What does Easter Sunday mean to you? Does it mean a lot or a little? Does the fact that Jesus rose from the dead change very much for you?
THE RESURRECTION IS THE SUPREME FACT OF HISTORY
When I was at school, I read a little booklet called ‘The Evidence for the Resurrection’. It’s by someone called Sir Norman Anderson, who was a lawyer. This is how Anderson starts:
‘Easter is not primarily a comfort, but a challenge. Its message is either THE SUPREME FACT IN HISTORY or else a gigantic hoax…’
A bit further on Anderson continues:
‘Either the resurrection is infinitely more than a beautiful story, or else it is infinitely less. IF IT IS TRUE, THEN IT IS THE SUPREME FACT OF HISTORY; and to fail to adjust one’s life to its implications means irreparable loss.’
For Sir Norman Anderson, Jesus’ resurrection was ‘the supreme fact of history’. It’s a fact that changes everything.
Is that what Easter Sunday means to you?
I think the early disciples would have agreed with Anderson.
About seven weeks after Jesus was crucified, Jesus’ disciples were getting to grips with what has happened. Jesus had been crucified – but he had risen! And he had given his disciples a task. Peter, the leader of the disciples, stood up and addressed the group of disciples. Judas Iscariot was dead. They should find someone to replace him. So Peter says:
‘So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—ONE OF THESE MEN MUST BECOME WITH US A WITNESS TO HIS RESURRECTION’ [Acts 1:21-22].
Peter doesn’t say that one of these men must become with us a witness to Jesus’ miracles, or to his teaching, or even to his crucifixion. Those are all really important. Peter says, ‘one of these men must become with us a witness TO HIS RESURRECTION’. So it seems that Peter had the same view as Sir Norman Anderson. He considered that Jesus’ resurrection was THE SUPREME FACT that they had to witness to.
THE RESURRECTION MEANS THAT EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED
I believe that Christ’s resurrection changes everything for us.
It certainly changed everything for Jesus’ disciples.
Think how Jesus’ disciples were at the time he was crucified. They were wretched, in the pits. They had seen their beloved lord put to death in the cruellest way. But not only that, THEY had utterly failed. One of their number had betrayed Jesus. One had denied him. The remaining ten had abandoned him. THEY WERE NOT STRONG.
Now think how they were a month or two later. They were preaching boldly. They were standing up to the Jewish ruling council. NOW THEY WERE VERY STRONG.
What had changed? Just one thing. Jesus had risen! That knowledge totally changed Jesus’ disciples.
It should totally change us too, if we can get our heads around what it means.
As I was preparing for this talk, I tried thinking of the different ways in which Jesus’ resurrection changes things. I thought of about 10! Of course, we don’t have time for me to talk about 10 things. But I thought I could talk about three.
1. JESUS’ RESURRECTION MEANS OUR RESURRECTION
Jesus said many times that he came so that people may have eternal life. He also said, as he prayed on the night before he was crucified:
‘And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ [John 17:3].
Eternal life is tied to us knowing God. When Jesus was crucified, the curtain in the temple was torn in two. Now, the way into the Holy of Holies, into God’s presence, was open. Now, humankind could be in relationship with God.
In seven weeks’ time we’ll come to Pentecost, the time when we remember that God poured out his spirit on the disciples. At that time, Peter preached to a crowd. He told them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, AND YOU WILL RECEIVE THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.’
The Holy Spirit is evidence of our relationship with God.
In Ephesians, Paul wrote:
‘you … were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance’ [Ephesians 1:13-14].
Because we have the Holy Spirit, we can be sure we have an inheritance. It’s like an engagement ring.
In Romans, Paul wrote:
‘If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies…’ [Romans 8:11].
God raised Jesus. He’ll do the same for us, because he sees his spirit in us. JESUS’ resurrection gives us confidence that WE will have a resurrection.
2. JESUS’ RESURRECTION MEANS THAT WE WILL GET NEW BODIES, LIKE HIS RESURRECTION BODY
Let me first explain why our resurrection bodies will be like Jesus’ body.
There are at least two reasons for believing this. We find them both in 1 Corinthians 15 – the longest chapter about the resurrection in the Bible.
In verse 20 Paul says:
‘But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, THE FIRSTFRUITS OF THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP.’
We don’t use the word ‘firstfruits’ very much nowadays. But the idea isn’t complicated. The idea of ‘firstfruits’ is that once you see a few raspberries or whatever, you know there are more on the way. The firstfruits are the first sign of harvest.
The word firstfruits comes quite often in the Bible. People had to offer God the firstfruits from their vineyard, the first wool from their flocks and so on [e.g. Deuteronomy 18:4]. The key point is that the firstfruits are just THE FIRST PART. The firstfruits aren’t the ONLY part! There’s more wine and there are more fleeces to follow. If Jesus is the firstfruits, then there’s more to follow, of the same kind. It means that we get bodies like Jesus’ resurrection body.
This word ‘firstfruits’ gives us the idea. But later in the chapter Paul tells us explicitly that we will be like Jesus. He writes:
‘Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, WE SHALL ALSO BEAR THE IMAGE OF THE MAN OF HEAVEN’ [verse 49].
