What
do we know about the Resurrection and how do we know that it really
happened?
When
we consider this question, let us be clear about one thing -
We
are not talking about any old Tom, Dick or Harry.
We
are talking about a unique person who did extraordinary things and made
extraordinary claims.
In
fact we read in the gospels that he claimed that he would suffer, die and
on the third day rise. [Luke 18:31-34]
And
that is just what seems to have happened.
How
can this be proved?
In
many ways the onus is on those who do not believe it to disprove it!
This
can be a very dangerous business.
In
the 18th Century two friends of Dr. Johnson and Alexander Pope,
named West and Lyttleton decided to attack Christianity at its roots.
Lyttleton
tried to disprove the conversion of Saul of Tarsus and West tried to
disprove the Resurrection.
West
wrote a book called:
Observations
on the History and Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.” 1747
On
the fly leaf of the book –
“Blame
not before thou hast examined the truth.”
Frank
Morrison was a Journalist who set out to disprove the Resurrection. As he
gathered the evidence, he became convinced that it was actually true. He
wrote a book entitled: “Who moved
the Stone?” [Published
by Faber].
Let
us look at some of the key factors that point to its credibility.
1.
Jesus was dead. [Luke 23:44-56]
§
Jesus
had to endure an all night trial which included a kangaroo court,
a moving from one place to another in the middle of the night, mockery,
beatings, the flagrum [like a cat o’ nine tails made from leather with
fragments of metal and bone embedded into the thongs to tear the flesh]
and constant verbal abuse from soldiers, leaders and an angry crowd.
§
The
following day he was led out of the city to be crucified. The
authorities made him carry his own wooden cross that he would die on. He
collapsed on route. On reaching the hill where he was to be executed,
nine-inch nails were then hammered into his wrists and feet. The cross was
raised with winch and pulleys and then dropped into a socket in the
ground. His physical state was already in a deteriorated state – now
crucifixion would take its toll. It was a most excruciating form of
execution.
§
Friends
of Jesus came to ask if they could collect his body for burial and
Pilate obtained the opinion of the soldiers as to whether Jesus had
actually died. They confirmed this and decided not to break his legs as
Jesus had already died. However, one of the soldiers pierced his side with
a spear and we are told that blood and water flowed out. The separation of
blood and serum was confirmation that the person had died.
2.
The Tomb was empty. [Luke 24:1-12]
No
big thing is made of this in the gospels - it just seemed obvious to
everyone. They were assuming that everyone knew that the tomb had been
found empty, but for our present line of enquiry, it is an important
point.
When
the women went to finish embalming the corpse of Jesus on the third day
they found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty with the grave clothes
still in place and the headpiece neatly folded by the side. When they ran
to inform the others, Peter and John came to see for themselves and
discovered their tale to be true. What happened?
§
Could
the women have gone to the wrong tomb?
This
is hardly likely seeing as they were intent on making sure things were
done right for their loved on, and surely the mistake would have been
redressed once the others came to check – and the authorities conducted
their own investigation
§
Could
someone have stolen the body?
It
is possible, but lets consider who and what might have happened.
o
What
if the Disciples stole the body?
In
theory they could have done this and then faked the whole story of Jesus
being alive. But we need to remember that they put their life on the line
for their story. No one dies for what they know to be a lie. Nearly all of
them were martyred for their continued commitment to this story.
o
What
if the Jews or Romans stole the body?
Why
then did neither of these groups produce the body after everyone started
talking about Jesus appearing in various places? The fact of the matter
was that they were highly embarrassed by the disappearance of the corpse
rather than keeping it concealed.
o
What
about grave robbers?
Firstly,
we need to remember that Roman soldiers heavily guarded this tomb.
Secondly,
there would have been nothing to steal. All the costly embalmment had not
been undertaken as the body had to be hastily placed in the tomb before
the Sabbath.
It
was in everybody’s interest to locate the body of Jesus, but the fact of
the matter was that no one could. The tomb was empty!
3.
The resurrection Appearances. [Luke 24:36-43]
How
do we account for the fact that people started to say that they had seen
the risen Jesus after the third day?
