During last week, followers of
Jesus are celebrating what is referred to in church mumbo jumbo talk as Passion
Week. Passion Week is a time when followers of Jesus remember Jesus entry into
Jerusalem on what we refer to today as Palm Sunday, Jesus arrest, trial and
crucifixion on what we refer to as Good Friday, and Jesus resurrection from the
dead, which we refer to as Easter Sunday.
On Palm Sunday, we looked at the
significance that the city of Jerusalem has had on history. We talked about the
reality that, beginning in 2100 B.C., Jerusalem has had a prominent role in
God’s activity in history. We then looked at an event from history that
occurred in 30 A.D., that once again brought the city of Jerusalem to center
stage in history. In this event from history that is recorded for us in a
section of an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of Matthew,
Jesus entered into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey in fulfillment God’s promise to send a rescuer, a deliverer, a Messiah.
However, the Pharisees and the religious experts
responded to Jesus arrival by confronting and opposing Jesus. After this
confrontation with the Pharisee’s Jesus and His disciples left Jerusalem to
spend the night in the nearby city of Bethany. However, the battle lines for
conflict had already been drawn. And over the next four days there would be
confrontation and conflict between Jesus and the self righteous religious
leaders of the day.
And on a Thursday evening and
Friday morning a little over 2,000 years ago, the conflict and confrontation
led us to pause and ponder the image of a cross and the significance that a
single cross had on history. Last Friday night, we looked at the significance
that a single cross has had on history and talked about the reality that for
early followers of Jesus, they would find it strange that people would wear
crosses around their necks and that the gatherings of followers of Jesus would
be held in buildings with crosses on them.
Early followers of Jesus would
find it strange because of what the cross represented, which was crucifixion, one
of the most brutal and shameful modes of death ever invented by humanity
throughout history. We then looked at an event from history that is recorded
for us in an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the book of Mark, which
recorded for us the significance that a single cross, that Jesus was crucified
on, had on history.
We talked about the reality that Good
Friday is about an event from history that occurred in a single city, on a
single cross, around a cosmic conflict. A cosmic conflict over the power of
selfishness, sin, and death: A conflict that would shape the course of history
and eternity: A conflict that would shift our focus in a single city from a
single cross to another single powerful image.
Then last Sunday, on Easter, we focused
on that third single image and its significance on history. And that image is
the image of a single tomb. However, this tomb was not just any tomb. This was
not a tomb on the outskirts of the city that was for outsiders.
You see, after Jesus death, Mark,
the writer of the account of Jesus life that bears his name, tells us that Joseph of Arimathea did what would have been considered almost unthinkable.
Joseph approached the most powerful man in the Roman government, the man who
had personally condemned Jesus to death as an enemy of the Roman Empire and
asked for his body.
Pilate,
after questioning whether or not Jesus had already had died, responded to the
courage of Joseph of Arimathea by granting his request. Joseph of Arimathea and
Nicodemus then went and retrieved Jesus body from the cross and prepared the
body for burial. After making hasty burial preparations due to the late time of
day, Jesus was left in the tomb as Joseph of Arimethea’s tomb was sealed and
guarded by Roman soldiers. And with that, Joseph of Arimethea, Nicodemus, and
the rest of Jesus followers left the tomb firmly believing that Jesus, along
with His claim of being the Messiah, was dead.
However,
early on Sunday, a woman named Mary came to the tomb to take care of Jesus
body, only to find that the tomb was empty. In panic Mary went to the disciples
to proclaim her discovery of the empty tomb. Confused and concerned, Peter and
John responded to Mary’s report by heading to the tomb to discover what had
happened. And as John took in the scene of the empty tomb all that Jesus had
been saying to them suddenly clicked. John connected the dots and placed his
confident trust in the fact that Jesus had been raised from the dead as their
Lord and Leader.
The empty
tomb was the evidence that Jesus was God in a bod that came to fulfill God’s
promise of rescue from selfishness and rebellion. Later that evening, Jesus
would appear to His closest followers. Then, over the next forty days, Jesus
appeared to followers of Jesus on several occasions to as many as 500 people at
a single time.
Now you
might read all of this, and a natural question that arises is “well Dave how do
we know that the resurrection is a historical reality and not just mythology or
fiction? After all, what if the tomb wasn’t empty? What if what we celebrate on
Easter is just one big lie?”
If those
questions are running through your mind, I just want to let you know that those
are great questions to be asking. And in a section of a letter that is recorded
for us in the New Testament of the Bible called the book of 1 Corinthians, we
see a man named Paul, who persecuted early followers of Jesus until he had an
encounter with Jesus after He was raised from the dead, address these very
questions. So let’s look at how the Apostle Paul answered these questions in 1
Corinthians 15:12:
Now if Christ is preached, that
He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no
resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even
Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching
is vain, your faith also is vain.
In verse 12,
Paul confronts some of the members of the church at Corinth who were rejecting
the reality of the resurrection of the dead. Some members of the church did not
believe that there was a literal resurrection of the dead. Paul responded to this situation by providing
four results that would be the natural result if the message of a resurrected
Jesus and an empty tomb was a lie.
First, Paul
states that if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Jesus was not really
raised from the dead. And if Jesus has not been raised from the dead, Paul
explains that his preaching is vain and their faith also is vain. In other
words, if Jesus was not raised from the dead; if the tomb was not empty, then
the message of the gospel and Christianity in general is devoid of value and
meaning. I mean, the whole point of Christianity and the gospel is Jesus life,
death, and resurrection, isn’t it?
Paul then
reveals a second result that would be the natural result if the message of a
resurrected Jesus and an empty tomb was a lie in verse 15:
Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because
we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in
fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ
has been raised;
Here we see
Paul explain that if Jesus was not raised from the dead, if that single tomb
was not empty on that first Easter Sunday, if there is no such thing as resurrection,
then they and all the other early church leaders were false witnesses of God.
If the tomb was not empty, Paul and other early followers of Jesus would be
revealed as liars and twisted manipulators who misrepresented the nature and
character of God by saying that He raised Christ from the dead when He really
didn’t. They were liars and manipulators because if there is no resurrection of
the dead, then Jesus is still dead.
Paul’s point
is that you can’t have one without the other; either there is a resurrection of
the dead for everyone, or there is no resurrection of the dead for anyone, even
Jesus Christ as "God-in-a-bod" who was 100% God and 100% human. Paul
then reveals a third result that would be the natural result if the message of
a resurrected Jesus and an empty tomb was a lie.
Friday we
will discover that third reason...
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