Sermon 16th September 2007
Today one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, preaches, based on the passage from Matthew 27:62 – 28.10
Did Jesus Rise Again?
In 1957 the BBC broadcast a spoof documentary about the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. The hoax Panorama programme was even narrated by Richard Dimbleby who was of course a very distinguished broadcaster. It featured a family carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry. Of course, the broadcast was just an April Fool's Day joke. But soon after the broadcast ended, the BBC began to receive dozens of calls from viewers, wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC reportedly replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best".
To be fair to the viewers, spaghetti was not widely eaten in Britain in the 1950s and it was thought to be an exotic dish. But the spaghetti harvest broadcast has gone down in history as one of the most successful April Fool’s Day jokes. Some people would place the story of Jesus’ resurrection, which we’ve just heard in the Gospel reading, in the same category; for them it is a story without foundation. For others it is the most significant event in the history of humankind. So, what is the truth? Did Jesus really rise from death?
This is actually a vital question. If Jesus didn’t rise from death, then we are wasting our time this morning. We might as well pack up, go home and watch TV. St Paul put it graphically in his letter to the Corinthians, “and if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe.” Christianity stands or falls on whether the resurrection actually happened. And that’s what we’re going to be examining today.
We’re going to be looking at the Biblical account of the resurrection. Two weeks ago Cameron explained that the historical evidence for Jesus was overwhelming; there was more evidence for Jesus’ existence than there was for Julius Caesar, for example. And the Gospels were written either by people who knew Jesus themselves or who talked directly to eyewitnesses. The Gospels have very solid foundations. And they provide at least 3 convincing reasons why we can believe that Jesus rose from death.
The first is the empty tomb. When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arrived at the tomb, it was empty; Jesus wasn’t there. There seems little doubt that the tomb was empty. When Jesus’ disciples first started to preach the Good News, they didn’t do so in some far away city such as Athens or Rome. No, they started in Jerusalem itself, where it would have been easy to prove what they were saying was false, simply by producing Jesus’ body. If the empty tomb had not been generally accepted as a fact in Jerusalem, the disciples would have been laughed out of court. Their opponents could simply have gone to the tomb, opened it and produced the body. The tomb was empty. But the question is - how did it become empty? Some alternative theories to the resurrection have been offered.
One suggestion is that Jesus didn’t really die; that he wasn’t completely dead when he was removed from the Cross. According to this theory shock from the loss of blood on the Cross, his wounds and all that he suffered sent him into a semi-coma. And when they put him in the tomb, the smell of the spices and cool air revived him. So when he came out of the tomb, the disciples assumed that he had risen from death. How likely is this theory to be true? Not very likely at all! If it is true, it means that Jesus successfully survived a horrendous beating and the loss of a lot of blood, crucifixion and the loss of yet more blood, and then being stabbed with a spear, leading to more loss of blood through a gaping wound. And what’s more when the Roman soldiers stabbed him with a spear, John’s Gospel tells us there was a rush of blood and water out from his wound. Now John wouldn’t have known it, but this is actually a well-known medical fact today: Jesus’ blood had separated into clot and serum, and it’s a sure sign that he was well and truly dead.
But let’s suppose that he hadn’t died; that he had gone into a semi-coma. Can we really believe that he then survived another three days in the tomb with no food and water, that he came to without any medical assistance, got himself out of tight wrappings, walked on pierced feet and single-handedly moved a huge stone away from the entrance and ran off without being noticed by highly trained Roman guards? This seems highly improbable, to say the least.
And even if he had somehow managed to do all that and found his disciples, he would have been in desperate need of medical attention. His disciples would hardly have gone around proclaiming that this half-dead man had risen from the dead. The claim that Jesus didn’t really die cannot explain the empty tomb.
Another theory is that the disciples stole the body. Again this is extremely unlikely. As we can see from our Gospel reading, the Pharisees had taken steps to make sure that this wouldn’t happen. They had gone to Pilate and asked him for a guard to stop Jesus’ disciples stealing the body, and Pilate had given them the guard. These would have been highly-trained, professional soldiers. The Roman army was famous for its iron discipline. It’s almost inconceivable that the whole unit would have gone to sleep, as was later claimed. Also, it’s very improbable that the disciples would have had the guts to do it. They were depressed and afraid. They thought it was all over. They would have been far more likely to have kept their heads down – which the Gospels say they did – than to try to steal the body. It’s extremely unlikely that the disciples stole the body. But could the authorities have stolen it instead?
This suggestion is equally improbable. They would have had no motive: in fact they had the exact opposite of a motive! And even if they had a motive, if they had stolen the body, why didn’t they produce it when the disciples first started to proclaim that Jesus was alive. That would have crushed the infant Christian Church at birth. So why didn’t the authorities produce it? The answer is simple: they didn’t have it.
The best explanation for the empty tomb is that Jesus was alive; he had risen from death. The empty tomb is a major piece of evidence supporting the resurrection. A second piece of evidence is Jesus’ appearances to his followers.
