Easter Story

Last week we looked at the Easter story from a Prophetic point of view and saw how all the prophecies written hundreds of years beforehand concerning the coming of the Messiah and his death and resurrection were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. This morning I’d like us to look again at the factual accounts of the Resurrection in the gospels. It has been said that there is far more evidence for the truth of the resurrection than any event of that time. This is the most important event in history. If it is true and we believe that, then what devoted happy lives we should be living. Amazingly, it can be measured. The time is known, the place is known and the story is laid out clearly. But don’t expect to get too much help from the scientific world. It doesn’t seem interested in looking. Thankfully God has placed a desire to know the truth in each one of us and we can think it through for ourselves.

I do want to add that science isn’t everything despite what you see on programs like CSI. We all know of cases where someone who was obviously guilty got off on some technicality or someone not guilty was convicted based on poor assessment of the facts or corrupted evidence. Science can sometimes get hung up on small details just like we can. I think it is so important to read these accounts with the big picture in mind and to put questions on small details to one side to be answered later.

The big facts are;

1. Here in the gospels we have the eye witness accounts of 4 followers of Christ which tell us that 11 disciples, several women and family members and more than 500 other witnesses actually saw Jesus Christ alive and well after he had been crucified, died and been buried. The bible says that you only need 2 witnesses to establish a fact, but here we have several hundred.

2. The empty tomb. No one at that time could deny that Jesus’ body was missing.

3. The disciples never backed down from their claim and most died for that. They had no choice – they had seen and touched him. In fact Jesus told Thomas “You believe because you have seen me. But blessed are those who haven’t seen me and believe anyway” John 20:29

And just as important as those big 3 facts are your belief and experience of Jesus at work in your life, the things that he has done for you. These eye witness accounts and personal testimony are just as valid as scientific evidence, and incidentally in all this time science has not even come close to proving the Resurrection story is false.

Nevertheless it is worth today to look at how the world has tried to explain away the Resurrection. When you hear the arguments that have been put forward by the sceptics and balance that against your own knowledge of the truth and personal experience, I am confident you will cast any doubts aside and believe just as the writers intended.

Let’s have a look at these false explanations of the Resurrection. As the Police would say, we want to eliminate the wrong suspects from our enquiries and having eliminated all the other suspects, be left with the truth – that Jesus rose from the dead is an historical fact. First of all then;

1. Swoon Theory: That Jesus didn’t actually die but somehow revived in the tomb, rolled the stone away, walked out and recovered. To do this Jesus would have had to survive the beating and lashing he received that ripped open his flesh, the nails in his hands and feet, more than 6 hours nailed to the cross, and a spear thrust into his side and up into his heart. Then after 2 nights in the cold tomb and in critical condition with severe loss of blood, roll the very heavy stone away (up to 2 tonne), walk out passed the Roman Guard, and within a few hours appear to the women and disciples fit and well. We can very safely assume the executioners had done their job and that Jesus had died. When Jesus was speared, doctors say that the blood and water coming out was proof of death. John who was at the crucifixion said “I saw all this myself and have given an accurate report so that you also can believe”.


2. Hallucination – The people that claim they saw Christ after he died were only hallucinating. Well that sure was a lot of people hallucinating! This theory is very poor for a number of reasons;

>The number of witnesses – 1 Corinthians 15:5-6 tells us “He was seen by Peter and later by the rest of the “Twelve”. After that he was seen by more than 500 Christian brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died by now. Then James saw him and later all the apostles. Last of all, I saw him too, long after all the others, as though I had been born almost too late for this.”

>The number of sightings – at the tomb, the road to Emmaus, the upper room on 2 occasions, at the lake and on the Mount of Olives.

>They were physical encounters not just sightings. Jesus encouraged the disciples to touch him and told Thomas to put his hand in the holes in his hands and side.

>They all testified the same type of story that they had heard him speak, seen him, touched him and eaten with him. With a hallucination you would find that one person’s was quite different from another’s. Hallucinations are very individualistic in that respect.


3. Impersonation – The person they met wasn’t the real Jesus. It’s true that quite often in their encounters, people didn’t recognise him or naturally doubted at first. In one of the funniest passages in the bible in Matthew 28:16-17 we’re told “Then the 11 disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus said they would find him. There they met him and worshipped him – but some of them weren’t really sure it was Jesus!” However the fact they didn’t recognise him was more to do with;

>They weren’t expecting to see a dead man alive again

>His body was resurrected and was somewhat different.

However their lack of recognition was always temporary and after hearing him speak or eating with him, the bible tells us suddenly they would recognise him. It is not possible that an impostor could have fooled his family not to mention the disciples who’d been living and travelling with him those last 3 years. Also could anyone other than the Son of God have ascended into Heaven right before their eyes?


