Christ Arose John 20.1-9 Easter Sunday
Pastor Billy Strayhorn tells a wonderful true story about a pastor who was asked to conduct a graveside burial service for a member of his church. The only problem was, the cemetery was more than an hour and a half away from the church. The pastor wasn’t feeling well so he decided to ride with the Funeral Director in the hearse.
By the time they arrived at the cemetery, the pastor was truly sick with flu-like symptoms. Feverish and sick, he made it through the service, but he was deathly pale and obviously not well. As they headed back home, the funeral director suggested the pastor stretch out in the back of the hearse since it was now empty. It had curtains and nobody would see him. The pastor decided to do so and promptly fell asleep.
He awoke when the vehicle stopped. Taking a few minutes to fully awaken, he slowly sat up and drew the side curtain to see where he was. Suddenly he was face to face with a gas station attendant pumping gas. Needless to say the attendant was surprised and shocked to see a body in the back of the hearse rise up and stare back at him. With all the color drained out of him and his eyes as wide as saucers, the attendant ran on shaky legs back into the gas station, while the funeral director tried to catch up to explain the whole situation.
“I’m pretty sure,” says Pastor Strayhorn, “that’s how the women who came to the empty tomb that first Easter morning . . . felt. They had to have run on shaky legs back to the disciples, their hearts pounding with both shock and excitement.” (1)
What happened that first Easter is an amazing story. A man had risen from the dead. Every once in a while we hear about someone whose heart has stopped and is given CPR and revived. But three days in the ground? Never before and never since has this happened in human history.
Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was once asked if he believed in the resurrection. “Of course I do,” said Huckabee. “Dead people vote in every election we have in Arkansas. Resurrection is very real to us.”
Huckabee was being humorous. But one woman took this question more seriously. She was sitting in church during the Advent season at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. In the course of the sermon the priest asked this question, “What do you really want for Christmas this year?”
This woman says she nearly rose from her pew to answer the priest like this, “[What] I would really like [for Christmas is] to believe in the resurrection.” (2)
I can’t help but believe that many of us are in the same boat. How else can you explain our anemic faith? If we really believed in the resurrection, if we really believed that when we leave this world we shall stand before God clothed in a new body, if we really believed that Christ lives and that he is in the world today, would we not live more confident, more courageous, more committed lives?
Jesus Christ rose from the dead. That’s too much for some to accept. From the very beginning both dedicated disciples as well as cynical critics have struggled with the story of the resurrection. We can read that in the biblical testimony.
Some said his disciples stole his body. Remember that was Mary Magdalene’s response when she first saw the empty tomb. “She came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!’” (John 20:2).
Matthew puts the blame on the chief priests for the popularity of this stolen body scenario. He says in chapter 28 that the chief priests gave the soldiers a large sum of money to say that his disciples came during the night and stole Christ’s body while they were asleep. Then Matthew adds, “And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day” (v. 15). To some people, the stolen body scenario was credible.
Others contended he was not really dead when he was laid in the empty tomb he only swooned, or passed out, on the cross that he only seemed to be dead.
One lady wrote in to a question and answer forum. “Dear Sirs,” she wrote, “Our pastor said on Easter, that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think? (Signed) Sincerely, Bewildered.”
Someone on the forum named Charles wrote back: “Dear Bewildered, Beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross; hang him in the sun for six hours; run a spear through his side . . . put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens. Sincerely, Charles.” (3)
The resurrection is simply too good to be true in some people’s eyes. There must be some rational explanation anything but a resurrection. And yet it is true. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. He is alive today. How can I say that with such confidence? Let me give you three good reasons this Easter Day, 2010.