So, we’ll have resurrection bodies like Jesus’ resurrection body. But do we know what that is like?
Some Bible scholars suggest that Jesus was raised just like Lazarus was raised. They suggest that he had his old, mortal body and he only got a new, imperishable, body when he ascended to heaven. But that doesn’t seem right to me. Jesus’ resurrection body had new qualities. It seems that he just passed through his grave-clothes. He could just pass through locked doors. When Jesus appeared to his disciples, he was still recognisably Jesus, but it seems he was also subtly different. Mary and the disciples sometimes didn’t recognise him immediately.
I believe all of this shows us that when God raised Jesus, he gave him his resurrection body.
I said a moment ago that we’ll have resurrection bodies like Jesus’ resurrection body. But what was that like?
It’s clear that Jesus had a physical body. He could be touched. He could eat. So those things will be true of our resurrection bodies.
But to find out more, we need to look at some other parts of the Bible.
Jesus was still Jesus. His disciples recognized him and he knew them. But Paul emphasizes that our resurrection bodies will be very different.
He asks:
‘But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body’ [vv. 36-38].
We have some stunning flowers in church today. Some were grown from seeds, some from bulbs. The difference between the seed and the flower is enormous. That’s how it will be for us. In one sense, we will be recognizably the same people – as Jesus was. But there will also be deep differences – and our new bodies will be much better. Paul wrote that our body ‘is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory’ [v.43].
One quality of our future bodies is that they won’t decay. Paul wrote:
‘So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable’ [1 Corinthians 15:42].
I hope that sounds good to you! It sounds wonderful to me!
3. OUR REDEMPTION MEANS THE REDEMPTION OF CREATION
In Romans 8, Paul wrote this:
‘For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. FOR THE CREATION WAITS WITH EAGER LONGING FOR THE REVEALING OF THE SONS OF GOD. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, IN HOPE THAT THE CREATION ITSELF WILL BE SET FREE FROM ITS BONDAGE TO CORRUPTION AND OBTAIN THE FREEDOM OF THE GLORY OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD’ [verses 18-21].
Michael Williams, who is a professor of theology in the United States, wrote:
‘Because man’s fall affected not only himself but also the rest of creation, redemption must involve God’s entire creation’ [Far As the Curse is Found].
What is Williams talking about? In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve disobeyed God. That had a consequence on them. It also had a consequence on the rest of creation. God told Adam:
‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it’, cursed is the ground because of you’ [Genesis 3:17].
The ground was cursed because of Adam and Eve’s sin. So what happens when humankind turns back to God? We expect the curse on the ground to be lifted.
Even in its cursed state, creation is amazing. When it is set free from its bondage to corruption it will be stunning. The world will be a wonderful place to live in.
Some years ago I read a book titled ‘Jesus and the Earth.’ It was written by someone called James Jones, who was Bishop of Liverpool at the time he wrote it. He commented on how the earth responded to Jesus at the time of his death.
We read in Matthew:
‘And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. AND THE EARTH SHOOK, AND THE ROCKS WERE SPLIT’ [Matthew 27:51].
A few verses on, Matthew continues:
‘And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it’ [Matthew 28:2].
Jones commented:
‘As the Son of the one hewn from the earth is laid in the heart of the earth there is a seismic response from the earth’s heart to his death and resurrection. Is this a voice in the chorus of the collective groaning of the whole of creation which Paul writes about in Romans 8.22? The earth, God’s creation, is longing for liberation from the curse in Genesis and somehow knows that its own freedom “from the bondage of decay” is inextricably bound up with “the children of God” and “their redemption.”’
I like Jones’ idea!
CONCLUSION
Today, I’ve talked about three results of Jesus’ resurrection:
First, Jesus’ resurrection means our resurrection.
Second, we will get new bodies, like Jesus’ resurrection body. Our resurrection bodies will be physical, imperishable and glorious. (And we’ll be free of all those aches and pains!)
Third, our redemption paves the way for the redemption of creation. We will live in a wonderful, restored world.
Those are three EXTRAORDINARY results! The whole prospect sounds wonderful to me! And there are lots more very good results which I haven’t had time to talk about!
So, as we reflect on Easter Sunday, I hope we will agree with Sir Norman Anderson, that Jesus’ resurrection is the supreme fact of history. It’s a fact that changes everything, immeasurably for the better. It gives us breath-taking reason to rejoice – and, to keep going in our faith.
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, thank you for the wonderful fact of YOUR resurrection.
Thank you that YOUR resurrection means OUR resurrection.
Thank you that because we have the evidence of your resurrection – the firstfruits – we can look forward to receiving new imperishable bodies ourselves.
We rejoice that our redemption will pave the way for the whole of creation to be liberated from its bondage to decay.
And we pray, Lord, that we will be steadfast in running the race, knowing what a prize awaits us.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
Talk given at Rosebery Park Baptist Church, Bournemouth, UK, 9th April 2023, 10.30 a.m. service.
