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And Death Shall Have No Dominion - 4

The Resurrection of the Rebbe

His name was Menachem Mendel Schneerson He was born in 1902 in a small town in southern Ukraine. His father was a rabbi and a renowned scholar; his mother came from an aristocratic Jewish family. Young Menachem’s prodigious intelligence was evident early on, and by the time he was twelve the lad was destined to be a Bible scholar. In the 1930’s he moved with his wife to Berlin in order to study, but was soon forced to flee the Nazis. He went to Paris, where he continued his studies, this time at the Sorbonne. When Hitler’s army occupied Paris, he fled again, now to America, where he lived for the rest of his life.

In 1950, Menachem Schneerson became the leader of the Orthodox Jewish sect called the Lubavitch. Under the leadership of Rabbi Schneerson, known to his followers as the Rebbe (or rabbi), the Lubavitch grew from a small movement devastated by the Holocaust to a worldwide community of around 200,000 members.

Rebbe Menachem Schneerson wouldn’t be of much interest to most of us outside his movement, except for one fact. Beginning in the1980s, speculation was rife among many followers that the Rebbe was, indeed, the long awaited Messiah, the Moshiach, as they called him. Many Lubavitch were certain that Rebbe Schneerson would reveal himself as Moshiach. You could even see some bumper stickers around New York reading Moshiach Now!

There was only one slight problem. In 1994, the Rebbe died.

Here, though, is the fascinating thing: though Rebbe Schneerson died, speculation that he was the Messiah didn’t. Many followers believed that he would soon be resurrected and assume his rightful position as the Messiah. Rumors abounded that holes were drilled in the top of his coffin so that he could breathe. One Lubavitch newspaper wrote the following about Schneerson--after his death: “May our Master, Teacher, and Rabbi the King Messiah live forever.”

A Messiah who dies, and is then resurrected and lives forever? Sounds more like Christianity than Judaism, does it not? It sure does, and that’s a fact not lost on many other Jews who believe that these Lubavitch--by this belief about Rebbe Schneerson--are giving powerful credence to the Christian position regarding Jesus. Wrote one rabbi: “For Christians, of course, the messiah decidedly could die in the midst of his redemptive mission. Indeed, Jewish denial of this proposition became one of the central points of contention in the millennial debate between the two religions. . . . Incredibly, however, over the course of the last seven years, Orthodox Judaism has effectively declared that, with respect to this fundamental issue of principle, Christians were correct all along and Jews profoundly, mistaken.”

Of course, I also believe in a rebbe as the Messiah--a rebbe who was, indeed, to be resurrected. It’s not Rebbe Schneerson, though; it’s Rebbe Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth. And it’s precisely on His resurrection, His victory over death, that I pin my hopes of victory over death as well.

If you’ve been with us this past week, you know that we have been looking at the resurrection of Jesus, particularly at the evidence for that resurrection. We’ve seen that the claim the disciples were all crazy is patently foolish; we saw also that the idea of a conspiracy, that the Bible writers got together to make up the story, doesn’t work either. Yesterday we started looking at some internal evidence from the Gospels that attest to their veracity: 1) the fact that all four Gospel writers wrote about the resurrection of Jesus 2) the fact that they were so candid and honest in presenting themselves in a less than flattering light, a reality that makes no sense were they making this story up 3) and the fact that the Gospel writers all had women being the first ones Jesus appeared to, which also doesn’t make sense were the stories not true.

Today, we continue looking at the evidence.

Put yourself, for a moment, in the position of the disciples just prior to Jesus’ death. Fervor and speculation is mounting that Jesus is, indeed, the Messiah. Many are convinced that Jesus will take the throne in Jerusalem, overthrow the hated Romans, and establish a Messianic kingdom on earth. This belief in the Messiah establishing an earthly kingdom was so powerful that--even after His death and resurrection, even after Jesus was seen among them for forty days--some of His followers had asked Him, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” (Act 1:6). That’s how strong that belief remained among them.

