The 53rd chapter of the Old Testament book of Isaiah is a powerful passage. For centuries Jewish Rabbis believed it talked about the coming Messiah. But they struggled with the message
Isaiah 53 spoke of the Messiah as A SUFFERING SAVIOR: “He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4-5
It also said that the Messiah WOULD DIE: “He was cut off out of the land of the living (He would die), stricken for the transgression of my people. And they made his grave with the wicked…” Isaiah 53:8-9
And then (in our passage for today) it said the oddest thing: “When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall SEE HIS OFFSPRING; he shall PROLONG HIS DAYS.” Isaiah 53:10
How’s He going to SEE HIS OFFSPRING?? How’s He going to have His days PROLONGED?? I thought he was going to die! Well, He was going to die… but He wasn’t going to stay dead!
HOLD THAT THOUGHT!
Back in 1865 Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. For weeks afterward… Lincoln’s body was displayed in Washington D.C. and various cities in the nation as it made its way to his home in Springfield, Illinois. There his body finally “laid to rest” in a cemetery… but Lincoln didn’t get much rest. In 1876, there was a plot to dig Lincoln up and steal his body… didn’t work. Eleven years later (because of rumors that his body wasn’t in that grave) his coffin was dug up and opened to confirm it was there. It was. But the rumors continued… so 14 years after that, the coffin was dug up again. Both times witnesses were present… and to confirm Lincoln was still in the grave. Lincoln’s body was moved 17 times and his coffin opened 5 times before he was finally resting in peace 36 years later inside a steel cage beneath 2 tons of concrete that was poured ten feet high over his coffin.
THEY WANTED TO MAKE SURE HIS BODY STAYED IN THE GRAVE
About 2000 years ago… there was another body that folks wanted to make sure STAYED IN THE GRAVE. But this time that didn’t happen.
Matthew 28:1-6 “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. 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. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid…. HE IS NOT HERE. For he has risen, just as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.’
You see, Jesus died and was buried… but He did not stay in the grave. The enemies of the church, and of Christ wanted to keep Jesus in the grave. They even had Pilate seal the tomb and post a guard of Roman soldiers.
Matthew 27:62-64 tells us: “the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first." "Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." So. they went and made the tomb secure by putting a SEAL on the stone and posting the guard.”
There was a seal on the tomb. and a guard at the stone - but on the 3rd day Christ’s body was gone. Jesus simply left the grave… and he wasn’t going back.
But NOW, the chief priests and the pharisees had a problem. They had an empty tomb, but they had no BODY. So, the best they could do was to spread the lie that the disciples had stolen Jesus’ body and buried Him elsewhere.
ILLUS: Shortly after Jesus’ resurrection the Roman government issued a decree called “The Nazareth Inscription.” (see 2nd P.S. at end of the sermon) It’s a marble tablet about 2 feet long and 15 inches tall and it was a decree by Emperor Claudius (who died in 54 A.D.), pronouncing a death penalty in Israel for anyone caught robbing bodies from tombs. Normally, grave robbers didn’t steal bodies. they stole valuables! But somehow a body had come up missing… and I’ll give you 3 guesses as to whose body turned up missing (https://answersingenesis.org/archaeology/even-caesar-confirmed-resurrection/?utm_source=facebook-aig&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=facebook-aig&fbclid=IwAR2BdhgvsVvnS1Wu2ZuFcLLQEf_gIxSsOSXrh2lG9FH6H5hk3gtl85_ivq4)
So we know someone had spread this lie about the disciples stealing Jesus’ body, but that story would have been tough to swallow.
1st – Somebody was gonna die if the Disciples tried stealing that body. The tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers who were the fiercest warriors of age. And according to Roman Law if they left their post for any reason the punishment was death. Thus they’d have protected that tomb with their lives.
2nd – The disciples didn’t behave like men who could steal a body. Before the crucifixion these were frightened and hopeless men (Lk 24:21, Jn 20:19). But afterwards… they became so bold that they even confronted the Sanhedrin about Jesus’ resurrection. Their behaviors didn’t fit.
3rd – Shortly after the resurrection these disciples faced beatings and death. Why would they lie about Jesus rising from the dead if they had to risk their lives for the sake of that lie? It just doesn’t make any sense!
AND 4th - There was a PESKY matter of … witnesses of the risen Christ.
Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15:1-9 “I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you — unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the 3rd day in accordance with the Scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”
PAUL WROTE THAT! He was a witness to the fact Jesus rose from the dead. And he was an unlikely witness. He’d been an enemy of the church who made it his life’s mission to arrest and even execute Christians (PAUSE)
But then Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus and he was baptized into Christ by a man named Ananias (Acts 22:16). From that day on, he was a man on fire for Jesus.
