The Heart of Christianity
We come today to consider again the story that is at the very heart of Christianity—the resurrection of Jesus.
When I was in seminary, my best friend, Richard Burnett, had a class with one of the foremost Scripture scholars in the world today, James H. Charlesworth. One day in class the question was raised, “If the bones of Jesus were discovered, what difference would that make to your Christian faith?” The question and the ensuing discussion were so provocative that conversation about both poured out of the classroom and into our interaction around the dinner table in the seminary cafeteria. Another one of our professors, who sat at table with us that night, said that it would not make any difference to him whether Jesus’ bones were discovered. He felt there were still many things that Jesus taught that were worth passing on. My friend Richard said, “If they found the bones of Jesus, I would hunt down people like you!”
That response may sound to some more provocative than the original question. But that is what Saul of Tarsus did. He didn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus and so he hunted down the Christian heretics to destroy them, until the day Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Personally, I believe that if the resurrection of Jesus did not happen, then there is no reason for any of us to be his followers. In fact, it is hard, if not impossible, to understand how Christianity got going without the resurrection. The picture given us by all the Gospels is that after the crucifixion of Jesus, all the disciples were in hiding. They were dejected, demoralized, defeated people. But something happened that changed those first disciples. And once they were changed, they set about changing the world. Let us listen to Luke’s record of what happened…
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Then they remembered his words.
When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
The Hinge of History
Ralph Sockman once said, “The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable.”
Perhaps.
Or maybe the hinge of history is on the door of a Jerusalem tomb.
I realize there was no hinge on Jesus’ tomb. There was a massive rock that rolled over the entrance. But today, at the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, a possible site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection, there is a door, and thus a hinge. And on that door are written the words: “He is not here—for he is risen.”
During my high school and college years I wrestled with the question of whether Jesus really was raised bodily from the grave. In the end, I concluded that the story in the Gospels was true. And the day I stood alone in that Garden Tomb in Jerusalem and read those words on the door of that tomb a desire entered my heart to share the good news of the resurrection with as many people as I could. So, if I didn’t believe the resurrection of Jesus really happened in history, I wouldn’t be here talking about it with you today. The hinge of my faith is on the door of a Jerusalem tomb.
The Women at the Tomb
When we examine each of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection and compare them, we find both similarities and differences. One thing all the accounts agree on is that the resurrection of Jesus happened early on Sunday morning, the first day of the week.
We read that “the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb”. This is another area of agreement between all four Gospels. They all agree that some of the female followers of Jesus were the first witnesses of the resurrection.
Now this is one of the most remarkable things about this story. Anyone making up this story in the first century would not have had women as the first witnesses, because the testimony of women was considered unreliable. Paul, writing before the Gospels were published, conveniently fails to mention the women when he talks about Jesus’ resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15.
So why are the women mentioned in all four Gospels? The only explanation that makes sense is because they were there. That’s the way it happened.
And notice, the women came to the tomb not expecting resurrection. They came expecting to anoint a dead body with spices.
It is astonishing to us, twenty centuries later, how dense Jesus’ first followers were. He told them many times that he was going to rise from the dead, but they seemed unable to take it in. Why?
The reason is because what Jesus told them was going to happen did not fit with their worldview. Some Jews, like the Sadducees, who ran the Temple, still held to the old Jewish belief in Sheol. Sheol was the place for all the dead. It was a ghostly realm like the Hades of the Greeks. It wasn’t a sort of afterlife belief that brought anyone any kind of joy.
But a new belief had arisen when the Jews returned from exile. This belief was held by many of the Pharisees and common people. As N. T. Wright explains, some Jews believed that in the end God would raise …
…all the righteous dead, giving new embodiment to everyone from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob down to the most recent righteous martyrs… ‘The resurrection’ itself would be a large-scale event. After Israel’s great and final suffering, all God’s people would be given new life, new bodies.
Wright goes on to explain that…
… nobody ever dreamed that one single living person would be killed stone dead and then raised to a new sort of bodily life the other side of the grave, while the rest of the world carried on as before.
That’s why none of Jesus’ first disciples were able to take on board what he prophesied so many times about his own resurrection. It was, to them, unthinkable.
Who Moved the Stone?
But then, early on Sunday morning, when the women arrived with their spices at the tomb, they found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. All the Gospel accounts agree about this as well…
Frank Morison was the pseudonym of Albert Henry Ross who lived from 1881 to 1950. Ross was an English advertising agent and freelance writer. He was skeptical of the historical reality of the resurrection of Jesus and set out to analyze the biblical sources and to write a short paper entitled Jesus—the Last Phase. He wanted to demonstrate that the resurrection of Jesus was simply a myth. In compiling his notes, however, Ross came to believe in the truth of the resurrection. He later set out his reasoning in a book entitled Who Moved the Stone? Many people have come to personal faith in Jesus Christ because of reading Ross’ book. Ross called the stone at Jesus’ tomb “the one silent and infallible witness in the whole episode.”
Two Men or Angels?
At this point, each of the Gospel accounts differ regarding what happened after the women arrived at the tomb. Mark’s Gospel, which is the earliest, has a young man inside the tomb who delivers a message to the women. This young man may have been Mark himself.
Luke’s Gospel turns the young man into two men, perhaps to have an appropriate number of witnesses to the resurrection itself.
