In one of the great novels by George MacDonald, a Scottish writer from the 1800’s, an agnostic questions a young clergyman and asks, “Tell me honestly, do you really believe one word of all that? Did you ever notice how these Christian people, who profess to believe that their great man has conquered death, and all that rubbish—did you never observe the way they talk about death, or the eternity they say they expect beyond it? They talk about it in the abstract at one moment, but when it comes down to real life, in their hearts they have no hope, and in their minds they have no courage to face the facts of existence . . . They don’t really believe everything they say, or what they hear from the pulpit.” The problem with the young agnostic, and the problem with many like him today is: they hear Christians talking about the resurrection, heaven, eternal life, and all of the other wonderful tenets of the Christian faith, but they do not see those same people living out that hope in their day to day lives. They talk about these things as though they are realities, but when faced with a threatening situation there are some who fall apart as though Jesus’ victory over death were not true.
The first point I want to make about the resurrection of Jesus Christ today is: It is more than just a story. One Sunday morning after I had preached on the resurrection several years ago, a young woman came up to me and said, “Rev. Buchanan, I sat there with tears in my eyes this morning thinking how wonderful it would be if what you said were true.” If it were true? The resurrection is more than symbolism for a beautiful thought, it is reality. Someone has said, “The real problem of advancing the kingdom of God is not the unbelief of the world, but the half-belief of the church.”
How we view the reality of the resurrection is extremely important, for the resurrection is at the center of our faith. Christ’s death on the cross is very important, but it cannot be the end of our faith, the resurrection must be where our faith ultimately culminates. If Christ merely died for us, he would be no more or less than any other great man, but he did more: he rose from the dead. He conquered hell and the grave, and made eternity possible. If Christ only died, then the Bible says, “. . .your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. . . If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Corinthians 15:17-19). If Christ only died, then he is only a dead prophet. But if he did conquer death, he is the giver of resurrection life which is eternal.
J.B. Phillips tells us, “It is, of course, impossible to exaggerate the importance of the. . . Resurrection. If, after all his claims and promises, Christ had died and merely lived on as a. . . memory, he could only be revered as an extremely good but profoundly mistaken man. His claims to be God, his claims to be himself the very principle of Life, would be mere self-delusion.”
The thing which completely confounded the people living during the time of the early church was the tremendous courage and boldness with which the Apostles and early believers defied the threats of punishment and death. The fear of death no longer dominated them. They were not intimidated by the kingdom of the world, for something very profound had happened to them. They had witnessed a living Christ — after an awful death. Seeing that courage and faith in the early church brought many people to trust Christ for themselves. Conversely, seeing the lack of that kind of courage and faith has led many in our day to disbelieve the reality of it all. When they look at people who cannot witness to the goodness of God in their lives, then their skepticism is justified. People are attracted to a faith that is worth dying for, a faith that overcomes the fear of people and the fear of death, but they are repulsed by a faith that is so weak it falls apart in adversity, or dares not speak of God for fear of rejection. The early believers baffled, and even infuriated, the world of their day with their defiant courage. The world of our day often laughs at Christians who are afraid of life, let alone death.
The reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ should be the single most challenging and motivating principle of our lives. For it is the resurrection that gives us the promise of life beyond the grave and a purpose beyond this world. If it is true, then there can be no event in history, no technological achievement, no philosophical idea, or religious teaching as important as the fact of the resurrection. Nothing else has the potential to give us hope and purpose, to make our lives worth living, to change us entirely as the power of Christ to overcome the power of death.