Paul eventually went to Jerusalem and talked with Peter, James and John and all the other Apostles who’d been witnesses of the risen Jesus. Then, it would seem, he talked with many of the 500 brothers that Jesus had appeared to. And he wrote the Corinthians saying … Jesus “had appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.” I Corinthians 15:6
You see, Paul was saying – “if you don’t have to believe me, there are 100s of witnesses STILL ALIVE. Go talk to them!!! (PAUSE)
When Paul met Jesus on the road to Damacus, he was never the same again. He was passionate for Christ, and because of that passion, Paul wrote: “Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers.” II Corinthians 11:25-26
Obviously, Paul wasn’t doing this for the money. He was doing this because he believed in the risen Christ!
You see, the resurrection of Jesus is bedrock of our faith. If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead our faith is worthless. One man even went so far as to say: “Christianity stands or falls with the resurrection of Jesus.” If the resurrection did not occur… then Christ was not who He said He was. In fact - IF Jesus didn’t rise from the dead you and I’ve got a problem, because - IF Jesus did NOT rise … neither will we!
Paul wrote: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ – whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.… And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.:
AND THEN PAUL CONCLUDED "But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. I Corinthians 15:14-20
My point is this: the Resurrection of Jesus is the core of our faith and it is probably one of the best documented EVENTS in history.
ILLUS: There was a skeptic at Harvard law school (by the name of) Dr. Simon Greenleaf who wrote 3 volumes on the laws of legal evidence. And in his law classes he took great pleasure in mocking Christians who were his students. But when he was challenged by Christian students to apply his own book on legal evidence… to the resurrection of Jesus, he took the challenge and after extensive examination of the facts - he concluded that the evidence was so convincing, he became a believer. He later wrote, “The resurrection of Jesus is one of the best-established facts of history.”
People who reject the idea of Christ’s resurrection often do so for one of 2 reasons: 1. They’ve come from a different Religious background. They’re Hindus or Buddhists or Jews, etc. or 2. they reject the resurrection because… it’s miraculous.
ILLUS: About 14 years ago, the “Religious Editor” for Newsweek magazine wrote (in a blog) that the physical resurrection of Christ created (what she called) an “Easter Conundrum”. She wrote: “This story (of Christ’s resurrection) has strained the credulity of even the most devoted believer. For, truly, it’s unbelievable.” She explained that many of the people she knew were ‘uncomfortable” with idea of risen savior because it was unbelievable that the flesh of people who’d been dead for a few days could ever be “restored”. She admitted that while the “Resurrection may be unbelievable, belief in a traditional heaven requires it. For my part (she wrote), I don’t buy it. Remember - she was the “religious editor”. (Newsweek – Lisa Miller March 25th in Newsweek - April 5, 2010 blog)
Notice, she rejected the resurrection of Jesus because it simply didn’t make sense to her. And I think there are time that God uses people like as an object lesson for the rest of us.
CLOSE: In Hanover, Germany there is a cemetery where (in the late 1700’s) a woman was buried there whose grave had huge slabs of granite and marble cemented together on top of it. And it was all bound together with heavy steel clasps. The grave belonged a woman named Henriette von Rüling (1756 – 1782). She was a belligerent woman who repeatedly voiced her disbelief in the resurrection of the dead. Now, oddly though - her will said that her grave be made so secure that if there WERE a resurrection, it would never reach her. On the tomb were inscribed these words: “May this tomb, bought for eternity, never be open."
And I think God just laughed.
In time, a seed, which had been covered over by the stones, began to grow. It slowly pushed its way up through the soil, and in time you could see the trunk of a tree beginning to slowly push the great slabs of concrete to one side so that the steel clasps were wrenched from their sockets. In time that tiny seed became a birch tree that pushed aside the stones. The tomb has since become a tourist attraction, and the subject of various horror stories.
There WAS a Resurrection of Jesus, and there WILL BE a resurrection of the dead. A resurrection of followers of Jesus life, and a resurrection of those did not accept Christ to… go to another place. The question this morning: what are you going to do about that?
P.S. (You can see a photo of this grave at places like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Grave,_Hanover)
2nd P.S. - There are several articles on the internet stating that the Nazareth Inscription wasn't by Claudius or in reference to Christ, but provided an alternate explanation. Answers In Genesis appears to me to give an excellent response to those claims. (see https://answersingenesis.org/jesus/nazareth-inscription-study-debunks-evidence-for-christs-resurrection/)