Matthew’s Gospel, which is the most Jewish, turns Mark’s young man into an angel. For a Jewish Gospel you’ve got to have an angel at the tomb.
And John’s Gospel has two angels. Following Luke, John provides the appropriate number of witnesses—two or more.
But if you are wondering what really happened at that tomb 2000 years ago, at least on this point, I think Mark comes closest to history.
The Word that Changed the World
Regardless of whether there was a young man in the tomb, or an angel, or two angels, or two men, the message is similar in each case, except that Luke’s account begins with a question: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
What a classic question! Jesus’ female followers were looking for Jesus in the wrong place. Jesus is not a dead, historical figure of the past. He is a living presence in the present.
If you are looking for Life, a tomb is a bad place to look. That is not a place where you are going to find any hope for the future. But if you look for Jesus you will find Life with a capital “L” in him, a life that can begin today and never end.
After posing this question, the two men tell the women that Jesus is not in the tomb; he has risen. The phrase, “he has risen” is really one word in Greek, ἠγέρθη.
I would suggest to you this morning that this one word changed the world. Before this word was spoken, as far as these women were concerned, Jesus was dead in the grave; their hopes for Jesus’ kingdom movement were dashed; it was, in a sense, the end of their world, but they were looking for some reason, however small, to go on living. All they could think to do was pay their last respects to their dead master by anointing his body with spices.
After this word, ἠγέρθη, was spoken, these women came to know a Jesus who was and is alive forevermore. This word gave them new hope, new purpose, a whole new world was opening for them. And because of this word, they went forward to share a message of hope with their friends.
We read that the other disciples “did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.” We must be prepared for such a reaction. The news of the resurrection is the strangest news in the world. Dead people don’t rise from their graves. We all know that.
Unless… unless… there really is a God who created the universe, a God who cares about us so much that he became one of us, a God who can intervene in his world in any way that he wants. If these things be true, then we can never be sure where we might see God at work next… raising dead people, restoring sight to the blind, healing the lame, proclaiming good news.
An Open Mind & Ready Feet
Peter had the most open mind of all the disciples. He thought the story brought by the women was at least worth checking out. If we are open to the possibility of miracles, the story of the resurrection is worth our investigation as well.
Peter ran to the tomb and bent over to look inside. He saw the strips of linen that had been wrapped around Jesus’ dead body lying there by themselves. Who steals a dead body and leaves the grave clothes behind? This was a stranger story than even Peter anticipated. And so, he went away wondering to himself what had happened.
If that was the end of the story, then we might never have heard of Jesus, let alone his disciples, let alone the Church, let alone Christianity.
But the story did not end there. Jesus appeared. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, the earliest detailed record of the resurrection, written no more than 25 years after the event…
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
That seems like pretty good evidence to me—over five hundred people, Paul says, most of whom were still alive twenty-five years after the event, who could testify that they had seen Jesus risen from the dead.
And many of those first believers gave up their lives because of their belief in the resurrection of Jesus…
- James was put to death with the sword. (Acts 12:2)
- Stephen was stoned. (Acts 7)
- Paul was beheaded.
- Peter was crucified upside down.
Do you know anyone who would die for something they knew was a lie? I don’t. So, I cannot imagine that the first disciples made up the story of Jesus’ resurrection and then gave up their lives for that made-up story.
Of course, there is one way to test the truth of the story for yourself. Ask Jesus to reveal himself to you. Now, I would not expect Jesus to appear to you in a vision as he appeared to the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, though I did know one man to whom Jesus appeared in this way, and that man devoted the rest of his life to sharing the good news about Jesus with others.
I have never known anyone who asked Jesus to reveal himself through the Scriptures who was ever disappointed. One story, in particular, comes to my mind…
We were living in San Diego at the time. I was looking for an apartment to rent. A young woman named Jennifer was the manager in charge of an apartment complex I was interested in. She showed me around and asked the inevitable question…
“What do you do for a living?”
I reluctantly said, “I’m a pastor.”
The reason I was reluctant to reveal this information was because usually when I tell people I am a pastor, the conversation turns down a dark alley. Most people don’t like talking to a pastor; for some reason it makes them feel uncomfortable. In this situation, I didn’t have any choice but to fess up. I was cornered.
To my surprise, Jennifer said, “Oh, that’s interesting. Where is your church?”
I told her that our church met in a nearby school, and she showed up the next Sunday. I wasn’t even there that Sunday, but she left her contact information and I followed up, inviting her over to dinner at our home. During dinner the conversation went so well that I asked Jennifer, “You wouldn’t want to study the Bible with us, would you?”
Jennifer was enthusiastic in her response: “I’d love to study the Bible with you.”
And so, we did. We met with Jennifer every week and read a chapter of the Gospel of John together and talked about it. Then one day when Jennifer was housesitting for us, she tumbled into the Kingdom. She was all alone, in our home when she asked Jesus to come into her life. Afterwards she said there was something about the atmosphere in our home that caused her to do it.
Jennifer was like Peter. She was open-minded and willing to investigate the claims of the Gospel. So, while pursuing that investigation she met Jesus in a personal way.
Jesus can do the same for you. He can meet you right where you are today. This is the Jesus who once asked a very good question…
Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:11-13)
If you ask Jesus to come into your life by the power of his Holy Spirit, he will do it. He will reveal himself to you as the living Lord of all creation. And that revelation will change everything.
Comments