But what happens? Well, for the disciples, it was their own personal 9-11. Their Messiah is brutally executed by the Romans. All their hopes, their dreams, are crushed. When after His death Jesus appeared incognito to a couple of followers, one bemoaned, “But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel” (Luke 24:21), the idea being that this now won’t happen. When Mary appeared to disciples, to tell them that what she saw, she came to them “as they mourned and wept” (Mar 16:10). Mourned and wept over what? Over the death of their beloved Teacher, not to mention all their Messianic hopes and dreams. John reported that on the first Sunday there were all huddled in a room “with the doors locked for fear of the Jews” (John 20:19).

What kind of picture is presented here? We see a bunch of weeping, mourning, and fearful Jews who just had just witnessed the death of everything dear to them.

But what happens next? Suddenly these same mourning, weeping, fearful Jews are now out boldly and fearlessly proclaiming their faith in Jesus as the Messiah! Within five weeks, Peter, along with the other 11 disciples, stands up before thousands and proclaims, “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact” (Acts 2:32). Notice that he was there with 11 others, saying that they were all witnesses to the fact of His resurrection. That is, they were there, ready to be cross-examined by anyone who would ask them. So sure of what they saw, they were proclaiming it publicly, where they could be readily and easily challenged.

What would have caused this weeping, mourning and fearful group to so suddenly and boldly proclaim Jesus as the crucified and risen Messiah if, indeed, he hadn’t been raised as they claimed? It’s not as if someone told them a lie that they fervently believed. No, they were building their case on their own eye witness accounts of that resurrection.

Plus, there must have been something very credible about what they were saying, their testimony must have been very convincing, because the same day that Peter made the speech, three thousand people were baptized. Three thousand Jews accepted Jesus in a single day on the basis of their testimony.

Seems to me like pretty powerful evidence for the resurrection!

But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we have been focusing mostly on the disciples of Jesus and the Gospels. Let’s go now to Exhibit B. Or should I say “P” as in Paul? Paul wrote that Jesus, after His resurrection, “appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep” (1 Co 15:6).

Notice something important here. Paul is telling people that Jesus, after the resurrection, appeared to more than five hundred people, “most of whom are still living.” Don’t miss this point. What Paul is doing here is like Peter standing there with the 11 and saying, Ask us, we saw it ourselves. Paul is not saying, Everyone who saw Jesus is dead, but just take my word for it that they saw him. No. Paul is so confident that these five hundred will back up his claim about the resurrected Jesus that he is all but inviting them to talk to these witnesses in order to hear it from them firsthand. Paul was certain of their testimony, which is why he all but saying, Go talk to them yourselves. And one reason Paul was certain of their testimony because he, himself, has been a witness to resurrected Jesus, who had appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

Listen to this from Lee Strobel, a journalist who investigated the claims about Jesus’ resurrection. He came to this conclusion: “Without question, the amount of testimony and corroboration of Jesus’ post-Resurrection appearances is staggering. To put it into perspective, if you were to call each one of the witnesses to a court of law to be cross-examined for just fifteen minutes each, and you went around the clock without a break, it would take you from breakfast on Monday until dinner on Friday to hear them all. After listening to 129 straight hours of eyewitness testimony, who could possible walk away unconvinced?”

Not me, that’s for sure!

As I said earlier in the week, though the Lord asks us to believe in Him, He doesn’t ask us to believe blindly. We have powerful reasons to believe in Him and the promises we have through Jesus. And, as we have seen, the Lord has given us good reasons to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, a fundamental teaching of the Christian faith. If Jesus weren’t resurrected, Christianity would be a farce; if He were, then we have in that resurrection compelling evidence that the religion is true.

How compelling? Well, compelling enough that maybe some of our Messianic compatriots in the Lubavitch movement who are expecting a resurrected Moshiach will, in fact, find that Moshiach, not in Rebbe Schneerson, who as far as I know is still in the grave, but in the other Rebbe, the one who has already been resurrected, and that is Jesus of Nazareth.