06.11.06

Why I am a Christian (5): The Resurrection of Jesus

Posted in Why I Am A Christian at 9:21 am by dowboy

This week, for my day off, I did something rather unusual. I went tramping through Sighthill Cemetery looking for the grave of Andrew Bonar, the minister of Finnieston Free Church in the 19^th Century and a man whose writings and life I greatly admire. After a good while searching, I finally found what I was looking for – the final resting place of the man whose biography I have read and re-read. There’s nothing remarkable about the place he is buried – an unremarkable stone covered with spray-can graffiti – nothing special. This greatest of Glasgow men dead and buried now for 115 years. But today, and every Lord’s Day, this congregation en masse goes gravehunting – we are looking for the body of truly the greatest of men – but we never find it. We go looking for the body of the crucified Jesus Christ, but we always find His tomb empty – the Jesus who 2,000 years ago was executed on a Roman cross, but on the third day, He rose from the dead and is alive and alive forevermore – the tomb is empty – His body is not there – He is risen!
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the central feature of Christianity and presents the fifth reason why I am a Christian. If you remember, the first reason I am a Christian is because I live in God’s World; the second, because I am a reader of God’s Word; the third, I am an admirer of Christ’s life; the fourth, because I am a beneficiary from Christ’s death and now today I present you with a fifth – I have been persuaded that Christ rose from the dead and is alive. The Bible presents the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as the most important feature of our faith and the central event in history – more important than Creation, or the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and more important than the two World Wars. It is the fact, and I say fact because it dwells in the domain of historical fact rather than philosophical truth, which we must confront the whole world with – how do we account for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and what does it mean?
Jesus had, at this stage, been dead for 3 days. He had died at the hands of experienced executioners on a cruel cross. He had been viscerated and mutilated and then He had breathed His last. Before dusk, Jesus’ body had been taken down from the cross and buried in a tomb. On the Sunday morning, our text tells us that Mary Magdalene (a woman from whom Jesus had cast seven demons) went to the tomb of Jesus to anoint His body, according to Jewish customs. But when she got to the tomb, she finds the stone rolled away and the tomb empty.
As the story progresses, we see Peter and John (the disciple whom Jesus loved) running to the tomb to verify Mary’s story. So what I want to do this morning is to answer the question that Mary Magdalene asked – ‘Where have they taken Him?’ I do this in the hope that everyone present here, will come to the conclusion, just as I have and am becoming more convinced of every day of my life, that nobody took Jesus, but that Jesus rose from the dead and is alive and alive forevermore.
[A] How do we know He was Taken?
The first question I want to answer today, is the question, how do we know He was taken? How can we be sure that those who object to Jesus as having been taken, or no longer being in the tomb, are wrong and that Jesus really is risen? What evidence do we have from John’s account here that Jesus is alive?
1. The Right Tomb –Many people have objected to the factuality of the account of the resurrection by stating that the disciples went to the wrong tomb – a tomb that had not been used. However, in opposition to that, and in order to prove that Mary and the disciples did indeed go to the right tomb, there are 3 things we would say:
a. Mary and the other women from Galilee had been present at the burial of Jesus – Luke 23:55-56 tell us, “The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.” So in other words, Mary had already been at the tomb of Jesus – she had seen Jesus’ body being laid in this tomb a mere 36 hours previous. She was not likely to have so quickly forgotten the location of that tomb.
b. If it was the wrong tomb, how do we account for the other accompanying phenomena? – if it was the wrong tomb that Mary and the other disciples went to, how can we explain the Roman guard, the angels sitting on the stone which had been rolled away and the graveclothes. These are features consistent with the tomb that Mary visited being the correct tomb – the tomb in which they had laid Jesus.
c. If it was the wrong tomb, the Jewish authorities could have quashed the resurrection stories by taking the disciples to the right tomb – if the disciples had in fact gone to the wrong tomb and then proclaimed the message of the resurrection, the authorities, who after all had a guard at the tomb, could merely have guided the disciples to the right tomb and shown them the body of Jesus – and then all the stories of the resurrection would have ceased. But the authorities didn’t guide the disciples to the right tomb, because the disciples had already found the right tomb.
So, just from these three facts, we can confidently assert that Mary did in fact go to the right tomb. Thus the ‘wrong tomb’ objection is quashed.
2. The Heavy Stone – the second factor which we must take into account in assessing the factuality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is that the heavy stone was rolled away from the entrance to the tomb. Frank Morrison, the journalist who was converted through his study of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, even though he set out to disprove it, calls the stone, ‘the one silent and infallible witness in this whole episode’.
