John talk 7 - Ch 20 The Resurrection

Jesus is the Lord who was bodily resurrected and by this, declared to be the Lord of Eternal Life, because he has defeated Sin and Death.

Introduction – The Resurrected Jim!

When I was fairly new out of university (the first time!), I often got assigned to go and do the site inspections for the various construction projects our company was working on. And one of the first ones I was assigned to was the redevelopment of Harold Park paceway in glebe.

Now I was out on site fairly regularly, and got to know one of the site managers out there Jim fairly well. Now Jim was an older fella especially to still be on site, and to be honest he was a little cantankerous at times, but he was one of those people you kind of were best mates with or you wanted to drop him in the concrete pour, but he was like that with everyone.


Anyway, on this one particular occasion, there had been a miscommunication, which Jim had gracious rung up and admitted that it was in fact all - my fault and misunderstanding and I was supposed to be on site RIGHT NOW! (except he used some more adjectives in there, and possibly a verb – but it was the same word anyway!).

Well after some negotiation, given there was no way
I could get over there that evening, he pointed out I better be there by 7am, because the concrete was going down at 7:30am. (I wished I had the courage to say, if you could actually read drawings you wouldn’t need me to come out anyway – but I didn’t have the courage).

SO I slept badly, and thought of all the retorts I was going to give Jim, when I turned up on site the next day, which I did dutifully at 7am. And at that hour there was surprisingly few people on site. SO I made my way around to the section where I was to do the inspection, but I couldn’t see Jim. SO I thought he better not be late or will I give it to him!
Anyway, I wandered over to two of the steelworkers and asked, ‘have you seen Jim?’. And they looked sheepishly at each other, and then looked back at me and said, ‘Ah, Jim passed away last night!’.

Death cuts through you doesn’t it, worse than a winter breeze in Katoomba?

I can still remember the piercing feeling I had, like an obscene amount of adrenaline had been released into my body. They went back to their work, and I was totally unsure as to what I was to do. So I wandered around to do some work, and then thought this is ridiculous so I started to wander off to the site shed to work out what to do next.
And as I started off down to the stair well, I opened the door to see a startled man on the inside of the stairs, but not half as startled as I was!

And in His surprise he looked at me and said something like, ‘where the bloody hell are you going?’.
And I replied, ‘I have no idea, Jim!’
TO which he again said something like,
‘seems to be a theme with you’.

I to this day, do not know the Jim that had died, but the feelings I felt of total shock, and then utter surprise were very real – even if Jim’s apparent resurrection from the dead wasn’t.

In this situation it seems to me you are faced with three options:
He really was dead, and he really was bodily resurrected. But given that he wasn’t God (despite his occasional overtures of grandeur in that direction), and he also said he was tired but not recently deceased, it definitely wasn’t a resurrection.
Secondly, he was still dead and I was seeing a ghost. But as I said, he said he wasn’t dead, and I don’t suspect you can shake the hand of a ghost. That and you’d expect someone from the afterlife to hand you a more life changing and grandiose task than checking y16’s @200 cts.
He wasn’t really dead – it was a case of mistaken identity (which is to say it could just be a hoax!).
These three options would have to be your first port of call when it comes to a claim of a resurrection from the dead wouldn’t it?

Well today we are going to look at chapter 20 of John’s gospel which is the crux of the matter. If Jesus really is who he claims to be, he must be able to do, what he claims to do. IF Jesus is God, God the Son, God the saviour, the one who comes to forgive sin and restore relationship with God. IF Jesus is this God, then he has to be able to do what he has promised to do and predicted he will do in:
John 10:17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--
only to take it up again.
18 No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.
This command I received from my Father."

No Fakes, no hoaxes, no phonies, no sending angels instead, no mistaken identities:
Jesus must die – truly dead
Jesus must rise – bodily resurrected
And why? Well the Apostle Paul explains in 1 Cor 15:
16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.
17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.
19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

The Christian faith stands upon the twin foundations of firstly, Jesus substitutionary death in our place on that cross for our sin. And secondly, of Christ’s bodily resurrection.

The bodily resurrection of Christ is the demonstration of Christ’s death effectiveness and the truth of Christ’s identity. Christ being raised from the dead is the undeniable and outstanding proof that he is the saving Lord, that Christ is the resurrection and the life, the saving Lord who give eternal life.

If Christ has not been raised bodily, he is not the Lord of life and death, and his death is not able to deal with our sin. Jesus death may be an empathetic act for us, to understand the weight of death,
but his self sacrificing death, but his death would become, just another brick in the wall, if he is not raised. If he is not raised, he cannot save us.

It would be like being a man overboard, being washed around in the see, to have someone on the boat decide that they can’t find a rope, but they are so selfless they will also jump in to keep us company!! Thanks for the offer, but personally I don’t need someone to hold my hand on the way down, I need a saviour.
Christ is such a saviour, one who understands the predicament mankind has with death, and he understands it personally, but he has overcome death, and so he can save you and me.

The Apostle John in his gospel has testified to the truthfulness of Christ’s claims about himself, and Christianity takes it stand upon these historic claims, that Christ died and then Christ Rose in accordance with the scriptures. And in our passage today, John makes three more claims of truth about Christ.
- Jesus really did dies on that Cross
- Jesus Tomb really was empty on the third day
- Jesus was seen bodily resurrected, on and after the third day.
John tells us the truth of these claims and they are backed up by a number of witnesses.

