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And Death Shall Have No Dominion - 5

THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE

The famous Christian writer C.S. Lewis, while still an agnostic about God, one day was chatting with a fellow college lecturer, another religious skeptic. At one point his colleague said something to the effect of, “Well, you know, C.S., old chap, there is an awful lot of evidence pointing to the resurrection of Christ three days after his death.” Then the man, without much ado, changed the conversation and moved on to something else.

For C.S. Lewis, it was almost as if the man had said to him, “Well, C.S., yesterday as I was coming home a UFO landed in my backyard and snatched Rover. Please pass the salt.”

Lewis sat there amazed! He was mulling the implications of the man’s words. If someone were raised from the dead after three days, that would be pretty amazing, right? Considering that even today we haven’t been able to raise an amoeba from death after three days, if a human two thousand years ago were raised it would be a . . . a what? A miracle, what else? And if it were a miracle, what caused that miracle? It would have to be something outside the normal confines of natural law and science. It would mean something, well, something . . . divine?

Yes, if Jesus were raised from the dead, as Christians believe, it would be a miracle. It would also be powerful evidence for the whole Christian faith. Perhaps, friend, that’s why the Lord has given us so many reasons to believe in the resurrection. As we have been studying this week, the evidence in favor of the resurrection of Jesus is, in fact, quite compelling.

How compelling?

Well, we’ve seen for instance the idea that the Gospel writers made it all up doesn’t make sense, because we could find no reasons for them to do so. We saw, too, powerful evidence from the fact that all four Gospel writers testified to the resurrection, and that various elements within their accounts--such as their openness about their own disbelief, or their having women being the first ones to whom Jesus appeared—all lend powerful credence to the story.

We then explored the crucial question, What could have caused these fearful, mourning and discouraged disciples, who just lost their leader, to so suddenly and so boldly proclaim Him as the Messiah of Israel if they had not see Him resurrected as they claimed? And, perhaps, what’s hardest for the critics to argue against are the, literally, hundreds of people in the early church who had themselves seen the risen Jesus. What do we do with all them, some of whom were willing to die for their faith?

But aren’t some Muslims willing to die for their faith? Of course. The difference is, however, that these Muslims with their jihad and martyrdom are dying for something that they have been told about. None of them have seen Mohammed face-to-face. In contrast, those early believers were all willing to lose everything--family, friends, freedom, even life-- over something that they claimed they had seen first hand. People might die for a lie that they believe is true; but who dies for something that they purposely made up and know is false?

But some argue that they were all crazy. They were having hallucinations. Hundreds of people all had the same hallucinations of a resurrected Jesus? Let’s be rational, please.

But what about some of the discrepancies in the Gospels? They don’t agree on every point. That’s true, there are small discrepancies. But far from disproving the story, some scholars argue that these add credence to the story because they show that these men did not collaborate in some dark conspiracy but, instead, recounted the facts that were pertinent to them, as they best understood and recollected those facts under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

I’m excited today friends because we who believe in Jesus have many good reasons for that belief. Yes, God asks us believe, but not irrationally and certainly not without evidence. And, as we have been studying, there is plenty of evidence for the belief in the bedrock event of the Christian faith, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

OK, but so what? Even if Jesus were resurrected from death, what does that have to do with me, today, almost two thousand years later?

What does it have to do you? Well, absolutely nothing--that is, if you are already immortal. If your body is getting younger and stronger; if your joints aren’t getting stiffer, or your hair greyer (if not thinner), or if you are totally immune to the accidents or disease that can kill everyone else—then, yes, it really has nothing to do with you.

On the other hand, if your life is going to end, as does everyone else’s, in death, then the resurrection of Jesus has a lot to do with you because it offers you the only hope of something other than a grave as the capstone of your existence.

In the end, death is stronger than nature. Actually, I’d say death is part of nature, death is something that seems to be built into nature. Thus, unless we have something greater than nature, unless we have something beyond the natural, something supernatural--then what does nature offer us? Sixty, seventy, eighty years (if lucky) and then what? An eternity rotting in a hole?

It’s crazy, isn’t it? Going through all the angst and pain and suffering of this life, only to have it end the way chickens and oysters end, and that’s in death. Except our situation is worse than chickens and oysters because we know that we are going to die; chickens and oysters don’t, and so they don’t worry about it. We, though, do. Many atheists have bemoaned the futility, the sadness, the essentially meaningless of life if it ends only in death. It is absurd.

But not just atheists either. The apostle Paul saw the same thing. Listen to what Paul says in regards to death, and to the resurrection of Jesus:

“If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Corinthians 15:13-19).

Paul is saying what I am trying to say: if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then we will not be raised from the dead either, and thus everything about us climaxes and culminates in our death. That’s it! Nothing more. Everything is absurd!

Paul, therefore, pins everything on the resurrection of Jesus, the whole Christian faith even. If Christ was raised from the dead, we will be too; if He wasn’t, our faith is futile, indeed our lives are futile, because we’re still in our sins and sin leads to eternal death.

So, as we conclude this series, friend, what does this mean?

Listen, according to the Bible, we have all done evil, we have all done wrong, but two thousand years ago, at the cross, the Lord laid on Jesus “the iniquity of us all” (Isa 53:6). Every evil thing you’ve ever done, or will do, has been punished in Jesus, who died in your stead. Our sins have all already been paid for by Jesus. Jesus died the death that we deserve so we don’t have to face that death. But then Jesus rose! And, just as God raised Jesus from death, we too now have the promise that we can and will be raised from death too and given eternal life. We can have that life because the penalty of sin, the forfeiture of that life, was paid for us by Jesus.

How do we get that life?

Listen to what Jesus is saying to each of us: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” (John 11:25, 26). Though we sleep temporarily in the grave, Jesus is the resurrection and the life, and it’s through His resurrection that we have the promise of ours and of the eternal life that follows. And that day is coming soon!

Wrote Peter, another personal witness to the resurrected Jesus: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3,4).

Reserved in heaven for you? Now, that’s a promise!

Do you see what’s at stake in the resurrection of Jesus Christ: Eternal death, or an incorruptible inheritance reserved for us in heaven. A life of frustrated dreams and hopes that ends in the cold grave; or a life of frustrated dreams and hope that ends in an eternity of bliss with your Creator and Redeemer. These are the options for what has to be by far the most important choice a person will make. That’s why, I believe, the Lord has given us so much powerful evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

You’ve seen the facts; we’ve been looking at them all week. Now, friend, you have to make the choice: life or death. God says, ‘Therefore, choose life” (Deu 30:19), choose Him who is “the resurrection and the life,” choose Jesus, whose resurrection from the dead--so powerfully attested to in history--offers each of us the same hope as well, a hope that nothing in this world can offer us.

“And death shall have no dominion” wrote Dylan Thomas.

Indeed, and death shall have no dominion, but only because Christ has been raised.

And death shall have no dominion, but only if claim for yourself what Jesus offers you.

And death shall have no dominion, for we are in Christ, the resurrection and the life, that is . . . eternal life.