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On Easter, we looked at the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Because our faith hinges on it being true. So is there evidence for Jesus really rising from the dead thousands of years ago? I believe there is.
Have you ever laid awake at night pondering your existence?
I did this nearly ever day of my high school years, at least it seemed that way. I would think about time and how it’s so big. I would think about the decades that I would get to, maybe, exist on this colorful ball, spinning on an axis, and whirling around the sun over and over and over again.
I would zoom out even more. I would start to think about the past. The past that happened, that came and went, that I didn’t get to witness, but I heard about it happening. The pain, the sorrow, the joy, the struggle of human existence.
I would zoom out again and go further back in time. I would think about how this all started. And then I’d ask the question: what about before all this?
Then I would turn my attention to the future. What about when I’m dead and gone? What then? Is that it? Just nothingness?
And then I would get frustrated and think: well if it’s just nothing after this then what the heck was the point? WHY?
And then I would do something that seemed intuitive to me. It was something I never talked about with other people. I never had a conversation about it.
I would “pray.”
Did I know who I was praying to? Nope. No clue.
Maybe You’ve Wondered…
Maybe you’ve been there too. Maybe you’ve wondered why you’re here, how you got here, what’s the point?
Maybe you’ve questioned the existence of God.
Maybe you grew up in church and you’re just not sure if everything you were taught is really that relevant to life.
Regardless of your starting point today, I want you to consider something.
There are many religions in the world. Ever since the beginning of our existence as human beings, we have gazed at the sky and have tried to understand and explain our own existence.
People have worshiped just about anything and everything. It seems like we were made to worship something.
And today, we’re going to consider someone. Because the Christian faith is built upon a person. A person who walked on this earth. A person who taught people. A person who performed miracles. A person who claimed to be God. Yes. That is what He claimed. And that same person? He was crucified on a Roman cross.
But the interesting thing is that He didn’t just claim to be God. He told His followers that He would die and then rise again. They didn’t understand it at the time.
But here’s the thing: if He did, in fact, rise from the dead then that puts an exclamation point on everything else He claimed about Himself.
No other religious figure in human history ever gave their followers such an objective truth claim for proof of their wisdom or, in Jesus’ case, their divinity.
So the question is, why Jesus? And to that I say the resurrection. If Jesus rose from the dead after telling His disciples that He would do just that, then that changes everything.
The question behind the question
And that leads us to the question behind the question. And that is simply this: what do you do with Jesus?
You see, I am convinced that how we answer the question, what do you do with Jesus? hinges on the doorframe of eternity.
Consider: Claims About Jesus and Claims of Jesus
In the first century, some of Jesus’ apostles and people close to them set out to write down the testimony about Jesus. And we have those documents in the Christian Bible and they are the first four books of the New Testament. They are simply called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Matthew was a former tax collector turned apostle of Jesus. Mark was a ministry partner of Peter, the close apostle to Jesus. Luke was a doctor and ministry partner of the apostle Paul. And John was, as he calls himself, Jesus’ beloved disciple. He was basically besties with Jesus.
John, when he wrote down his biography of Jesus, he pointed out why he took the time and money to write about Jesus’ life and testimony:
31 But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)
So you see that belief, according to Jesus’ contemporaries, was of utmost importance.
So let’s get into some of the claims about Jesus and the claims of Jesus.
Claims about Jesus and of Jesus
Read:
- John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
- John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
A fundamental claim about Jesus is that He is God. He is God putting on flesh and coming down to dwell among us. For the Jews reading this, they would have been reminded, based on the wording John uses, of the Exodus when God had them build a tabernacle for Him to dwell in the desert among them.
And John points back and points toward Jesus as the Creator God who has come to tabernacle, to dwell, to be with us.
Right off the bat with Jesus we see a completely different message than the rest of the religious world.
The testimony about Jesus is not that He beckoned us from heaven to climb the ethical do-good ladder to try and reach up to Him. No. The testimony about Jesus is that He, out of love, came down to us. Came down to you. Came down to meet us in the midst of our messes. Not as a vengeful dictator, but as the God who is full of grace and truth.
But wait… There’s more.