First of all, those who experienced his resurrection are such credible witnesses. Don’t take my word for it. Go back and read the record yourself. That’s what attorney and journalist Lee Strobel did. For a time, Strobel says he was too intellectual to accept the resurrection of Jesus as established fact. In his book God’s Outrageous Claims he writes: “I used to consider the Resurrection to be a laughable fairy tale. After all, Yale Law School had trained me to be coldly rational, and my years of sniffing for news at the Chicago Tribune had only toughened my naturally cynical personality. But intrigued by changes in my wife after she became a Christian, I spent nearly two years systematically using my journalistic and legal experience to study the evidence for the Resurrection and the credibility of Jesus’ claims to being God. I emerged totally convinced and gave my life to Christ . . .” (4)
I would challenge you, if you have any doubts at all about the historical record of the resurrection, to go back and read the story for yourself. The story does not read as something that was made up. It’s too chaotic. Notice the initial reaction of the disciples to the resurrection they did not believe it themselves. Mark tells us that when Mary Magdalene and the other women told the eleven disciples that they had seen the risen Lord, even “they did not believe it” (16:11). Luke is more blunt: “[The disciples] did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense” (Luke 24:11).
Even after the risen Christ had made himself known to many witnesses, Thomas, one of Christ’s most sincere disciples, would not believe that it could be so. He had to see for himself (John 20:24-25). Even when Christ made his final appearance to his disciples on the mountain where Christ gave them the great commission, Matthew adds these incredible words, “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; BUT SOME DOUBTED” (28:16-17). They were in Christ’s presence “but [still] some doubted.”
This is not propaganda. It is not a story fabricated to deceive. No one tried to iron out all of the wrinkles in order to convince us. This is the jumbled testimony of actual witnesses to the most amazing event in history. These witnesses to Christ’s resurrection recorded their testimony with all the doubts of their friends and the accusations of their enemies left intact. This is the first reason I believe in the resurrection: those who experienced his resurrection are such credible witnesses.
What is most impressive, of course, is how the resurrection affected their lives. These disciples were absolutely transformed. They moved from doubting and fearful to dynamic and ferocious in their witness to the resurrection. Before Christ was crucified Simon Peter denied he even knew Christ and yet, a mere seven weeks later on the day of Pentecost Peter told the story of Christ’s death and resurrection with such conviction and power that three thousand people became believers (Acts 2:41). How do you explain such a change in a person’s demeanor? It’s incredible. Even more impressively, none of those who claimed to have met Christ after his resurrection ever recanted. They were persecuted, tortured, even martyred, and right to the very end they stayed true to their testimony. He is alive!
Father Basil Pennington, a Roman Catholic monk, tells of an encounter he once had with a teacher of Zen. Pennington was at a retreat. As part of the retreat, each person met privately with this Zen teacher. Pennington says that at his meeting the Zen teacher sat there before him smiling from ear to ear and rocking gleefully back and forth. Finally the teacher said: “I like Christianity. But I would not like Christianity without the resurrection. I want to see your resurrection!”
Pennington notes that, “With his directness, the teacher was saying what everyone else implicitly says to Christians: You are a Christian. You are risen with Christ. Show me (what this means for you in your life) and I will believe.” (5) That is how people know if the resurrection is true or not. Does it affect how we live?
The amazing thing is that every one of Jesus’ disciples passed this test. Their lives were dramatically turned upside down by their encounter with Christ. How would you ever make something like this up and stick to it when stones were piercing your flesh as did Stephen, the first Christian martyr? Or as you were being crucified upside down like Simon Peter? It is hard to dispute the testimony of someone who is so convinced of what they have experienced that they are willing to suffer and die to tell the story.
A day after the terrible tragedy at Columbine High, CNN journalist Larry King did a live interview with a teenage girl named Mickie Cain, a student who had witnessed the massacre. Mickie was having a difficult time maintaining her composure and was able to blurt out only a few words before lapsing into uncontrollable sobs. Larry King was patient and gave her plenty of time to regain her composure. Mickie recounted the chilling story: “Let me tell you about my friend Cassie,” she said. “[Cassie] was amazing . . . She completely stood up for God when the killers asked her if there was anyone [in the classroom] who had faith in Christ. She spoke up [and said she did] and they shot her for it.” (6)
Such a testimony as Cassie made that day makes our witness look pretty pathetic, doesn’t it? The critical question is, would you make such a sacrifice for something that you knew was patently untrue? Of course not. And neither would those early disciples of Christ. Don’t take my word for it. Read the record for yourself. These were not wild-eyed fanatics. They were intelligent men and women, responsible men and women, sensible men and women, but something dramatic had happened in their life, something so dramatic, so extraordinary that it could not be denied. They had met Christ risen from the grave and they would not testify otherwise even while being tortured.