One
popular theory that has been banded about in recent years is that these
people suffered from hallucinations in their grief and distress.
Let us explore this possibility a little more.
Hallucinations,
I am told, normally happen in a particular
[maybe sacred] place, by certain types of people, usually
individuals, with a significant amount of expectation building up to them
When
it comes the resurrection appearances of Jesus, from the accounts that we
have, we discover that Jesus seems to have appeared to more than five
hundred and fifty people, on eleven different occasions, over a period of
six weeks, after his crucifixion and miraculous
disappearance.
§
With
reference to the 500, the Apostle Paul wrote this in one of his
letters to the Church in Corinth, citing that many of them were still
alive at the time of writing. [Implying that this information could be
checked and verified.]
§
There
were a huge variety of people who professed to have seen him.
Fishermen, women, doctors, religious leaders, some traveling companions…
§
The
resurrection appearances happened in a variety of different places –
in the Garden Burial site, in a room, along a road, on a hill, in a
house…
§
With
reference to the high level of expectation, it seems that the opposite
was the case. The women were bringing spices and embalmment because they
believed they were going to have to embalm a corpse. The travellers did
not even notice who their companion was until he entered their house at
the end of the journey. When the women announced to the disciples that
they had seen Jesus alive, nobody would believe them! [Luke 24:11]
§
There
is one other piece of incidental evidence that is worth noting at this
point. In each of the Gospel accounts the writers state that the first
witnesses to the risen Jesus were women. This may be incidental, but it is
important to note that the testimony of a woman was considered invalid in
a Court of Law at the time. So,
if you were making it up, why make women your first witnesses, it would
undermine your case – unless of course they were!
4.
The Church began
The
events of that Third Day turned a terrified bunch of beleaguered runaways
into a dynamic force that changed the world forever. Something significant
must have taken place to bring about such a change.
§
The
New Testament would never have been written
Pinchas
Lapide – A leading Jewish Scholar, in his work entitled “The
Resurrection of Jesus” wrote: “Without
the resurrection of Jesus, after Golgotha, there would not have been any
Christianity!” There would
certainly not have been anything to write about because he would have been
a well meaning teacher, but a glorious failure.
§
Why
ever would they have changed the Day of Rest from the Saturday to the
Sunday [The Day of Resurrection] unless it marked a major changing point
in the faith experience of those first believers?
§
Baptism,
which symbolises dying and rising with Christ became the entry point
of faith for the early Church. If the resurrection had not happened, this
would have been meaningless.
§
How
else do we account for the rapid spread of Christianity, so that by
the Fourth century, even the Roman Emperor professed to be a Christian.
5.
Lives Changed
From
the disciples who first fled into hiding and then proclaimed the Gospel in
the market places and debating chambers of the Roman world to many who
have sought to bring about change through service, literature, music,
politics and sport in the present day. People’s lives have continued to
be changed by the power of the risen Jesus. Consider but a few examples: Mother
Theresa, Martin Luther King, William Wilberforce, Lord Shaftesbury, Nelson
Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Cliff Richard, Bono, Jason
Robinson, Eric Liddell, Dostoyeksky, Tolstoy, Florence Nightingale,
Dorothy L. Sayers, J.R.R.Tolkien, C.S.Lewis
and many, many more.
As
we have considered all these points, there is one final question that
remains – What do you do with
this evidence?
What
will you say to all this?
Here
are some comments from a few who have assessed the evidence:
Sir
Edward Clarke – [A High Court Judge]
“As
a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidence for the events of
Easter day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in
the High Court I have secured the verdict on evidence not nearly so
compelling. As a lawyer I accept the Gospel evidence unreservedly as the
testimony of truthful men to the facts that they were able to
substantiate.”
[Found
in “Is Anyone There?” by David Watsons]
Thomas
Arnold, [Once headmaster of Rugby and a former Professor of History at
Oxford.]