Read:
- John 1:29: “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
- John 1:34: “I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”
- John 1:49: “Rabbi,” Nathanael replied, “You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel!”
So not only is Jesus God in flesh, full of grace and truth, but he is the sacrificial lamb, sufficient to take away the sins of the world. He is the passover lamb who rescues His people by His blood. He is the once and for all sufficient sacrifice that pays the sin debt of all who would come to Him.
He is the Son of God, which means Messiah, which means king. He is the king who will rule and rein forever. He is the king the Israelites needed, but rejected for Saul, David, Solomon and a whole host of others. He is the king whose kingdom will never end. He is the king who is conquering the Devil and all his schemes. He is the king who is conquering sin and death.
To put it simply, there is no one else like Him. There is no one else like Jesus, God in flesh, full of grace and truth. There is no one else like Him.
What do you do with Jesus?
Here’s a quick list of what Jesus said about Himself:
- To know him is to know God;
- To see him is to see God;
- To believe in him is to believe in God;
- To receive him is to receive God;
- To hate him is to hate God;
- To honor him is to honor God
(John 8:19; 14:7; 12:45; 14:9; 12:44; 14:1; Mark 9:37; John 15:23; 5:23)
Consider: Jesus’ Defining Moment – the Resurrection
But up until now, someone could say, well that’s just a bunch of fantasy. That’s just a bunch of hogwash. That’s just a bunch of mythology about a guy that clearly had a following because of his unordinary level of charisma.
But let’s simply consider Jesus’ defining moment – the resurrection.
Because here’s the thing: without this, Christianity is nothing. It is fantasy. It is hogwash. It is just a bunch of mythology. Because if Jesus is dead, he was a liar, he was a deranged man who thought he was God but wasn’t.
But if this is true. If Jesus of Nazareth really did rise from the dead, it makes this single question the absolute most important question you’ll ever answer: what do you do with Jesus?
If he really did rise from the dead, it changes absolutely everything.
So let’s look at it.
Flogging, Crucifixion, Tomb, Empty Tomb
According to the most analyzed, most scrutinized, and most proven-to-be-reliable documents from history, the gospels, Jewish leaders schemed against Jesus because He was disrupting their influence and their stronghold on the Jewish hierarchy.
His teachings were subversive and He claimed to be the Messiah which would surely rob the religious leaders of their influence. Not to mention, he wasn’t clean like a good Jew was supposed to be. He hung out with sinners, He healed people on the Sabbath, He forgave people of their sins. He was blasphemous.
So they put together a plan. They had Jesus arrested in the dark of night, they questioned him, and they turned him over to the Romans with the charge that He was claiming to be the Son of God, the King. When Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea questioned Jesus, he asked him simply, are you the king of the Jews?
Pontius Pilate didn’t see Jesus as a criminal, but the crowds were stirred and they wanted His head. So he had Jesus flogged.
Dr. Alexander Metherell describes what a Roman flogging did to the human body:
The back would be so shredded that part of the spine was sometimes exposed by the deep, deep cuts. The whippings would have gone all the way from the shoulders down to the back, the buttocks, and the back of the legs. It was just terrible.
Then the Roman soldiers were ordered to carry out the crucifixion. Jesus walked up to Mount Calvary, bloodied and beaten.
Large spikes were driven into his wrists and his feet and then the cross was raised and there he hung, suffocating under his own weight.
As he hung on that cross, he declared, right before he gave his last breath, IT IS FINISHED!
And there on that cross, with the words King of the Jews written on a sign above his head, the Messiah, the king died.
Once he was confirmed to be dead (he was pierced in the side just for good measure), his body was taken to a borrowed tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea.
A large disk-shaped stone was rolled in front of the opening to the tomb and Roman guards were stationed in front of the tomb.
Friday ends, Saturday comes and goes. Jesus is still dead.
Jesus’ followers are in hiding. They are afraid for their lives.
And then Sunday comes and as some of the women who followed Jesus made their way to the tomb to anoint his body with oils, the tomb was found to be empty.
Then he appeared to Peter, to the rest of the apostles, and then to over five hundred men and women before he ascended into heaven in front of the disciples.
