EASTER 2006
Story: There is a story told, about a painting of Goethe’s Faust on display in the magnificent Louvre Museum in Paris, France.
In the picture, Faust is seated at a table engaged in a competitive game of chess.
And at first glance, it looks like Faust is losing. His opponent in the chess game is Satan. The devil sits there grinning smugly.
He thinks he has the victory in hand.
He is pointing at the chessboard with an evil leer and he is gloating.
As you look at the painting, you can almost hear the devil shouting:
"Checkmate! Game’s over! I win!"
However, a person with a keen eye who knows the game of chess can see that the match is not over at all.
Just a few years ago, an internationally famous chess player was admiring the painting when all of a sudden he lunged forward and exclaimed:
"Wait a minute! Look! Faust has another move and that move will give him the victory!"
The painting is something of a parable for us Christians, because here we see symbolized the good news of Easter.
Think of it. When we look at the Cross on Good Friday, it looks (at first glance) like evil has won.
It looks like the defeat of righteousness.
It looks like goodness is dead and buried forever.
It looks like Jesus has been silenced and conquered.
But then, Easter Sunday morning reveals God’s move, the greatest checkmate move of all time.
Christ comes out of the grave and into our lives with power and victory.Eric S. Ritz, The Ritz Collection.
Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. But is it true?
Professor Charlie Moule, the famous NT theologian once said:
"the birth and rapid rise of the Christian Church ... remains an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the church itself - the resurrection." (C.F.D. Moule, The Phenomenon of the New Testament).
Most Sundays we profess our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead when we say the words of the Creed:
“ I believe ..….in Jesus Christ,
his only Son our Lord who was
Conceived by the Holy Spirit,
Born of the Virgin Mary,
Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead and buried
He descended into Hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead”
(The Apostles Prayer - BCP)
The Resurrection is a major pillar of our faith
St. Paul put it like this:
“..if Christ has not been raised from the dead, your faith is futile” (I Cor. 15: 17)
With such a ridiculous claim, have you ever stopped to consider the question:
“How on earth did Christianity ever get
off the ground?”
What do I mean?
There are a number of logical reasons why Christianity should never have got off the ground?
1. His background
Firstly, its founder, Jesus of Nazareth was an obscure carpenter from a backwoods of the Roman Empire Israel.
He wasn’t even a priest or a civil dignitary or a general.
He didn’t come from the one big city in Israel -Jerusalem, but from a rural backwoods – Nazareth in Galilee.
2. Political and Religious support
Jesus: The “Good and the Great” in the land did not flock to his gospel.
In fact quite the reverse. They rejected his message.
Only the common people took him to heart – and at the end they deserted him.
Mohammed: In contrast when the founder of Islam, Mohammed died, he left an empire and a powerful army in place to defend it.
Buddha. By the time Buddha had died, he had enlisted the nobility of Nepal in his cause.
3. Short term ministry
Jesus: Jesus only ministered for three and a half short years.
Mohammed: When Mohammed died, he had ministered close on 40 years and had left a book – “The Koran”.
Buddha: When the Buddha died he too had taught for many years and left his “Writings”.
Jesus: Jesus himself wrote nothing and at the time of his death, none of the New Testament books had been written. Unlike Mohammed - who commanded a mighty army until his death, Jesus didn’t even hold a civic office.
4. His death
Jesus: Jesus was put on trial on trumped up charges and crucified – an event we remember each year on Good Friday. His followers fled and left him to it.
They fled back to Galilee and that should have been the end of it.
Mohammed/Buddha: In contrast Mohammed died with great honour and had set up a state machinery to continue the religion he had founded – as did the Buddha in Nepal..
In short, Jesus had all the hallmarks of a man who it wouldn’t take too long to forget.
Now conventional wisdom would say that this is not a way to start a world religion.
And then - to top it all – his disciples made the ridiculous claim – that Jesus had risen from the dead
But it wasn’t just the disciples that made these claims.
5. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
Jesus made some very curious claims.
One of these was when he said: “I am the Resurrection and the Life” (Jn 11:25).
When his followers claimed- like Mary Magdalene in this morning’s gospel reading – why were they believed?
And not only believed but from then on Christianity grew exponentially.
The final nail in the coffin of Christianity should
have come when his disciples dared to suggest that Jesus had risen from the dead. After all, he was crucified and certified dead by the Roman authorities.
Let’s face it – no one in their right mind would MAKE UP such a ridiculous story about someone coming back from the dead.
And if they had - would they seriously have been prepared to die for it - as ten of the apostles and St. Paul did.
None of the adherents of the other world’s great religions has ever even suggested that their founder has risen from the dead.
Surely making such a claim was a sure way to oblivion. Unless of course it really happened!!
One English House of Lord Judge Lord Darling said this about the veracity, in his opinion, of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ:
” In its favour as living truth, there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true “
5. The Witnesses
St. Paul - who was no man’s fool - had this to say:
that Jesus after his resurrection
….appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. (1 Cor. 15:3-8).
How many people did Paul say had witnessed the risen Christ? Answer: 514 men.
Obviously as he claimed that many of the witnesses to Christ’ resurrection were still living at the time Paul wrote.
Paul’s enemies could have refuted him by challenging him to prove it.
But – if you read the book of Acts they never bothered.
And I don’t think there is a book in the NT that doesn’t focus somewhere on the Resurrection.
For example, St. Peter writing in his first epistle writes the following:
“In his great mercy, (God) has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Why - because the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is key to our faith.
I would like to suggest to you this morning that Christianity is not just a set of good moral ethics, though it embraces them.
Christianity is not simply how we “worship God” though that is an important component of it.
Christianity is not about just being a good person.
What I would like to suggest to you this morning as that Christianity is about knowing the risen Christ personally
Jesus and the apostles offered the hope of life after death.
And the proof of the genuineness of Jesus’ teaching is that Christ was raised from the dead by God the Father.
In his famous book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis made this statement,
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg--or he would be the devil of hell.
You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.
But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us."
So what do you think?
Do you really believe he rose from the dead as millions of Christians over the centuries have claimed?
If Easter is going to mean anything to us this year may I ask the question:
Do you know the risen Christ in your own life. – as St. Paul and the apostles so clearly did.
