19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 24But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” 26A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” 30Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. John 20:19 - 31 (NRSVA)
IF you have seen The Passion of the Christ film, there is hardly need to recount the brutality and finality of what happened to Jesus on the cross. The Garden arrest, trial, scourging of Jesus – his death march down the Via Dolorosa, and the final excruciating event on Golgotha are all well-imprinted on your mind. The film took just over two hours to drain all the blood from his body, drop by agonizing, flesh-whipping drop.
But – what then; so what; what does it all mean? So what that Jesus was brutalized, bled and died; so what that they put a dead man in a hole in the ground and covered the hole with a big boulder.
A few days later, Thomas, doubter that he was, took one look at Jesus and fell at His feet, called Him “Lord”, the word in Greek is kurios (supreme Master), in Hebrew Adonai (Lord, God). He said, “My God,” using the most unmistakable word in the language to indicate the Sovereign creator of Heaven and earth. Down through the last two millennia the church has called this man Lord; he is the one who is completely in charge.
Largely the secular world hears that and says, with a sniff of arrogant defiance; Sure…call him Lord, the man in charge. He didn’t look in charge to me when they arrested and beat him, and then nailed him to that cross. He didn’t look in charge when he died and they buried him. Lord? Really?
There is, of course the resurrection. But there has been no shortage of skeptics to challenge the veracity of the resurrection; and, of course there are always skeptics. There have to be skeptics because the resurrection settles the issue. If they really did put a dead Jesus in the grave Friday evening, and then Sunday morning He was alive again, it changes everything. The skeptics have to slink away; atheists can’t show their faces…and we have to bow and call Him “Lord”.
But, if it is not true, the church is a lie, and we are without a god at all; we’re left to live this life for all the selfish pleasure it may hold or offer, and there are no consequences!
It has been said that the unexamined life is not worth living; I agree. I also believe that the place to begin that examination of life is the resurrection. Billy Graham once said:
If the Bible is true and Jesus is who He claimed to be, and raised on the third day, then nothing else matters. But if the Bible is false at that point, nothing matters!
So let’s begin with a statement about “Lordship”:
Jesus can only truly be Lord if the resurrection is true; it is, and He is!
I would like us to put the resurrection on trial today. There are about four theories that usually surface when the resurrection is called into question. Let’s investigate them together.
I think it only fair to tell those of you who may harbor some of these theories – those of you who have never surrendered your heart and life to Christ – that at the end of this message, I hope to have put these to rest sufficiently so that you can also put them to rest! And, then perhaps you can put your faith in Christ and be saved.
Here’s what doubters of the resurrection say “really happened”:
I. Misdirection – the women were at the wrong tomb.
This is a common seed of doubt, that the women somehow got lost and wound-up at the wrong tomb…it was empty, but Jesus was still in his grave. They got overly excited and told the disciples who jumped to the conclusion that Jesus had raised from the dead.
Now, it is a simple thing to get lost…everyone’s been there. When we were living in Jacksonville, Florida, one of my children drove to visit us from Gainesville. It should have taken 90 minutes, but she called two hours later. “Where are you” I questioned? The small, scared voice on the other end said, “I think I’m in Georgia or Alabama”.
The common experience of everyone being lost is what makes this rumor easy to swallow. The problem is that the disciples would have had to make the same mistake. (Men don’t get lost, eh?) But, on the chance that John and Peter repeated the Mary’s mistake, what are the odds that Joseph of Arimathea would have forgotten where his own tomb was?
On the outside chance that the mistake had taken place like that, it would have been stopped very quickly. The Jews or Romans had a vested interest in proving that Jesus was in the grave. When the rumor of resurrection began, based on misdirection…the wrong tomb…the authorities would simply have gone to the place where the Roman soldiers guarded the real grave, rolled-away the stone and produced the corpse. They couldn’t do that, because there was no corpse…no mistaken direction taken to the wrong tomb!
They said it was misdirection, and then they said,
II. Resuscitation – Jesus didn’t really die.
This is commonly called the “swoon” theory. Supposedly Jesus fainted on the cross, was mistaken for dead, and later revived. This is commonly taught to Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Author Lee Strobel tells it well:
If you’ve seen Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of Christ,” with the horrible brutally worked upon Jesus, you already know the impossible nature of the “swoon theory.” After Jesus’ trial in which He was found guilty of blasphemy for claiming to be God, John 19:1 says: "Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged." A medical expert named Dr. C. Truman Davis studied what this involved and concluded this was a brutal beating that left Jesus on the very edge of death. Jesus was tied to a post and beaten at least 39 times -- and probably more -- with a whip that had jagged bones and balls of lead woven into it. Again and again, the whip was brought down with full force on His bare shoulders, back and legs. At first, the heavy thongs cut through His skin only. But as the blows continued, they cut deeper into the underlying tissues, first producing an oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins, and finally the spurting of arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles. The ball of lead first produced large, deep bruises which were then broken open by subsequent blows.
