Resurrection - A Radio Sermon
Presented on CHR 96.5 FM on Friday 8th December 2006 at 5.10pm
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It’s a common saying that there are only two certainties in life – death, and taxes. And just like taxes, we spend our whole lives trying to avoid, defer and escape death. We spend millions on lotions and potions to make ourselves look younger. We pursue the latest and greatest drugs and medicine to let ourselves live longer. And we now even enlist scientists to create and destroy a form of human life, in the slight hope that their research will prolong our own lives even further.
Yes, we do every thing we can to try and forget the only real reality in this world – that at the end of the day, death will claim us all.
And so my question to you today is: What would you do if someone came up to you today and said that their friend had been resurrected from the dead? Not resuscitated, not released from a coma, but actually, physically raised from the dead.
I don’t know about you, but I’d certainly struggle to believe them – because resurrection is simply not a reality of this world. But this is exactly what the friends of Jesus were saying in the 1st century. In Acts chapter 2 for example, the apostle Paul says: “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.”
Now few, if any, historians and scholars – either Christian or non-Christian – will deny that the person Jesus existed – that he was born in Judea, that he taught many people, and that he died by crucifixion. After all, he is written about not just in the bible, but also in the Jewish and Roman writings of the day.
What’s more, few historians and scholars will deny that shortly after Jesus the first Christians appeared, proclaiming that the Jesus, who was crucified, was bodily resurrected from the dead.
But have you ever considered why it was so important that Jesus rise from the dead?
Well for starters, Jesus said that he would, numerous times! In Mark 8 for example, Jesus says he “must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31).
Now, if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, that means he was either lying when he said these words, or he was just plain out-of-his-mind crazy! Either way, he would no longer be a guy worth following.
But Jesus did rise from the dead – after three days, just as he has promised. And so, he proved that he had authority over death, and authority over us.
Romans 1:4 says that “[Jesus is] declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.” That right, the resurrection of Jesus proves that Jesus is the Son of God. For by his resurrection, Jesus did what no man could ever do – he conquered death itself!
And in doing so, he paved the way for us too to escape death. In Jesus, we have the hope of new life, eternal life. In John 11:25-26, Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
And so:
By his resurrection, Jesus proves he is the Son of God.
By his resurrection, Jesus conquers death.
And by his resurrection, Jesus offers us new life.
Yes, it is the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead that is the linchpin of the Christian faith. For if Jesus Christ didn’t rise from the dead, then even the apostle Paul admits, the Christian faith would be worthless (1 Cor 15:14).
It is this outrageous claim – that Jesus rose from the dead – that makes Christianity so unique. For Christianity is not a religion based on dreams, visions or philosophy, but on a verifiable event – an event that occurred in a person, in a place and at a time in our history. So much so, that if the enemies of Jesus (and he had a lot of enemies) could have proven in the 1st century that he didn’t rise from the dead, Christianity wouldn’t exist today. But they were never able to!
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul claimed that over 500 people saw the risen Jesus – and that these eye-witnesses were still alive when he was doing his ministry. If Paul was lying about the resurrection of Jesus, his enemies could have squashed the spread of Christianity just by speaking to these “so-called eye-witnesses”. But they were never able to!
In fact, so convicted were Paul and the other apostles that Jesus physically rose from the dead, that they were all prepared to be martyred for their faith. If so many people were lying about something so seaming foolish as the resurrection from the dead, would they all really be prepared to die for their lie?
I hope that you are challenged this Christmas, if you haven’t been already, to rethink your views on the Jesus Christ. For Jesus was more than just a baby in a manger.
If Jesus really did physically rise from the grave; if Jesus really did conquer death itself, then we know we can trust his words to us – and his promise that if we believe in him, we too will be raised with him in glory.