Quote from Forum Archives on April 14, 2009, 2:09 pm

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

 

HE LIVES

April 12, 2009

 

 

TEXT:  John 20:1-9

 

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever.  Amen.” (Galatians 3-5)  This is the greeting with which Paul begins his letter to the Christians in Galatia.  In fact, Paul begins all of his letters with a very similar greeting in which Jesus is acknowledged, and therefore addressed, as Lord.  So on this Sunday of resurrection celebration, I likewise greet you: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

 

Each and every Easter is our opportunity to be specially reminded that Jesus is victorious over sin and death.  It is our opportunity to be specially reminded that Jesus is our Savior.  It is our opportunity to be specially reminded that Jesus lives.

 

In truth, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Christ every Sunday.  It is not a once-a-year event for us.  It is an ongoing, everlasting reality and truth.  If we were attending church in colonial America, the chances are that our church would not even celebrate an Easter Sunday.  Many of them would even attempt to suppress the notion of celebrating a special Sunday as Easter, or resurrection, Sunday because every Sunday is a celebration of the triumphal resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I spoke about this at the Sonrise service; if you weren’t there, then you missed it.  What we need to keep in front of us, though, is that whether we think that there should be a special Sunday to celebrate the resurrection or not, Jesus Christ lives.  He is as alive today – this very morning – as he was before his crucifixion and after his resurrection.  In front of everyone here this morning, in front of unbelievers and born-again believers alike, I make this proclamation known to you: Jesus Christ lives!

 

Now comes the challenge, and believe me, brothers and sisters, the challenges are out there.  How do I know that Jesus lives?  How do you know that Jesus lives?  “Well,” we answer.  “We have faith.  We believe that what is in the Bible is true, and we believe that Jesus arose from the dead just as it says.”  “Well,” they answer.  “A lot of people have faith.  Some have faith in Muhammad.  Some have faith Buddha.  Some have faith in the Hindu gods.  Some have faith in no gods at all.  So what makes your faith any more believable than any of these other faiths?”

 

Yes, it is certainly true that our salvation is made complete when we accept by faith the gift of God’s love.  The New Testament makes this known to us in many places.  Paul writes in Romans 3:21-22, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.  This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”  Faith is a necessary, integral part of our salvation from and relationship with God.

 

But this neither means nor implies that there is not evidence for our faith.  If there exists no evidence, then our critics have a case.  Why is the Christian faith any more believable than any of these other faiths?

 

I’m not going through the whole list this morning.  There are many good books devoted to this topic.  One reality that even the skeptics have to agree with is that the New Testament was written by and about eyewitnesses to the life, ministry, and events of Jesus.  The twelve disciples, other followers, and enemies of Jesus knew him, heard him, and saw him.  As I have indicated before, if there was no historical Jesus, then it would have been fairly simple to put an end to this Jesus movement.  The religious leaders who opposed Jesus’ followers could have simply shown the people that there was no Jesus to follow.  It’s not that hard.

 

However, they could not do that because both they and Jesus’ followers knew that Jesus lived.  So now we come to the point where we must respond to the challenges of the resurrection.  How do we know that Jesus rose from the grave?  We know by faith, of course – faith in the Word of God and faith in the testimonies of those who have taught us.  Now I’m going to defer to one of our contemporary Christian apologists, Lee Strobel.  He writes, "When Jesus was crucified, his followers were discouraged and depressed.  So they dispersed.  The Jesus movement was all but stopped in its tracks.  Then, after a short period of time, we see them abandoning their occupations, re-gathering, and committing themselves to spreading a very specific message – that Jesus Christ was the Messiah of God who died on a cross, returned to life, and was seen alive by them.  And they were willing to spend the rest of their lives proclaiming this, without any payoff from a human point of view.  They faced a life of hardship.  They often went without food, slept exposed to the elements, and were ridiculed, beaten, imprisoned.  And finally, most of them were executed in torturous ways.  For what?  For good intentions?  No, because they were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had seen Jesus Christ alive from the dead.  Yes, people will die for their religious convictions if they sincerely believe they are true.  Religious fanatics have done that throughout history.  While they may strongly believe in the tenets of their religion, however, they don’t know for a fact whether their faith is based on the truth.  They simply cannot know for sure.  They can only believe.  In stark contrast, the disciples were in the unique position to know for a fact whether Jesus had returned from the dead.  They saw him; they touched him; they ate with him.  They knew he wasn’t a hallucination or a legend.  And knowing the truth, they were willing to die for him."  (The Case for Easter by Lee Strobel)  Jesus lives!