By the end, the skin of His back was left hanging in long ribbons and the entire area was an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue. One witness to a Roman flogging wrote this: "The sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles and tendons and bowels of the victim were open to exposure." Undoubtedly, Jesus was in serious to critical condition even before the crucifixion began. It’s no wonder He was unable to carry His own cross. Then five-to-seven-inch spikes were driven through His wrists, crushing the median nerve, which we call the funny bone. Experts say this would be like squeezing your funny bone with a pair of pliers. So painful was death by crucifixion that a new word was coined to describe it -- the word "excruciating," which is Latin for "out of the cross."
After His wrists and feet were nailed securely, He was hoisted into the air to hang. Death from crucifixion is basically a slow death by suffocation. Because of the stress on the muscles, Jesus could breathe in, but He couldn’t breathe out unless He pushed up with His feet to relieve some of the pressure on His chest. Of course, that was tremendously painful because of His bloodied back scraping against the coarse cross and because of the spikes through His feet. After a while of pushing up again and again, exhaustion sets in.
If the Romans wanted to hasten death, they used a mallet to shatter the victim’s shin bones so he couldn’t push up anymore, and the victim’s lungs would fill with carbon dioxide and he’d slowly asphyxiate.
And that’s what the executioners did to the criminals crucified on either side of Jesus. But when they came to Jesus, they saw He was already dead. To confirm that, the soldier plunged a spear between His ribs, puncturing the sac around the heart and the heart itself, and causing a clear fluid and blood to spew out, which eyewitnesses recorded. Then four Roman experts confirmed He was dead. [2]
The writer really makes the case. He also points out that if a man who had suffered that kind of disfiguring, debilitating assault, and had his side and heart pierced with a spear, had actually survived…how did he roll away a stone weighing several tons?
Eight years ago I had surgery on my left foot. Aside from the whining and complaining, I had to recuperate for 8 weeks at home. Jesus was beaten beyond recognition, nailed to a cross with 5-7” spikes, left bleeding for 6 hours in the hot sun, and then had a spear pierce his side, all the way through to include opening his heart without anesthesia. If he managed to have the strength to roll the stone away, he would have had to spend months hiding and recovering from those wounds; yet he appeared to the women and the disciples within hours.
They said it was misdirection or resuscitation; some say…
III. Hallucination – The disciples wanted to believe.
Psychologists and Psychiatrists call it “group think”. It’s the look in the eyes of your six-year-old after forty hours of cartoon channel; or your teenager’s eyes when you promise a new i-phone™. In the case of this theory the members of a group (the disciples) want so earnestly to have their wish and belief in the group’s ideals come true, they begin to believe even the most unbelievable. Again, Lee Strobel’s reasoning:
A few years ago I was able to ask that question of Dr. Gary Collins, the president of a national association of psychologists, a university professor of psychology for 20 years, and the author of more than 40 books on the subject. But Dr. Collins said, no, that wouldn’t be possible, because the circumstances were all wrong for anything like this to have occurred.
For instance, the disciples weren’t anticipating a resurrection. This was totally contrary to their Jewish beliefs. And so they weren’t primed for this sort of thing to happen. Besides, Jesus ate with them, He talked back to them, and He appeared numerous times before all kinds of people in various settings -- all of which runs contrary to this "group think" theory. [3]
According to the Biblical record, Jesus appeared more than a dozen times over a 40 day period. He appeared to more than 500 people at once, and sometimes to individuals or small groups.
Our text for today (John 20:28) is when Jesus appeared to the disciples the second time. Thomas had not believed…Jesus showed him the nail prints in his hands and side. If Jesus was a hallucination, into whose side did Thomas stick his finger?
Note what Paul said 30 years after the resurrection…
6After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; 1 Corinthians 15:6 (NASB)
Paul knew the power of the resurrection; he knew the Lord of the resurrection. But he was telling the Corinthian church, “If you don’t believe me, ask the five hundred or so who saw the risen Jesus with their own eyes; most of them are still living!” This was no “group think!”
They say it is
Misdirection…a case of the wrong tomb;
Some say it is resuscitation…a case of near death recovery;
Some say it is hallucination…a matter of the disciples being fooled.
And the most prevalent of all the theories against the truth of the resurrection…
IV. Prevarication – The disciples all lied.
This theory is half-true – there was a lie…but it wasn’t the disciples who lied!
11Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened. 12And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ 14“And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” 15And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day. Matthew 28:11-15 (NASB)
There’s a new popular TV series on called “Lie To Me”. They can tell by the look on your face whether or not you’re telling the truth. We don’t have the “Don’t Lie To Me” team here to figure out the disciples’ facial micro expressions, but there are four very strong reasons to believe that the disciples could not have lied about this.