“I
have been used for many years to study the history of other times, and to
examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them; and I
know of no fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and
fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair enquirer,
than the great sign that God has given us that Christ died and rose again
from the dead”
Lord
Darling – [formerly Lord Chief Justice of England]
“We,
as Christians, are asked to take a very great deal on trust; the
teachings, for example, and the miracles of Jesus. If we had to take all
on trust, I, for one, should be sceptical.
The crux of the problem of whether Jesus was or was not what he
proclaimed himself to be, must surely depend on the truth or otherwise of
the Resurrection. On that
greatest point we are not merely asked to have faith.
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 the verdict that the
Resurrection story is true.”
[The
Day Death Died – Michael Green p15]
Donald
Mackay – [former professor of Neurology at Keele University]
“…For
the Christian believer, baseless credulity is a sin – a disservice to
the God of truth. His belief
in the Resurrection does not stem from a softness in his standards for
evidence, but rather from the coherence with which [as he sees it] that
particular unprecedented event fits into and makes sense of a great mass
of data… There is clearly no inconsistency in believing [with
astonishment] in a unique event so well attested, while remaining
unconvinced by spectacular stories of ‘paranormal’ occurrences that
lack any comparable support.”
[Scientific
Journal – Nature – 11th Oct 1984]
What
will you conclude?
Some
people have asked: “Why don’t
more people take notice of it?”
J.B.
Phillips, who wrote a famous paraphrase of the Gospels, summed it up like
this:
“Over
the years I have had hundreds of conversations with people, many of them
of higher intellectual calibre than my own, who quite obviously had no
idea of what Christianity is really about. I was in no case trying to
catch them out; I was simply and gently trying to find out what they knew
about the New Testament. My
conclusion was that they knew virtually nothing. This I find pathetic and somewhat horrifying.
It means that the most important Event in human history is politely
and quietly by-passed. For it is not as though the evidence had been examined and
found unconvincing; it had simply never been examined.”
[Found in “Is Anyone There? By David Watson. Hodder and Stoughton. Page
30]
It
was Nietsze who said
"It's
our preferences that decide against Christianity, not our arguments."
What
will you do with the evidence?
If
the resurrection is true as the evidence suggests - The implications are
phenomenal
§
It
is the difference between truth and untruth.
Religious
leaders, politicians and philosophers have sought to impact the world. But
death has claimed them all. Not so Jesus. His is not just a life and
teaching in sustained memory. He is alive and changing people from within
– in the human heart
§
If
Jesus has risen from the dead then he is the authority on life and death.
Jesus
spoke on the subject with authority, which is what impressed many of his
contemporaries. But he did not just speak and give an opinion. He went
through the barrier. He took on death itself and came through victorious.
He has been there and come back – he is authorised and qualified to
speak.
§
If
Jesus rose from the dead then it is the difference between defeat and
victory.
That
first band of disciples shifted from being defeated and fearful to being
confident and life-risking believers and martyrs. Why? Because they knew
that Jesus had beaten death – it holds no fear for them now! And it can
give you that kind of hope too.
§
If
Jesus rose from the dead, as the evidence suggests then it is the
difference between a list of facts and meeting a person.
I
am no longer simply asking you to believe a set of creeds or philosophical
sayings. I am inviting you to meet a person – a living person, who
can enter your heart at your invitation and change you from within.
Twenty-eight
years ago I first knelt down and opened my heart and life to the risen
Lord Jesus Christ. I said that I was sorry for the way I had been trying
to run my own life, and had ignored Him. I told Him that I now believed
that He had died and Risen for me, even me, and that without Him my life
would never be free and fully lived. I asked Jesus to be my Saviour and
Lord. And He took me up on that invitation. I have never regretted that
moment and that decision. It still drives everything of who I am and what
I do. It is my hope – not a wishful thinking – but a quiet and
confident assurance that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on that first
Easter, and He still lives today!
You
can read more about Jesus on our permanent article on this site called
"What
do we make of Jesus Christ?"
If
you want to know more about the impact that Jesus Christ can have on
your life send us an email at Wilford
Church
Details
of our Services
can be found
here on our Web Site.
Why not come and join us.
Thank
you for taking the time to read this.
David
Rowe
