Our culture resists the idea of Jesus’ physical resurrection. Most of the recent Easter cards reflect this. While there are motifs of new life, new birth, and even renewal, rarely is the word ‘resurrection’ mentioned. Theologians don’t always help, for some will tell us at Christmas that Jesus was not born of a virgin, and at Easter that he was not physically raised from the dead.
Hugh McKay, a Sydney commentator, once put it this way: ‘The historical, literal truth about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, has little connection with the Easter celebration of Christian believers. Faith thrives on doubt and therefore, even if Jesus didn’t live, die and come back to life again, Easter would still have meaning.’ It’s a very attractive view: Jesus’ resurrection is no more than a mystical experience, without any necessary foundation in fact.
FICTION?
But that is one thing the New Testament refuses to accept. For, contrary to what society thinks, what some theologians think and what some ministers preach, the writers of the New Testament are insistent: Jesus’ tomb was empty. Witnesses saw him alive.
One of the remarkable features of the account of Jesus’ resurrection is the witness of women. Under Jewish law at the time, the testimony of a woman was inadmissible and even in Roman society a women’s witness was not treated with equal weight as a man’s. If Jesus’ resurrection was a fiction women would not be the first witnesses: yet all four Gospels record that they were.
Another amazing feature about Jesus’ resurrection is the reference to angels. If I was inventing a story that I wanted others to accept, I would not introduce angelic figures. Having said that, if I thought that introducing angels might make my story about supernatural events more acceptable, I would let the angels speak for themselves, and give their version of what had happened and why. An angelic press conference could be quite remarkable. But all the angel said to the women was: ‘If you want to find Jesus there’s no point in you being here; he is risen.’
G.K. Chesterton once applied some words of Lord Byron to Christianity: Truth is stranger than fiction, he said, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.
THE UNTHINKABLE
On Monday, September 10, 2001, Judy and I were living just three short blocks from the World Trade Centre. That evening we dined just down from the Trade Centre. If anyone had said to us that on the following morning terrorists would hi-jack two commercial aircraft and crash them into the Trade Centre with innocent passengers on board, we would have said, ‘It wouldn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. It won’t happen’.
We may at first have difficulty understanding the notion of Jesus’ resurrection, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen and didn’t happen. The New Testament witness is consistent: Jesus did physically rise from the dead. In the earliest written account we read: Christ (he) was buried,… he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and… he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living… (1 Corinthians 15:4-6).
JESUS’ PHYSICAL RESURRECTION
Peter preached his first sermon about Jesus being raised from the dead less than three miles from the tomb. People could have easily checked for themselves whether the tomb was empty.
Dr John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, in Gunning for God (Lion: 2011, p.212) writes, The empty tomb is important: if it were not empty, you could not speak of resurrection. But we need to be clear that the early Christians did not simply assert that the tomb was empty. Far more important for them was the fact that subsequently they had met the risen Christ… It was nothing less than this that galvanized them into action, and gave them the courage to confront the world with the message of the Christian gospel… The fact that they had personally witnessed these appearances of the risen Christ formed an integral part of that gospel.
God’s good news is good because it is true. It is grounded in fact. Jesus’ resurrection is not fiction. It is the reality that authenticates God’s willingness to forgive us; that gives us hope and joy. It is the reality that surely stirs us to speak with others about God’s gospel.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is often lightly dismissed these days because most people have not taken the time to investigate it. For example, writing about the silence of the New Atheists on the subject of Jesus’ resurrection, Dr. John Lennox, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, writes in his Gunning for God (Lion: 2011, p.225): ‘There is a simple reason for that. For all their interest in evidence, there is nothing in their writings to show they have seriously interacted with the arguments (for the resurrection), many of them well known,… The silence of the New Atheism on this matter tells its own story.’
For his part, a former highly respected professor of theology at Cambridge University, CFD Moule, said of the resurrection: ‘If the coming into existence of the Nazarenes, a phenomenon undeniably attested in the New Testament, rips a great hole in history, a hole the size and shape of the Resurrection, what does the secular historian propose to stop it up with?… The birth and the rapid rise of the Christian Church… remain an unsolved enigma for any historian who refuses to take seriously the only explanation offered by the Church itself.