The resurrection accounts list as many as 11 different appearances of Jesus, starting with Mary Magdalene and ending with the apostle Paul. On one of these occasions, he appeared to over 500 people. It’s not possible to argue that all these people were hallucinating; the variety of situations and the number of individuals involved disprove this possibility – “group hallucinations" don’t provide a plausible explanation. Further, many of the people involved were very down to earth. They were fishermen, tax collectors and sceptics like doubting Thomas. And they weren’t seeing a “ghost”. These appearances were very physical and real. Jesus ate with his disciples; he suggested that they touch his side and his hands and he even cooked breakfast for them one morning on the shore of Lake Galilee. There is ample evidence of Jesus’ resurrection appearances.
And the third piece of evidence is the disciples’ changed lives. If they had stolen the body, everything that followed would have been a gigantic lie. Now, we know that the disciples weren't the bravest of people; the disciples fled after Jesus’ arrest and Peter, their leader, denied that he knew Jesus three times. Would this rather timid bunch of people have faced the hardships that followed if they had known the resurrection was a lie? Would they have been willing to be beaten up, would they have been willing to be whipped and thrown into prison for a lie? Would they have been willing to die for a lie? People may be willing to die for their faith if they believe it’s true. But people will not die for their faith if they know that it’s a lie. Their changed, totally transformed lives provide further evidence for the resurrection.
I’ve only been able to scratch the surface of the arguments. And if you want to read more, I can recommend a couple of books, The Resurrection Factor by Josh McDowell or Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morrison. Frank Morrison was a lawyer who set out to write a book to dispel what he thought was the myth of the resurrection. Instead, he concluded that Jesus did rise from death and ended up writing a book that was the exact opposite to what he had originally planned!
Richard Dawkins has defined faith as “blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence”. That is blatantly wrong; there is strong evidence in support of the resurrection. But it would be a mistake for me to end here. I believe that the resurrection is an historical fact, but I suspect that the Devil also believes that it’s a historical fact. Christianity is much more than a historical fact.
So what difference does it make, that Jesus rose from death? Last Sunday John ended his sermon with these words; “At the foot of the Cross we find restoration and wholeness.” Jesus died for us on the Cross to restore us to God, and he defeated death. Jesus is alive. He is living today! On Easter Sunday at the start of our service the leader declares, “Alleluia! Christ is risen.” The response that we give, and which Christians have been giving for centuries is, “He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” These words aren’t simply blind faith; the evidence tells us that they are true. “Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia!”
Let’s pray.
Father, Sometimes we may know something is true, but we’re unwilling to accept the implications of the truth. Help us to believe that Jesus is risen indeed not only in our minds, but also in our hearts and in our actions. Amen.
Did Jesus Rise Again?
In 1957 the BBC broadcast a spoof documentary about the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. The hoax Panorama programme was even narrated by Richard Dimbleby who was of course a very distinguished broadcaster. It featured a family carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry. Of course, the broadcast was just an April Fool's Day joke. But soon after the broadcast ended, the BBC began to receive dozens of calls from viewers, wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC reportedly replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best".
To be fair to the viewers, spaghetti was not widely eaten in Britain in the 1950s and it was thought to be an exotic dish. But the spaghetti harvest broadcast has gone down in history as one of the most successful April Fool’s Day jokes. Some people would place the story of Jesus’ resurrection, which we’ve just heard in the Gospel reading, in the same category; for them it is a story without foundation. For others it is the most significant event in the history of humankind. So, what is the truth? Did Jesus really rise from death?
This is actually a vital question. If Jesus didn’t rise from death, then we are wasting our time this morning. We might as well pack up, go home and watch TV. St Paul put it graphically in his letter to the Corinthians, “and if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe.” Christianity stands or falls on whether the resurrection actually happened. And that’s what we’re going to be examining today.
We’re going to be looking at the Biblical account of the resurrection. Two weeks ago Cameron explained that the historical evidence for Jesus was overwhelming; there was more evidence for Jesus’ existence than there was for Julius Caesar, for example. And the Gospels were written either by people who knew Jesus themselves or who talked directly to eyewitnesses. The Gospels have very solid foundations. And they provide at least 3 convincing reasons why we can believe that Jesus rose from death.
The first is the empty tomb. When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arrived at the tomb, it was empty; Jesus wasn’t there. There seems little doubt that the tomb was empty. When Jesus’ disciples first started to preach the Good News, they didn’t do so in some far away city such as Athens or Rome. No, they started in Jerusalem itself, where it would have been easy to prove what they were saying was false, simply by producing Jesus’ body. If the empty tomb had not been generally accepted as a fact in Jerusalem, the disciples would have been laughed out of court. Their opponents could simply have gone to the tomb, opened it and produced the body. The tomb was empty. But the question is - how did it become empty? Some alternative theories to the resurrection have been offered.