4. Spiritual Resurrection – This one was sadly put forward by modern scholars. They say that the story is only an illustration of the truth of new life after death. So what they’re really saying is that Christ’s body remained in the tomb. They’re missing one crucial point – the empty tomb! But also the encounters were definitely physical not spiritual. Jesus told the disciples specifically that he was definitely not a ghost. In Luke 24:39 “Look at my hands! Look at my feet! You can see that it is I, myself! Touch me and make sure that I am not a ghost! For ghosts don’t have bodies as you see I do!” In fact Jesus resurrected body should give us great hope of a physical resurrection;

>He could appear in different forms so they didn’t recognise him (Mark 16:12)

>He could eat

>He could appear and disappear

>He could pass through solid objects like the door not because he was a ghost but as Winkie Pratney said, because he was more solid than the door!


5. The Wrong Tomb – The suggestion here is that the women and the disciples went to the wrong tomb. This is not credible for several reasons;

>The tomb was right there at Calvary where the cross had been

>The women and John who were at the crucifixion could see the body being buried a short distance away. One may have been mistaken but not all of them.

>There was a Roman seal on the tomb with guards standing over it and it was easily identifiable

>Most importantly, Jesus’ enemies the Jewish Leaders and the Romans could not produce the body or show the correct tomb. The body was definitely missing and the tomb was definitely empty


6. Theft – All of the previous theories are ruled out leaving the only one the Jewish Leaders could offer at the time. That the disciples had stolen the body. Actually they knew it wasn’t true but they wanted to try and squash the story there and then. This is found in Matthew 28:12-15 “A meeting of all the Jewish Leaders was called, and it was decided to bribe the guards to say they had all been asleep when Jesus’ disciples came and stole his body. ‘If the governor hears about it,’ the Council promised, ‘we’ll stand up for you and everything will be alright.’ So the guards accepted the bribe and said what they were told to. Their story spread widely among the Jews, and is still believed by them to this very day.” Apart from what is written in Matthew about the bribes, what else points to the claim that the disciples stole the body being false?

>The evidence of the linen cloth and swath being left behind neatly folded. People hurrying to steal a body wouldn’t bother to undress it and leave the clothes folded neatly behind. That clearly points to Jesus himself.

>The disciples were not willing or able to take on a Roman guard of well disciplined battle ready soldiers;
i. Their hopes and dreams of Jesus being the Messiah had been crushed
ii. They were grief stricken over the loss of their friend
iii. They had all run away less than 2 days before and were hiding in the upper room. Only the women were brave enough to venture out first thing on Sunday morning.
iv. The only fighting man among them was Simon the Zealot

>There was no reason to move him. Jesus had been buried honourably in the best tomb paid for by a rich man

>It didn’t do them any favours to tell people that Jesus was alive – they were persecuted to their graves because of it. If they had stolen the body, then nearly all of them died for a lie.


So there you have them. Six suspects ruled out because they don’t stack up under cross examination.Still you have to explain the empty tomb.

So who do you believe? The eye witness accounts or the critics writing 2000 years later?

All of which we know leaves us with the only true explanation, that Jesus really did rise from the dead. This is what the gospel writers wanted us to know about God. That in his kindness, all he wants from us so we can be saved is our belief. Believing in the Resurrection is the key to our salvation. As Romans 10:9 says “For if you tell others with your own mouth that Jesus Christ is your Lord, and believe in your own heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved”.

Since Jesus is alive today, we don’t have to travel back in time to meet him, we can go to him now. DL Moody once preached a very simple message “Do you believe that Jesus died on a cross and was raised from the dead. Then why don’t you thank him for it?” Thousands were saved because of it.

This last week and a half as I prepared for today, I’ve sat down and read the accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and tried to put myself in the story. I’d encourage you to do the same. The more I read and challenged them with my own questions, the more sense they made to me. They seem so full of real responses, of accurate pictures of ordinary life being invaded by the extraordinary and in no way do they attempt to gloss over the weaknesses of people. They don’t paint the disciples as heroic souls who battled against the Romans and fought for Jesus. They are very honest accounts of doubt, of fear and surprise and joy found in a new reality with real hope.

That really is the challenge for me. That having been convinced about the Resurrection and receiving the new life, of then letting it motivate and change me on a daily basis. Then telling others what I’ve discovered. Yes we need to believe for our salvation but we owe God more than just belief.

What does this mean to you? Put your name to Jesus’ question “Jesus told her, ’I am the one who raises the dead and gives them life again. Anyone who believes in me, even though he dies like anyone else, shall live again. He is given eternal life for believing in me and shall never perish. Do you believe this Martha ?” John 11:25-26