1. Jesus’ Teaching
Everything Jesus taught his disciples was on the side of truth and honor. For them to perpetuate a lie would be like the local vegetarian club celebrating their 50th anniversary with a T-bone steak!
2. Men don’t die for a lie
Terrorists do it all the time – car bombings, suicide missions. The Japanese kamikaze pilots did it too. But all of these die for what they believe to be truth. Under Islamic Jihad (holy war against us infidels) a suicide mission means the crazy man strapped to 30 sticks of dynamite will wake up in the arms of Allah with 30 young virgins to make him happy. Now that may be deranged, but they believe it to the core.
If the disciples knew Jesus hadn’t survived, and they just stole the body so they could keep the myth and the movement going, why did they not bail when put to the test? Every one of the apostles died a violent martyr except John; he died in exile, a lonely pitiful existence. Men will die for an honorable cause, or an honorable leader, but they will not give up their lives for what they know to be untrue.
3. Women discovered the empty tomb.
It’s hard to accept this in our day’s culture, but in that ancient culture women were not acceptable witnesses in court. Only a man’s testimony was valid. If the disciples were lying, they’d be pretty dumb to say that the ones who saw the risen Lord first were women…who would believe it?
4. The body kept showing up alive.
Lee Strobel said, the Romans wouldn’t have taken the body. They wanted Jesus dead. The Jewish leaders wouldn’t have taken the body. They wanted Him to stay dead.
The myth rumor started by the Jews to cover the real story of resurrection was flawed from the beginning. The Jewish leaders told the Roman soldiers to lie and say the disciples stole the body while they were sleeping. Tell me, please, how does a sleeping Roman soldier know who stole the body? Do they sleep with their eyes open?
In addition, there is that nasty little complication…the stolen body kept showing up for the next forty days. How does a body do that if it is dead?
Invitation
There you have it; not a wrong turn to the tomb, or a swoon in the tomb, or a hallucinating acid-tripping apostle or two…and it wasn’t a lie. The question remains, so what? What do we do with this truth of Jesus’ resurrection? I want to end with a story:
It’s not a true story, but it is a story with a lesson. Alfred Hitchcock made up the story. It’s the story of a woman who murdered her husband years ago and was sentenced to life in prison. She vowed that somehow, some way, she’d escape.
As her prison bus approached the penitentiary, she saw an old man, another prisoner, covering up a grave in a small cemetery outside the prison walls. Right then and there, she hatched a plot.
Once inside, she befriended this prisoner. He was going blind and needed cataract surgery. "I’ll give you the money for your surgery if you’ll help me escape," she said. And he agreed.
Here was the plan: the next time she heard the bell toll, which indicated an inmate had died, she would sneak down to the workroom where he made the casket and slide inside with the body and pull the covering closed. He would wheel the casket out to the cemetery, lower it into the grave and cover it with dirt. But that night, when nobody was watching, he’d return and dig up the casket and set her free.
Late one night, the bell tolled. The woman sneaked down to the workroom. It was dark, but she found the casket, lifted the lid, slipped inside next to the body, pulled the cover over her -- and waited.
Sure enough, a few hours later she felt the casket being rolled toward the grave site. She smiled as the casket was lowered into the hole. She heard the clumps of dirt hitting the casket and covering her up. She had done it! She could barely contain her excitement.
Silence followed as she waited in the dark. Time began to drag. Hours passed, then more hours. Finally, she began to worry. She broke out in a cold sweat. Where was that old man? What was keeping him?
Can you imagine the emotions that would have coursed through her? In a moment of panic, she reached into her pocket and took out some matches. As she lit one, she glanced at the corpse beside her -- and saw that it was the old man himself. Her only hope lay buried right next to her!
The lesson for you and me is obvious. This woman had placed her hope in another human being who she sincerely thought would be able to save her -- but he went to his grave and ended up taking her with him.[4]
I told you at the outset of this message there would be an invitation. You see, this Jesus who really was resurrected from the dead has the power to give you that life as well.
The question for each of us in this life is, what will we do about that? We all know one day we will be placed in a box like the woman in the story. When they put us in that box – with us will be placed all our hopes, all our dreams, and just a few yards of material on our backs – nothing else. If you choose anything other than Jesus to accompany you in that box it will be like choosing to have a dead old man for a companion.
The resurrection is true…and then also – because the lesser is always contained in the greater – it is true that we are sinners and Jesus, only Jesus can forgive sins and give eternal life.
• Only Jesus has the power to save;
• Only Jesus is Lord!
• Our only hope is to believe in an empty tomb, and the Lord of the cross.
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ENDNOTES
1] Lee Strobel, Jesus Is Alive – True or False?, a sermon on SermonCentral.com
2] Ibid.
3] Ibid.
4] David Jeremiah, as quoted by Lee Strobel on SermonCentral.com.