Mr Justice Ken Handley, a former Justice of the Court of Appeal, New South Wales, Australia wrote: ‘Most people who reject the resurrection do so with a closed mind without looking at the evidence. This is irrational and foolish. Jesus, the Son of God, who died to make us right with God, is calling each of us into a relationship with him which will involve faith, repentance, forgiveness and obedience. The Christian’s answers to those nagging personal questions make sense of the Cosmos and our place and purpose in it…’
CONFIDENCE AND VOICE
Too often today the Christian voice has been silenced. Too often we have lost our confidence in what we believe to be true or because we have failed to work at responses to those who would ridicule us. For my part, I am glad that, under God in my undergraduate years at Sydney University, I put in some hard work researching the question of the physical resurrection of Jesus. Without that foundation, humanly speaking, my faith and my witness may not have stood the test of time.
Over this Easter season, I plan to use the Wednesday ‘Word’ to touch on some of the salient elements of Jesus’ resurrection. Indeed, let me encourage you to use this time to refresh your own understanding of the reality and the significance of his resurrection. It is not without significance that every ‘outreach’ sermon in the New Testament affirms that Jesus was raised from the dead.
A good place to start is with 1 Corinthians 15 – possibly the earliest document we have on the subject. Consider: 3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles…
ASSURANCE
Notice what Paul says: he tells us that God’s Messiah, the Christ,died for our sins… He then assures us that Christ was raised from the dead. Knowing that physical resurrection conflicts with our human observation of life, he goes on to present a case, as in a court of law – to argue for the truth and significance of this amazing event. He references eye-witnesses and goes on to present a cogent argument for the reality of the resurrection.
It is noteworthy that the Christian gospel did not come about because a group of fanatics had invented a story about their hero. It didn’t start because a group of philosophers had come to the same conclusions about life. And it didn’t start because a group of mystics shared the same vision about God. It began with a group of eye-witnesses – very ordinary men and women who saw something very extraordinary happen. In a word, God’s good news begins with history.
In an article last week in The New York Times(March 15, 2106), David Brooks wrote of the way a ‘shame culture’ is replacing a ‘guilt culture’. ‘In a guilt culture’, he writes, ‘people sometimes feel they do bad things; in a shame culture social exclusion makes people feel they are bad’.
Paul the Apostle, in his Letter to the Ephesians sees a deeper problem within us: You were dead through the trespasses and sins2 in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Our first response to this may be to think he is writing nonsense. We only have to observe the vigorous bodies of athletes, the agile minds of scholars and the charismatic attraction and perfect teeth of celebrities. How can he say that people are dead?
Clearly he sees life from a perspective we usually overlook – the issue of our soul. We all know that we are much more than the sum of our parts, that there is a spiritual dimension to our lives. When it comes to the real issue of life, Paul is saying that having a perfect body or a brilliant mind or the most charismatic personality will not help us. We have a soul problem.
And he tells us why we are spiritually dead: it is because of our trespasses and sins. Trespass is a false step, involving either the crossing of a known boundary or stepping away from the right path. Sin is missing the mark, falling short of a standard.
Trespass and sin highlight our predicament. We have done what we ought not to have done, and we have not done what we ought to have done.
CREATED IN GOD’S IMAGE
Here in a sentence is the irony of our human state. Created in God’s image for relationship with him, we choose to live without him. God wants to give life and to love the life he has given. We, also having the capacity to love, turn our love away from the very God who has given us this gift. And, Paul tells us, this is our condition until the Good Shepherd finds us.
But, because God is who he is, Paul can go on to write: But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us… (2:4).
Paul moves here from speaking about us being condemned by God, to the mercy and love of God. He can hold both together because giving life and love is at the heart of God’s nature.
We need to think about this, for then we will realize that we need to pay careful attention to what disappoints and angers God. Like the Prodigal son in Jesus’ parable, we need to come to our senses and turn back to him and worship him, because his justice and love are perfect.
It is because we fail to recognize the gravity of our true condition that we tend to put our trust in other remedies – better government, better education, better laws, more acts of charity, more equal distribution of wealth. There’s no doubt these things are pleasing to God but they can never rescue us from spiritual death, spiritual captivity, or God’s condemnation.
This doesn’t mean that we should give up on providing better education or working towards a more just society, but the fact is we need a radical remedy – and this is just what God has done. God has given us a message of good news that offers life to the dead, freedom to captives, and forgiveness to the condemned.