One suggestion is that Jesus didn’t really die; that he wasn’t completely dead when he was removed from the Cross. According to this theory shock from the loss of blood on the Cross, his wounds and all that he suffered sent him into a semi-coma. And when they put him in the tomb, the smell of the spices and cool air revived him. So when he came out of the tomb, the disciples assumed that he had risen from death. How likely is this theory to be true? Not very likely at all! If it is true, it means that Jesus successfully survived a horrendous beating and the loss of a lot of blood, crucifixion and the loss of yet more blood, and then being stabbed with a spear, leading to more loss of blood through a gaping wound. And what’s more when the Roman soldiers stabbed him with a spear, John’s Gospel tells us there was a rush of blood and water out from his wound. Now John wouldn’t have known it, but this is actually a well-known medical fact today: Jesus’ blood had separated into clot and serum, and it’s a sure sign that he was well and truly dead.
But let’s suppose that he hadn’t died; that he had gone into a semi-coma. Can we really believe that he then survived another three days in the tomb with no food and water, that he came to without any medical assistance, got himself out of tight wrappings, walked on pierced feet and single-handedly moved a huge stone away from the entrance and ran off without being noticed by highly trained Roman guards? This seems highly improbable, to say the least.
And even if he had somehow managed to do all that and found his disciples, he would have been in desperate need of medical attention. His disciples would hardly have gone around proclaiming that this half-dead man had risen from the dead. The claim that Jesus didn’t really die cannot explain the empty tomb.
Another theory is that the disciples stole the body. Again this is extremely unlikely. As we can see from our Gospel reading, the Pharisees had taken steps to make sure that this wouldn’t happen. They had gone to Pilate and asked him for a guard to stop Jesus’ disciples stealing the body, and Pilate had given them the guard. These would have been highly-trained, professional soldiers. The Roman army was famous for its iron discipline. It’s almost inconceivable that the whole unit would have gone to sleep, as was later claimed. Also, it’s very improbable that the disciples would have had the guts to do it. They were depressed and afraid. They thought it was all over. They would have been far more likely to have kept their heads down – which the Gospels say they did – than to try to steal the body. It’s extremely unlikely that the disciples stole the body. But could the authorities have stolen it instead?
This suggestion is equally improbable. They would have had no motive: in fact they had the exact opposite of a motive! And even if they had a motive, if they had stolen the body, why didn’t they produce it when the disciples first started to proclaim that Jesus was alive. That would have crushed the infant Christian Church at birth. So why didn’t the authorities produce it? The answer is simple: they didn’t have it.
The best explanation for the empty tomb is that Jesus was alive; he had risen from death. The empty tomb is a major piece of evidence supporting the resurrection. A second piece of evidence is Jesus’ appearances to his followers.
The resurrection accounts list as many as 11 different appearances of Jesus, starting with Mary Magdalene and ending with the apostle Paul. On one of these occasions, he appeared to over 500 people. It’s not possible to argue that all these people were hallucinating; the variety of situations and the number of individuals involved disprove this possibility – “group hallucinations" don’t provide a plausible explanation. Further, many of the people involved were very down to earth. They were fishermen, tax collectors and sceptics like doubting Thomas. And they weren’t seeing a “ghost”. These appearances were very physical and real. Jesus ate with his disciples; he suggested that they touch his side and his hands and he even cooked breakfast for them one morning on the shore of Lake Galilee. There is ample evidence of Jesus’ resurrection appearances.
And the third piece of evidence is the disciples’ changed lives. If they had stolen the body, everything that followed would have been a gigantic lie. Now, we know that the disciples weren't the bravest of people; the disciples fled after Jesus’ arrest and Peter, their leader, denied that he knew Jesus three times. Would this rather timid bunch of people have faced the hardships that followed if they had known the resurrection was a lie? Would they have been willing to be beaten up, would they have been willing to be whipped and thrown into prison for a lie? Would they have been willing to die for a lie? People may be willing to die for their faith if they believe it’s true. But people will not die for their faith if they know that it’s a lie. Their changed, totally transformed lives provide further evidence for the resurrection.
I’ve only been able to scratch the surface of the arguments. And if you want to read more, I can recommend a couple of books, The Resurrection Factor by Josh McDowell or Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morrison. Frank Morrison was a lawyer who set out to write a book to dispel what he thought was the myth of the resurrection. Instead, he concluded that Jesus did rise from death and ended up writing a book that was the exact opposite to what he had originally planned!
Richard Dawkins has defined faith as “blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence”. That is blatantly wrong; there is strong evidence in support of the resurrection. But it would be a mistake for me to end here. I believe that the resurrection is an historical fact, but I suspect that the Devil also believes that it’s a historical fact. Christianity is much more than a historical fact.
So what difference does it make, that Jesus rose from death? Last Sunday John ended his sermon with these words; “At the foot of the Cross we find restoration and wholeness.” Jesus died for us on the Cross to restore us to God, and he defeated death. Jesus is alive. He is living today! On Easter Sunday at the start of our service the leader declares, “Alleluia! Christ is risen.” The response that we give, and which Christians have been giving for centuries is, “He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” These words aren’t simply blind faith; the evidence tells us that they are true. “Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia!”
Let’s pray.
Father, Sometimes we may know something is true, but we’re unwilling to accept the implications of the truth. Help us to believe that Jesus is risen indeed not only in our minds, but also in our hearts and in our actions. Amen.
posted by Parish Administrator at 4:20 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home