised at the same time. This idea of a single resurrection of one person before this time was not even considered. But then comes Jesus.
He is the new creation. Jesus is the first to undergo the resurrection and become the new creation. But he was only the first. Jesus resurrection points towards our resurrection. 1 John 3:2 says “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:20 “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” Because Jesus was raised so we too can be raised. Because Jesus took on our condition and went through death but came out on the other side so we too can go through death and come out to the resurrection on the other side as well.
According to an illustration I read possums are supposed to be smart animals. However, this is not universally held since at for at least some people they only time they see a possum is when it’s dead on the road. In America where Possums are common there’s a joke that goes, “why did the chicken cross the road? To prove to the possum that it could be done!” But possums, it turns out, are smart. They won’t enter a hole if there’s just one set of tracks going into it. They know there’s something in there. But if there are two sets of tracks. The possum will enter and not be afraid. The message of Easter is that we can enter the grave - we don’t have to fear death because there are tracks leading out of the tomb
The idea that we too are part of the new creation is also included here in the resurrection appearances as well as at the start of John. Jesus breathes on disciples and says receive the Holy Spirit, if we compare this with Genesis when God created man, He breathed into man and he became a living being. The parallel is striking. Its worth noting that Spirit, breath, wind are all the same word in Hebrew and Greek. Here Jesus is saying you are now part of the new creation. Just like Jesus was part of the new creation but then became so in a fuller sense when he was resurrected so we too when we trust in Jesus and become Christians become part of the new creation but we also await our resurrection when the process will be completed.
This last element is enforced in verse 31, where we are told that the purpose of the book is that we may believe in Jesus and so believing have life – new life. To be part of the new creation. There is a new creation, there is a resurrection to look forward to but it is not for everyone. It is for those who choose to believe in Jesus. They will be resurrected at the end of the age to enjoy eternity with Jesus.
In one of his lighter moments, Benjamin Franklin penned his own epitaph.:
The Body of B. Franklin, Printer
Like the Cover of an old Book
Its contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering and Guilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms,
But the Work shall not be wholly lost:
For it will, as he believ’d,
Appear once more
In a new & more perfect Edition,
Easter brings hope. It brings hope of a life and a world that is better than the current one. It is at the time of spring and brings new life. It talks about death not being the end of having something to look froward to after death. It speaks not of a disembodied states where we float around on clouds, but of a bodily resurrection and entrance into a new Kingdom of God without death, suffering pain or sin. But it brings hope for those who trust in Jesus. But we must emphasise that it is for those who believe in Jesus. John emphasises this when he states that he wrote the book so that people might believe and so believing have life. It is only as they believe and trust in Jesus that they become part of the new creation and the resurrection to come. It is only as you believe that you can become part of the new creation and the resurrection.
Because that’s the exciting thing about Easter, its not just something you watch, its a participation sport. And I’m not talking about helping your children eat their easter eggs. Participation in the resurrection is open to all, but it is only on the condition that we participate in the crucifixion. As Paul puts we are crucified with Christ. Not in the sense of actually been nailed to a wooden cross, unlike some parts of the world where every year people are tied to crosses in memory of Jesus, this is kind of missing the point that what Jesus did was on our behalf. But that we die to self, that our old sinful, self interest, who we were before we met Christ is to die, is to be no more. Only when we surrender our old life, through repentance, can we rise with Christ to new life, both now and in the resurrection to come. Without this participation Easter looses all meaning. Easter is not about simply looking at what Jesus did and arguing over the facts of the resurrection or debating exactly how many times Jesus appeared before Pilate. It is not even about looking at the cross and being filled with awe at the love that held God there. It is about participation. It is about following Christ in killing our character of sinful self interest and about rising to new life and participating in the resurrection.
