Why the Resurrection?

This Sunday, we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus from the dead. It is hard to exaggerate the significance of that single event in history. If He rose from the dead, then His righteousness is vindicated and our hope in Him is well-founded. However, if He did not rise from the dead, then Jesus is not who He claimed to be and the Gospel is a heinous deception. This is why 1 Corinthians 15:17 says, "If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!"
 
You might exclaim, wait a minute! I thought Jesus' death on the cross paid for my sin. Yes. But put yourself in the place of the disciples. Their Lord and Master who was anticipated to be a King was shamed and brutally put to death. Why should they believe in a dead Messiah? How could a dead Savior save them? The same questions would apply today. If there is anything that you, a believer in Jesus Christ, need to be certain of, it is that He rose from the dead. If the Lord did not rise from the dead, there would be no salvation, because a dead Savior cannot save nobody!

 So, the topic of my message on Sunday is, "Why the resurrection?" I will be making three points:

1. The resurrection of our Lord validates who He claimed to be as the Son of God and Messiah. It validates His sinless character and divine nature.
2. The resurrection gives us hope by guaranteeing our resurrection and giving us an example of what our bodies in heaven will be like.
3. The resurrection restores God's rule in His creation by defeating the last enemy, death, and bringing all things back into subjugation under Christ.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, skeptics have proposed many alternate theories as to why the resurrection did not happen. These range from the amusing to the deranged. Here are some of the reasonable theories:

1. Jesus’ friends stole the body: This accusation was levied by enemies of Jesus shortly after the resurrection occurred (cf. Matthew 28:11-15). They claimed that the guards slept. This theory, however, is inadequate simply because if the guards were asleep how did they know that it was the disciples who stole the body? Furthermore, if they had any evidence, why wasn't the disciple prosecuted? It is also hard to believe that any trained Roman soldier would sleep on duty when the penalty was death, much less all of the guards at the same time. It is hard to believe that those scared disciples who fled the garden where Jesus was arrested and remained in hiding even after His resurrection would face off with Roman soldiers.
2. The swoon theory: The theory proposes that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross; He merely fainted and was then revived in the cool tomb. This theory was not proposed until recently (in the 1800s). This theory is implausible because if experienced Roman soldiers knew how to do anything, it was how to kill someone. Furthermore, these skilled harbingers of death saw that the Lord Jesus was dead on the cross which is why they did not break His legs. Even if assumed for the sake of argument that Jesus did not die, it is ludicrous to suggest that He revived without food, water, and medical care after He had been scourged, crucified, and pierced at His side.
3. The “wrong tomb” theory: Another theory proposed that Jesus’ friends went to the wrong tomb on Sunday morning. When they saw that the wrong tomb was empty, they mistakenly thought He had risen from the dead. There are numerous problems with this theory but the major one is simply this, why didn't the Jewish leadership produce the body and point to the right tomb?
4. Hallucination theory: Some have suggested that the disciples were so eager for Jesus to arise from the dead that they hallucinated the appearances they reported. However, although Jesus told them repeatedly that he would rise, the disciples were not expecting that and were hiding for fear of the Jews. Another problem with this theory is that over 500 people saw Him at once (cf. 1 Cor. 15:6). Even when several people are in the same place under the same psychological state, they will still not have the same hallucination.

For all and any alternate theory to the resurrection, the question remains: why didn’t the enemies of Jesus simply produce the body and shut the disciples up? No alternate theory has been able to explain the following historical facts:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. The tomb was empty.
3. The disciples provided eyewitness testimony to His post-resurrection appearances.
4. The disciples sacrificed their lives for their belief in the resurrected Christ. They turned the world upside down that history is dated by the birth of Jesus.
5. The leaders in Jerusalem were not able to produce the body and they did not prosecute the disciples for the false accusation of stealing the body.
6. Even enemies of Christ, such as Paul and James, came to believe in Him because of their claims that they saw the Risen Messiah.

Our Lord and Savior has conquered death. For this Sunday, I offer a better greeting than "Happy Easter". How about:

He's Risen! [the greeting]
He's Risen indeed! [the reply]

-Pastor Stephen