 

This is the truthful reality of Resurrection Sunday.  Even though the disciples lived with Jesus for three years and watched him teach others and watched him perform miracles and even hear the lessons he taught them privately, they still failed to grasp that the prophesy of a risen Christ was going to be fulfilled.  John 20: pulls no punches: “They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.”  That was not on their radar screen.  I don’t think that it would have been on mine.  But I can make you this solid guarantee.  If I had been one of those disciples and watched Jesus die on that cruel cross and seen him laid in a tomb and known that Jewish and Roman authorities might be looking for me, I would not have even thought about standing in public later and proclaiming salvation in the name of Christ is something extraordinary had not taken place.  Can you imagine being approached by the other disciples in this manner?  “Brother Chuck, we have this great idea.  We’re going to head right over to the temple and tell everyone that Jesus is alive.”  “Uhh… OK.  So we’re going to gather a lot of followers and overthrow the Romans and set ourselves up on the throne.”  “No, we’re not going to do that.”  “Uhh… OK.  Then we’re going to pass around the plates and raise a little dough for this scam.  I can go along with that; I need a little extra income every now and then.”  “No, we’re not going to do that.”  “Uhh… OK.  Then what are we going to do?”  “We’re going to tell everyone that Jesus the Christ suffered and died for our sins, and that he is the only way to reconciliation with God, and that everyone needs to repent and believe in him.  And we’re going to be persecuted for our belief and we’re going to suffer a lot and we’re probably going to die some pretty horrid deaths.”  “Uhhh… right.  OK, I’ll pass up this little opportunity.”  That’s how it would have played out if Pastor Chuck had been there and there had been no bodily resurrection.  What makes us think that any of the real disciples would have acted any less rationally?  They didn’t go out and use the name of Jesus to raise an army to overthrow their oppressors.  They didn’t go out and use the name of Jesus to raise money for themselves.  They didn’t go out and use the name of Jesus to improve their lives in any way from a human perspective.  In fact, from a human perspective, they worsened their lives.  Can you believe that any one of them would have gone to such extremes if the resurrection was a lie?  They were the ones who knew whether it was or wasn’t.  Given the powerful changes in their lives a few weeks after the death of their leader, can we draw any other conclusion than this: all of the disciples knew beyond any doubt that they had seen and felt and heard the resurrected Jesus?  The disciples and the other eyewitnesses knew the truth, and they proclaimed the truth about their beloved Jesus.  He lives!

 

The heading above John 20 in the copy of my Bible reads, “The Empty Tomb.”  The tomb was empty not because the disciples removed the body; not because they mistakenly went to the wrong tomb; not because the whole story was made up by a small group of guys for some grotesque practical joke.  The tomb was empty because the broken body of my Jesus could not be contained by sin or death or the grave, and he lives!

 

Because he lives, we, too, can live.  Indeed, we are invited and encouraged by our Lord to join him in life.  We are invited and encouraged to join him in the mansion he has prepared for us.  We are invited and encouraged to gather with the saints before God’s throne around the crystal sea.  Because Jesus lives, we can join him in everlasting life by believing that he bore the penalty for my sin; that he took my filthy rags of unrighteousness, threw them forever away, and replaced them with a raiment of holy glory; that he tore my name out of the book of eternal death and wrote it with his own blood into the Lamb’s book of life.  My friends, hear me well this Easter: Jesus lives!  And because he lives, so do I.  Because he lives, so do you.  The moment you replace your sin-filled life with the belief that Jesus suffered and died and was buried and rose victorious over the grave for the sake of making you whole, then you live with Jesus now and forevermore.  Won’t you make this a day of celebration?  A day in which even the angels in heaven rejoice because a lost sinner has been found and redeemed to eternal life?  A day in which you can rejoice with the truth of the good news: Jesus lives!  Amen.

 

“So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb.  Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.  He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in.  Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb.  He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head.  The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.  Finally, the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside.  He saw and believed.”  (John 20:3-8)

 

 

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

179 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

www.bhfirstbaptist.com

 

 

 

 

 

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