The witnesses are so credible, the change in their lives so dramatic, that their testimony cannot be disregarded. However, I said there were three reasons that I can say with such confidence that Christ rose from the grave. Here is the third: Without the resurrection, the presence of suffering in our world simply cannot be explained.
You and I have wrestled with this problem many times. How can a loving God place us in a world where there is so much suffering? In my heart I can only accept one real explanation. It is because the only way we grow spiritually is by struggling with pain. A person who never confronts pain and suffering will forever remain a spiritual infant. But to what end do we grow spiritually? It is so that we might become like Christ, that we might be fit to dwell with him eternally. The only way I can accept some of the deep tragedies I see in this world is to believe that this world is a preparatory school for a better world yet to come.
Consider the fact of aging. That which is physical gradually drops away. The flesh withers. Energy declines. The body is simply not capable of earlier feats.
You may recall years ago when fitness legend Jack LaLanne celebrated his seventieth birthday by towing 70 boats containing 70 people for a mile across Long Beach Harbor. Amazing! But wait. He did it by holding the rope in his teeth. Why? Well, he was handcuffed and wearing leg shackles! Unbelievable! At last report LaLanne was still going strong in his nineties. But friends, one day even Jack Lalanne’s body will give out on him and only one thing will remain, his spirit. This world is not our final destination. It is but a prelude to a grander production.
This world is a preparatory school. Without the resurrection, it is simply impossible to explain a world in which people suffer. But the resurrection is real. Christ is alive. Lee Strobel is only one among many intelligent and scientifically trained men and women who have studied the record carefully and come to the conclusion that the evidence is overwhelming: Christ rose from the dead. He is alive and he is available in our world today.
I ran across a beautiful story recently about a woman named Rosemary who works in the Alzheimer’s Unit of a nursing home. Rosemary and a colleague named Arlene brought the residents of the home together one Good Friday afternoon to view Franco Zeffirelli’s acclaimed production Jesus of Nazareth. They wondered whether these elderly Alzheimer’s patients would even know what was going on, but they thought it might be worth the effort.
When they finally succeeded in getting everyone into position, they started the video. Rosemary was pleasantly surprised at the quiet attention being paid to the screen.
At last came the scene where Mary Magdalene comes upon the empty tomb and sees Jesus’ body not there. An unknown man, in reality the risen Christ, asks Mary why she is looking for the living among the dead. Mary runs as fast as she can back to the disciples and tells Peter and the rest with breathless excitement, “He’s alive! I saw Him, I tell you! He’s alive.” The doubt in their eyes causes Mary to pull back. “You don’t believe me . . . You don’t believe me!”
From somewhere in the crowd of Alzheimer’s patients came the clear, resolute voice of Esther, one of the patients. “WE BELIEVE YOU,” she said, “WE BELIEVE YOU!” (7)
Well, Esther, I believe it too. The evidence is overwhelming, and life makes no sense without it. Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
1. http://www.epulpit.net/080323.htm.
2. Nora Gallagher, Practicing Resurrection (Knopf Doubleday Publishing). Cited by Daniel Clendenin, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20070402JJ.shtml#.
3. Royce Hendry, http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=34943.
4. Cited by Dr. James L. Wilson, http://www.freshministry.org/alameda/10.htm.
5. Marilyn Omernick, http://www.stjohnslaverne.org/SermonReadingArchive/OmernickEasterSundaySermon2006.rtf.
6. Franklin Graham, The Name (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2002), pp. 14-15.
7. Rosemary Kadrmas in Jeff Cavins, et.al, Amazing Grace for the Catholic Heart (West Chester, PA: Ascension Press, LLC, 2003), pp. 211-212.