Now this stone was exceedingly heavy – it required the strength of more than two men to move it into place. The women themselves, (there were probably other women with Mary Magdalene), could not have moved it – they were relying on the guard that had been placed at the tomb to help them move it. And furthermore, we read in Matthew 27:65-66 that the Jewish authorities made the tomb as secure as they knew how – indeed they put a great seal on the stone – in other words, they virtually concreted it to the sides of the tomb entrance. So not only did whoever move the stone have to move a very heavy stone, but also break the seal which was holding it in place. But when they got to the tomb – the heavy stone was rolled away. Now at the very least, this means that someone else got to the tomb before the women did – someone or something else moved the stone away.
As we shall see later on, it was illogical for any group to claim responsibility for taking the body of Jesus, so if no-one from these groups – be they the Jewish leaders, or the Romans or the disciples, moved this huge stone, which would have required a team of men to move it – who did?
3. The Empty Tomb –. For many, this is the crucial feature which secures the factuality of the resurrection story. There are three aspects to the tomb being empty which we need to deal with:
a. No body was ever produced – no-one ever produced the body of Jesus as if to say, ‘here it is. The Jesus you supposed to have been raised again, you’re wrong, here’s His body’. Nobody has ever given a satisfactory explanation of where the body of Jesus Christ is, other than the explanation given by the Bible; that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father in heaven.
b. It was a bodily resurrection – some liberal Christian commentators, like Rudolf Bultmann, have suggested that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was not a physical resurrection – that is to say that the disciples did not really see the physical body of the risen Lord – they only saw His spirit. These commentators say that the bones of Jesus are still buried in a tomb in Palestine. However, this resurrection story with its assertion of the empty tomb reinforces the fact that Jesus, body and soul, rose from the dead.
c. No grave site was ever venerated as being holy – the gravesites of holy men were venerated, but no-one ever venerated or worshipped at the site of a tomb. No-one ever made pilgrimages to the tomb of Jesus Christ, because there would be no point – you see the early Christians were telling everybody, because they knew it to be true, that Jesus wasn’t there, the tomb was empty, there was no point in visiting it to worship, because the Jesus who they really wanted to worship was in heaven.
So for these three logical reasons, we can confidently state that the tomb of Jesus was empty. Indeed, one of the leading Christian apologists, William Lane Craig, has written on this issue, ‘It is today widely recognized that the empty tomb of Jesus is a simple historical fact’.
4. The Pieces of Linen – the fourth factor which we must take into account in assessing the factuality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is that the tomb was not completely empty. Whilst it lacked a body, the graveclothes in which the body was wrapped were there - vs. 5 – ‘the strips of linen lying there’ and in vs. 7 ‘and the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head.’ Now it is extremely unlikely that anyone who as taking away the body of Jesus would have unwrapped His body and left the linen cloths lying on the ground. Instead, the fact that the linen cloths were still there implies that no human hands touched the graveclothes at all. No-one robbed the tomb of Jesus and just carried away His naked body. If His body had been taken, the graveclothes would have been taken too – but they weren’t.
The only possible conclusion that we can come to, as we survey all the data we have unravelled, is that the tomb of Jesus Christ was empty and that His body was not there. Jesus was gone …
[B] Who could have Taken Him?
So, having established the fact that Mary Magdalene was not mistaken, and the body of Jesus was not in the tomb, who could have taken Him? Who was responsible for robbing the tomb of Jesus and stealing His body?  There are three groups who could possibly have perpetrated this crime:
1. The Disciples – Over the years, many have supposed that the resurrection of Jesus Christ can be placed at the feet of the disciples who stole His body and then made up a story about how He had risen from the dead. It would seem logical – the disciples loved Jesus and they wanted His memory to live on, so they stole His body and then made up a story. Indeed, if you look at Matthew 28:11-15, this was the story that the guards at the tomb were bribed to tell to the public. But as you delve into the logic behind this suggestion, you realize that it doesn’t add up. This is because the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ formed the centrepiece of their subsequent preaching. They based their lives on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead – many of them died for their faith in the risen Lord Jesus Christ. Now why would they have done that for what they knew to be a lie? Would you be willing to be crucified upside down for a story you had made up? Of course you wouldn’t. And neither were they. If they had taken the body of Jesus, they wouldn’t have preached so confidently about His resurrection from the dead. Besides which, how would the disciples have got past the tomb’s Roman guard? No, the disciples of Jesus didn’t take His body.
2. The Jews – the second group that could have stolen the body of Jesus were the Jewish authorities. After all, they had hated Christ in life, who’s to say they didn’t take His body and mutilate it? But, as you look into that suggestion, you realize that it doesn’t add up. First, in the Jewish religion, a dead body was unclean – they wouldn’t have touched it. They wouldn’t have stolen something that would have made them ceremonially unclean. Secondly, the rumour of Jesus being the Messiah had now been squashed by Him being crucified – the last thing the Jews wanted to do was to start the rumour machine working by stealing His body and thereby starting a Christian sect. And lastly, when the Jews heard the Christians going on at length about the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and when the Jews began to get edgy about the power of Christianity, if they had stolen the body and knew where it was, they could have put an end to Christianity once and for all by producing the body of Jesus. The Christians would no longer be able to preach the resurrection of Jesus Christ if the Jews did that. But the Jews didn’t come up with the body of Jesus, because they didn’t have the body of Jesus – they didn’t take Him.