In 1887, twenty-two years after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, his coffin was dug up and opened because there were persistent rumors that he was not in his grave after all. Fourteen years later, his withered body was again exhumed because rumors persisted that he was not there. But each time there were witnesses of the gruesome ceremony who attested to the fact that Lincoln was indeed still in his grave. Three days after the death of Christ, rumors of the same nature began to spread throughout the land of Israel. Only this time, there were no witnesses who could say they had seen his body. To the contrary, many witnesses claimed to have seen him out of his grave, and talked with him after his resurrection. As great a man as Lincoln was, there were witnesses to prove he was still in his grave many years after his death. And so, if a member of our government were to cry out for help to Lincoln, there would be no answer. If someone calls to Einstein for knowledge and wisdom there will only be empty silence. If someone calls to Ghandi for justice, no help will come. But if someone calls upon Jesus Christ, there is instantly available a power that can change life, influence destiny, and open eternity — all because he lives.
It is unthinkable to only accept the resurrection as a nice idea, or a wonderful symbolic story. It is not a symbol, it is a reality. If it is not true the whole Christian faith is a farce. But if it is true, then it is the single most important event in history, for on the day of the resurrection death died, hell was robbed, paradise was opened, true life began with new purpose and meaning, and hope dawned upon the human soul.
The second point I want to make about the resurrection of Jesus Christ is: It is the core doctrine of the Christian faith. Theologian Gerald O’Collins put it like this: “In a profound sense, Christianity without the resurrection is not simply Christianity without its final chapter. It is not Christianity at all.” That is just how important it is. Jesus saw his resurrection as the reason for his coming and the sign of the validity of his claims to be the promised Messiah and Son of God. To those who wanted to take his life he said, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:19). When asked by the Pharisees to show them a sign to validate his claims, he foretold his resurrection by saying, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:39,40). He promised his disciples he would be rise from the dead when he said to them, “The Son of Man will be betrayed. . . and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life ” (Matthew 20:18,19). Jesus saw the resurrection as his mission, for it was in the resurrection that he would overcome sin, conquer death, and offer eternal life. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25).
Belief in the resurrection of Christ is not an option for the Christian—it is one of the central issues of faith. The Bible says, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Paul is saying that a belief in the resurrection is necessary for salvation. There are many who say they believe in the resurrection of Christ, but in their heart secretly entertain it as myth. But this scripture plainly says that you must believe it in your heart. Your heart and mind must be convinced, and your actions and attitudes must show the result of the life-changing faith it brings. For Christ has given us his great promise and purpose, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:40). Many times as he was with his disciples he would tell them, not only of his coming death, but also of his subsequent resurrection. “After I have risen,” he said, “I will go ahead of you into Galilee” (Matthew 26:32). This was a planned event; he was completely aware of all he would both experience and do.
But Jesus did more than predict his own resurrection; he has also predicted yours. Jesus said, “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out — those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” (John 5:28-30). This scripture is telling us that Jesus Christ was the first to be permanently raised from the dead, and that we are next.
If we reject the reality of the resurrection then we have to explain the hundreds of people who claim to have seen him after his death (1 Corinthians 15:6). We have to annul the testimony of those who said they placed their hands in His wounds as he stood before them, very much alive. More than that, you have to disbelieve the millions through the ages who have confessed to a common experience of having had their lives changed completely by his living presence within them. How else can you explain the transformation of the Apostles from a rag-tag little band of bickering incompetents, to men who literally changed the world with their lives and message? And after Christ’s death, Peter, who had been so afraid before, fearlessly proclaimed before all the people in Jerusalem: “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (Acts 2:32,33). How else can you explain the transformation of people in our own day from self-centered, sinful, inadequate souls to people of newness and worth, if he is not alive?
The third thing I want to say about the resurrection of Jesus Christ is: It is the distinguishing mark of Christianity. It is said that Auguste Comte, the French philosopher, once decided to start a brand new religion to improve on Christianity and ultimately replace it. He began to develop its philosophy, moral tenets, ideals, and beliefs, but he was having trouble gaining support for his project. He shared his intention to start a new religion, and his problems with the project with Thomas Carlyle. He asked what advise Carlyle could give to help him in his enterprise. Carlyle replied that he did not know if such an undertaking would be possible, but after a moment he said, “There is one thing you might try. I suggest that you be crucified, rise from the dead on the third day, and get the world to believe that you are still alive.” Obviously Mr. Comte never followed through with the suggestion. He realized its impossibility. But the Christian faith is built on the fact that Jesus Christ did rise from the dead, and that he is still alive changing people’s lives today.