These events don’t fit our model of the way the world works, but it doesn’t mean they are false.
Let me encourage you to set aside time this Easter to consider afresh the meaning of the cross and the amnesty God now holds out to us because he is rich in mercy. May you know afresh the hope of forgiveness and new life that God holds out to you – a hope that is grounded in the reality that God raised Jesus from the dead.
It is sometimes said that the Bible teaches that money is evil. That is not so. The Bible tells us it is the love of money that is the problem. In fact, the Bible makes it clear that we should view money as our servant, something to be used for service.
In 2 Corinthian 8:7-9 we read: 7 Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. 8 I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. 9 For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
In 2 Corinthians 8 & 9 Paul writes of an Appeal he was taking up in Asia to assist impoverished Christians in Judea. At first the Corinthians had responded well to the idea. But they seemed to have forgotten that they had pledged further contributions. They needed reminder.
Part of Paul’s strategy was to point to the generosity of the poorer churches in Macedonia in the north: ‘You don’t want to be outdone by the churches up-state, do you?’ he asks. Many churches in the western world today deserve to be embarrassed when we hear of the generosity of some churches in the emerging world.
GIVING
What Paul writes is a model fund-raising letter as he sets out why God’s people should give.
* Sacrificial giving. Macedonia was an exploited impoverished colony. God’s people there had suffered persecution, often losing jobs and property. Yet instead of using lack of resources as an excuse for reducing their contribution, the Macedonians had increased their giving (8:2-3a).
* Enthusiastic giving. The Macedonians were begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints (8:4). They counted such an opportunity a privilege, literally a ‘grace’. They really believed what the Lord Jesus taught: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’.
* Faith-driven giving. In 8:5 Paul tells us that the Macedonians were not just giving money to the church in Jerusalem, they were giving themselves to the Lord. Their genuine concern for others sprang from their own relationship with Jesus Christ. It was because their lives were centered on him that they were motivated to extravagance and cheerfulness in their giving.
* Incarnational Giving! 2 Corinthians 8:9 is sometimes described as the jewel in the crown of Paul’s appeal to give. He speaks of the existence of Christ before his birth – he was rich. From all eternity Christ had been enthroned in the splendor and glory of heaven. Paul speaks of the birth of Christ – he became poor. He took to himself something that in all eternity he had never known – poverty. We also see Christ’s generosity – so that you through his poverty might become rich.
Christ condescended to a monumental humiliation – his lowly birth in Bethlehem and his ignominious death at Calvary – so that he could enrich us. We give, says Paul, because God gave. Anyone who understands what Christ has done cannot help but be generous themselves.
You may want to consider:
1. the context of Paul’s appeal to the Corinthians;
2. the example of the giving of the Macedonians;
3. the impact of verse 9 – we give because of Christ.
There is no such thing as the perfect church. We might long for it, but we won’t find it this side of heaven. The reality is that churches can experience tensions and disagreements amongst their members. Yet church is important. Jesus said, ‘I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it’ (Matthew 16:18). Paul, and Peter too, had every expectation that ‘church’ should be a good experience for us.
RELATIONSHIPS
In Colossians 3:12-17 Paul points to attitudes and actions we need to work at in our relationships, so that instead of walking away, we might find a way to keep the peace. He writes:
As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
ATTITUDES
If we are to experience the peace of Christ in our relationships, we need new attitudes. Instead of indifference – compassion and kindness; instead of pride – humility and gentleness; instead of impatience and resentment – patience.
Above all, Paul says: Forgive each other as the Lord has forgiven you. Designed by God to love him, we have turned our love inward. However, God is prepared to pardon and deliver us through the death of Jesus Christ, when we turn to him in repentance and faith. Paul is saying, because God is prepared to forgive us, we should be prepared to forgive those who wrong us. Paul knows how easy it is for us to be divided and the corrosive effect of wounded feelings. But he also knows of the one force that can heal, and enable us to grow into maturity – love.
Churches ought to be different from the wider society for they are the one place where the ethics of the kingdom should be evident — love, mercy, and reconciliation rather than revenge or personal retribution. ‘Pray about your attitude towards those who have wronged you’ says Paul. ‘Will you forgive them? Do you care for them? Above all will you love them?’