3. The Romans – the third group that could have perpetrated the theft of the body of Jesus were the Romans. They had the muscle and power to move the stone and sneak the body of Jesus far away. However, there are two issues which scupper the suggestion that it was the Romans. First, what possible motive would they have had for stealing the body of Jesus? They had nothing to gain – indeed, Pilate had ordered a detachment of Roman soldiers to guard the tomb. So they had everything to lose, and nothing to gain, by stealing Jesus’ body. Secondly, the same thing could be said about the Romans as was said about the Jews – the minute that the troublesome Christians started talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the Romans could have produced the body and squashed Christianity. But they didn’t. Why not? The rational answer is because they didn’t have the body. It wasn’t theirs to produce – the tomb was empty, the body was gone, and the Romans were as confused as everybody else.
The more and more you think about the question of who took the body of Jesus, you are forced to admit that nobody took the body of Jesus. If you look at an empty chrysalis, you don’t turn round and say, ‘who took the caterpillar?’ You rather say, ‘there must be a butterfly somewhere near’. Similarly, nobody took the body of Jesus from the tomb; Jesus was raised from the dead and walked out on his own accord. Nobody took Jesus out of the tomb, Jesus went. That is the only explanation which holds water in any way shape or form.
[C] What must we Do?
So here we come to the last thing which we learn from this passage in front of us – and it is this – what must we do? How must we respond to this message of resurrection hope? We are in the same position as Peter and John were when Mary rushed into the room and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don’t know where they have put him.” So how did Peter and John respond and how shall we respond?
1. Eagerness (vs. 4) – we read that they started out for the tomb, but it wasn’t very long before we find out that they were running – they were so eager to get to the tomb to see if what Mary was saying was true. After seeing their Lord crucified, to hear of His being raised again was amazing, and it’s no surprise that they were so eager to verify Mary’s story. But what about us? Now up until this point, you may all be nodding your heads in eager agreement, but at the same time thinking, ‘So what? What has this to do with me? Why must I be bothered about a piece of ancient history? I am no more affected by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, than I am by the battle of Culloden, or by the founding of the League of Nations.’ Ah, but that’s where you are wrong! Because you see, if Jesus has been raised from the dead, it means that He is alive! And if He is alive, He is here in our gathering together. And if He is present in our worship service, then He expects each of us to respond to Him – to either accept or deny Him. And if He is alive today, that means that all that He ever said about Himself was true – and that means that He is coming again soon, and every eye shall see Him as He comes in the clouds of the air with the glory of the Heavenly host to judge the righteous and the wicked. Jesus is – that is the greatest fact in the history of this, or any other, world.
2. Enter the Tomb (vs. 6) – the second thing the disciples did was to enter the tomb – they were willing to investigate the claims of Mary. They were not willing just to hang back at the entrance to the tomb – rather they went the whole hog and entered into the tomb. Now, so many people in our society and generation are not willing to enter into that empty tomb – they are not willing and not open to the fact that Jesus rose from the dead and is alive forevermore. Their minds are closed books – their eyes are blinded and their hearts clouded. What about you? Are you willing to enter the tomb with the disciples and see its emptiness?
3. Observation (vs. 6) – the third thing the disciples did was to use their powers of observation – they checked that the tomb had no body in it, and Peter carefully inspected the grave clothes and linen strips. And their observations led to the conclusion that the body of Jesus Christ was not there – that He was raised from the dead. So many people are not willing to observe the facts as they are; preferring the scepticism of the philosophy which says, ‘Dead men don’t rise’. Well the same philosopher who wrote these words first, David Hume, also wrote, “No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.” In other words, use your eyes! Read the gospel narratives and think through them carefully. The body isn’t there; Jesus has been raised again to life!
4. Believe (vs. – the last thing the disciples did, having seen, was to believe. They believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead. There is a strange statement at the end of this passage which says of the disciples that ‘they still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead’. Now this tells us that all they really needed was the Scriptures – all they really needed was the Bible – (in this case the Old Testament) – but also, it wasn’t as if Jesus hadn’t told them again and again that He would be killed and then rise again on the third day. So all they had to do was to believe the words of the Bible and the words of Jesus. And that is, in one sense, all I am asking you to do. I am asking you to believe in the evidence of your eyes as you peruse the empty tomb through the lens of the Bible. If you do that, you will conclude, as with William Lane Craig, that, “The rational person, fully apprised of the evidence, can confidently believe that on the first Easter morning a divine miracle took place.” It is my prayer that each one of us here would see that Christianity is the only reasonable and logical faith and that by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, you would come to the living Christ who was raised from the dead. AMEN

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