And here’s what the apostles proclaimed to the masses after this
“You killed the source of life, whom God raised from the dead; we are witnesses of this.” – Acts 3:15
“You killed the source of life, whom God raised from the dead; we are witnesses of this.”
They didn’t seek to make this up. They saw Jesus walking, talking, breathing, triumphant and victorious.
This wasn’t some story they were trying to make up. They said that this whole thing, they were witnesses of it.
All someone needed to disprove it was a body. That’s it. No more Christianity. Just a body.
After all, these were 11 unschooled, ordinary men. Could they have pulled off the greatest hoax in the history of mankind, keep his body hidden for centuries and centuries, convince thousands of people that Jesus wasn’t just some good teacher but that he was the resurrected Savior, and then die martyrs deaths?
What did they have to gain? Prominence? They didn’t seek power. And they didn’t get any either.
Instead they got beaten, ridiculed, and many of them were imprisoned, crucified, burned at the stake, or exiled from civilization.
All that for a made up story? Surely not.
All that for what they knew to be true? Precisely.
You see, for the apostles, this wasn’t a thing in the realm of belief, it was a thing in the realm of 100% KNOWING it to be true.
Christianity is founded on a highly objective, falsifiable claim:
- Buddha said look to the wisdom of my teaching… [subjective]
- Muhammad said look to the beauty and eloquence of the Qur’an… [subjective]
- Jesus said after three days I will rise again (Matt. 27:63)… [objective]
My friends, I’m here to say that not only did Jesus declare He would rise from the dead, He delivered on his declaration. He called His shot.
Again, the question is:
What do you do with Jesus?
Because…
The resurrection of Jesus is the linchpin of eternity.
His message is unique.
In Jesus we see God coming down, not requiring us to climb to Him.
In Jesus we see the love of God on full display. He hung out with sinners like you and me. He said that he came to seek and to save the lost; to be the doctor for the sick; to be the hope for the hopeless.
In Jesus we see God establishing His rule and rein. Jesus is Savior, absolutely. He is also King.
And His command to us is simply this: surrender and believe.
Mark 1:15
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Jesus is the miracle working king.
Many of us in this room are walking miracles. Some of us are people who other people have their mouths hit the floor when they hear we go to church.
Many of us were broken beyond repair. Until we met Jesus, that is.
Some of us were abandoned, but then we met Jesus, the king who says come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest.
Some of us were angry at God, until we met Jesus.
Some of us didn’t believe in God at all, until we met Jesus.
Some of us were religious legalists, striving to keep the rules and keep in God’s good graces, and then we met Jesus who is more gracious than we ever could have imagined.
We worship Jesus because…
My friends, we worship Jesus because He is alive. He is not in the tomb.
He was not swallowed by death. No He rose victoriously and walked on out of that tomb.
Because of Jesus, we can see that the evil in this world, the evil in ourselves will not prevail. We worship the God who came down and paid the penalty for our evil so that we could have life.
Because of Jesus, we have an answer to our deepest longings for transcendence. Each one of us wonders what our purpose is, what our destiny will be. We wonder those things because we were designed to desire our Creator. And because of Jesus, we see that our purpose and our destiny come into full focus in the fact that Jesus came down, He paid our debt, and He offers us the benefit of entering God’s presence as if we had never sinned.
Because of Jesus, we know that God cares for us. We know that He is with us. Because Jesus didn’t stay dead, because he was resurrected, we get to enjoy this life and the next life in communion with our mighty, loving God.
His promise is guaranteed by His victory over sin and death. Just as He was raised from the dead, we too will be raised to new life, for even though we die, we will live forever with Him.
Did the resurrection really happen? I’m staking my life on it because I believe the testimony of those who knew Him. Those who knew not only the Jesus before the crucifixion, but the Jesus who rose from the grave and gave a group of scared, trembling men and women courage to go proclaim His message to the masses despite being persecuted every step of the way.
If you’ve never surrendered
If you’ve never surrendered to king Jesus, please go to the prayer room after service (off the foyer hallway) and we will have some caring individuals there to talk to you about that.
The resurrection of Jesus is the linchpin of eternity.
Lord, we need you.