PRACTICAL ACTION
Keeping the peace doesn’t mean simply sweeping our differences under the carpet or putting on an artificial smile. Paul advises us to act on three principles:
Bible. By coming to the Bible together we can instruct and help one another, and even correct one another (3:16). We need to learn to bring our minds under the direction of the Lord’s mind and the way we do this is by coming to the Bible together. Furthermore, we are to read the Scriptures with wisdom. There is no place for uninformed Bible study, reading into the Bible what we want it to mean. Rather, we need to discover its plain meaning together, text in context.
Music. Most of us think of singing in church as simply a way to praise God. But Paul suggests there is another purpose: instruction and exhortation. We do not have to address God every time we sing, for it’s also important we speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. It’s one reason we should sing songs that are not insipid or soppy, but strong on Bible. Singing is an important way of building relationships.
Gratitude. Discontent often creates tension and division amongst us. Usually our discontent springs from ingratitude. A thankful heart trusts God in every situation, knowing that the Lord Jesus is in control. Thankful people are usually joy-filled and encouraging people.
You may want to consider:
1.your attitude to someone who has hurt you or someone you resent: is there anything in your life that needs to change? Are you prepared to forgive?
2.the way that Paul puts God’s Word, the Bible, at the heart of our relationship with one another: what lessons can we learn from this?
3.three people / things in your life for which you can thank the Lord.
For many, church is an irrelevant institution filled with self-righteous hypocrites. The Letters of Paul the Apostle paint a very different picture of church – a picture of vitality, community and growth. We see this for example in Paul’s thanksgiving for the church in Colossae.
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. 3 In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you. Just as it is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. 7 This you learned from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, 8 and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit (Colossians 1:1-8).
A NEW COMMUNITY
Thanksgiving. Paul doesn’t thank God that the followers of Jesus in Colossae were ‘religious’. Instead he focuses on three features: their faith, love and hope.
Faith. The Colossians did not just have ‘faith in God’. Their faith was in Christ Jesus who, Paul tells us, enjoys a unique relationship with God the Father. People often say they believe in God, but it is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, who supremely reveals God to us.
Love for all the saints. Their faith was not just intellectual, simply giving a mental nod to God. Rather, their relationship with God showed itself in their relationship with one another. They were a new community, the people of God. The love of which Paul spoke is one that binds people of different national and cultural backgrounds into a unique community.
Hope. Paul’s words, because of the hope laid up for us in heaven, are unexpected. There is a causal link between hope and faith and love. Hope is not the outcome of faith and love: it is the cause of it. And this hope is not just Christian optimism. It is the certainty of the coming again of Jesus and the new heaven and earth he will bring. The object of our faith is not yet in our full possession. All this opens up a different dimension of our understanding of life now. It suggests we need to learn to live now in the light of the age to come.
And there is something else: the theme of growth bubbles through Paul’s words. The expansion of Christianity is going on all over the world, Paul says. And, notice his emphasis on the truth.The gospel, he says, is the word of the truth. He could have omitted any reference to truth, but he didn’t.
Paul wanted to stress that the gospel message is true, as someone has commented, in a counter-intuitive sense: the statements it makes about God and men and women are beyond human invention and imagination. It is also true in an historical sense: the eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection were no fabrication. They are trustworthy. God’s gospel is also true in the experiential sense: when we put our trust in Jesus Christ who is at the center of the gospel message, we discover that our faith is not a hoax but a genuine experience.
Because it was the truth, the church in Colossae had formed and was growing. People there had heard and responded to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in all its truth, preached by pastor Epaphras. And, consistent with what Jesus taught in John 3: God’s Spirit was doing his work of regeneration.
You may want to consider:
the significance of the expression, faith in Jesus Christ, as the focus and meaning of faith;
that the phrase, love for all the saints, implies that faith is not just intellectual or simply the expression of a relationship with God;
Paul’s meaning of hope: it is not a pious ‘hope’ but confidence in the ultimate fulfillment of God’s original promise; we should see life now in the light of the reality that is to come;
the implications of the way that people hear and respond to the gospel – why don’t we work at ways to introduce others to God’s gospel? Why don’t we pray that the Spirit will be at work opening blind eyes to God’s truth?