When modern minds try to explain away the resurrection, one of the means they use is to say that what really happened on Easter was that the disciples devised a “Passover plot.” That is to say, they secretly stole the body of Christ out of the tomb and hid it so well that no one has ever been able to find it. According to the theory, the disciples never breathed a word, to their dying day, about what they had really done, and deceived the whole world into believing Jesus had risen from the dead. But Chuck Colson, in his book Loving God, tells how impossible this would be from his own experience. Colson, as you remember, was Special Counsel to the President during the Nixon administration. He and the other members of the Nixon cabinet were a highly committed group of men with a sense of destiny concerning Nixon’s term as President. They had each attained positions of tremendous power and privilege. But after the Watergate scandal things began to fall apart. Colson describes the scene, “...even the prospect of jeopardizing the President we’d worked so hard to elect, of losing the prestige, power, and personal luxury of our offices was not enough incentive to make this group of men contain a lie. . . after just a few weeks the natural human instinct for self-preservation was so overwhelming that the conspirators, one by one, deserted their leader, walked away from their cause, turned their backs on the power, prestige, and privileges” (p.67).
What does this have to do with the resurrection? Just this, as Colson states it: “If one is to assail the historicity of the Resurrection and therefore the deity of Christ, one must conclude that there was a conspiracy — a cover-up if you will — by eleven men with the complicity of up to five hundred others. To subscribe to this argument, one must also be ready to believe that each disciple was willing to be ostracized by friends and family, live in daily fear of death, endure prisons, live penniless and hungry, sacrifice family, be tortured without mercy, and ultimately die — all without ever once renouncing that Jesus had risen from the dead ” Colson continues by saying, “This is why the Watergate experience is so instructive for me. If John Dean and the rest of us were so panic-stricken, not by the prospect of beatings and execution, but by political disgrace and a possible prison term, one can only speculate about the emotions of the disciples. . . . Yet they clung tenaciously to their enormously offensive story that their leader had risen from his ignoble death and was alive — and was the Lord” (p.68).
If the disciples were involved in a lie they pulled off the biggest cover-up in history. But look at them before the resurrection. One of the loyal twelve betrayed Him. The strongest of the disciples, and their natural leader, denied Him. The rest simply deserted Him. But after the resurrection there is an amazing transformation. They are, without exception, willing to endure every form of hardship, suffering, imprisonment, and even death. Only one thing can explain the change in their lives: the resurrection of their living Lord. Only one thing can bring true change into your heart and mine: the knowledge that he is alive, and that the power of his resurrected life is living within us.
On June 18, 1815 British General Arthur Wellington faced Napoleon in the decisive battle of Waterloo which would determine the future of England. To communicate the outcome of the battle, some of the towns from Belgium devised a system of communication by flashing lights from one church tower to another across the country until it was to go across the English Channel. When the battle was over, England had indeed proved victorious, and the joyous message was sent: “Wellington defeated Napoleon.” But as the message was received and sent by each church until it was to go across the channel to Great Britain, the fog began to rise. By the time the message was to go to Britain, the fog blocked the final part of the message so that it only read “Wellington defeated,” leaving people with the erroneous belief that England was doomed. For hours, the nation feared the battle was lost and any hope for the future was gone — until the fog lifted and they had the complete message: “Wellington Defeated Napoleon.” On Good Friday, the early Christians were like those in England believing an erroneous message: “Jesus Defeated.” But when the fog lifted on Sunday morning they saw the complete message: “Jesus Defeated Death.”
I believe in the resurrection!
Rodney J. Buchanan
July 20, 2003
Mulberry St. UMC
Mt. Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