1.Jesus Really did die on the Cross!

This is an uncontroversial claim, given the Roman’s were pretty competent at killing people, and the disciples were hardly likely to bury their friend alive!!
30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
31 Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.
32 The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other.
33 But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.
35 The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.

40 Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs.
41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no-one had ever been laid.
42 Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was near by, they laid Jesus there.
So the Roman’s really did kill him, but his friends also knew he was dead, their grief is a real grief, the disciples fear and doubt, and we see Mary’s deep grief. Mary using that great image of John’s gospel comes to the tomb in the dark.
NIB John 20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.
2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb.

10 Then the disciples went back to their homes,
11 but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb
12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him."
Jesus was dead, that is an undisputed statement of fact. But more than the fact he was dead, the method of his death was important too, Jesus died on a cross (and not from a common cold) for a reason.
If Jesus was really going to be the saviour of the world, he had to deal with our problems of sin, death, fear, grief and doubt, he had to do more than just die an empathetic death, he had to die a sacrificial death, a death that pays the penalty to our creator that we owed and couldn’t pay ourselves, the debt of sin that under-girds all our ills in this life.
The type of death Jesus died was essential for him to be able to save us;
3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
The type of death was essential, but its validity and its power is proven and demonstrated in his bodily resurrection.
John’s first fact is Jesus really did die on that cross.

2.The tomb really was empty

That the tomb really was empty is again an undisputed fact, how it got empty is disputed, but that it was empty on that third day is not!
And we have at least three witnesses to the fact. The first is Mary and then the Apostle’s John and Peter. Any fact in Jewish law is established upon the consistent testimony of two witnesses – the witness of Peter and John. (Obviously they weren’t entirely politically correct in first century Palestine and a woman’s witness did not count – which makes it even more striking that John is telling the truth if he first includes the witness of a woman).

In fact in Matthew’s account he additionally tells us that even the Roman guards admit the tomb is empty, and the chief priests – the Jewish leaders accept the claim.
matt 28:11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened.

SO there is no disputing the tomb is empty, the question is how did it get that way?
2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"

SO the question is, Who does Mary mean by “they”?
Well it seems to me there are five main possibilities:
- The Jewish Leaders
- The Roman guards
- Some random Grave Robbers
- The Disciples
- OR Jesus is God - and the one who resurrected Lazarus has resurrected himself from the dead.

Now I am not a judge or a lawyer, but I have seen enough CSI, SVU, NCIS and any other acronym you can think of to know that in any crim,e you are looking for two things in terms of your main suspects, motive and opportunity.
1.The Jews
Quite frankly, why on earth would they want to do it? They wanted him dead and they asked for the guard in the first place.
matt 27:62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate.
63 "Sir," they said, "we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said,`After three days I will rise again.'
64 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."
65 "Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how."
66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

I’m pretty confident they had neither motive or opportunity.

2.The Romans
Again, why would they? Maybe to get up the noses of the Jews, but then Pilate Killed Jesus just to keep the Jews happy and to bring some stability and peace and stop the Jews from starting an uprising. SO it wasn’t him.
And I suspect the guards aren’t going to show initiative in this matter and disobey Pilate’s direct command, Rome doesn’t have a sense of humour when it comes to mutiny.
I can’t see motive or any real way opportunity.

3.Grave Robbers?
It would take at least 5 men to carry Jesus plus the 35 kgs of spices he was buried with. How exactly are five guys going to casually slip past the Romans out the front of the tomb on guard duty, then roll away the rock and then casually carry the body off with no-one watching?
And then you have to explain what happened with the grave clothes, did the robbers suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder, and just had to unwrap the body and neatly fold the linen up, while the Roman’s stood outside, before they left?
And they just happened to do it on the third day, rather than wait for tomorrow when the guards would be gone.
No chance is it?

4.The Disciples
They have to be the ones with the real motive – but then even they happily admit, they didn’t understand anything about Jesus death and resurrection until after they saw it!! They don’t exactly come off in the gospel’s looking like criminal masterminds. They currently are the guys off hiding in the dark who did a runner at the first sign of trouble.
And even if they were organised, there is still the same problem of the Roman guard to do something about, and the grave clothes issue remains.

5.Jesus really was resurrected
The grave clothes lead you to believe that the person who unraveled the body had plenty of time to themselves to do the job without the Roman’s noticing. It seems to me that would be easiest with the stone over the door wouldn’t it? It had to be an inside job.
NIB John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

It seems the most likely motive and opportunity belonged to the creator himself, the word become flesh who dwelt among us. The creator has done a profound act of recreation, but that is nothing new in John’s gospel, new wine, new legs, new eyes, and a new Lazarus.
In this act Jesus declared himself in the most profound way the creator and the Lord, the Lord over death in his own resurrection from the dead.
Jesus folded his own grave clothes, because unlike Lazarus who emerged entangled, he would never need them again, he had begun his resurrected eternal life.

That is a staggeringly outrageous claim isn’t it?
Resurrection?
Resuscitation I can usually believe, but not after three days I can’t.
Resurrection, that is amazing, what a way to declare you are the Lord and God the creator himself. I’m impressed if someone can go to the January sales and find their car first go at Westfield Parramatta. But resurrection isn’t just impressive, it’s plain scary isn’t it? Jesus is God.

1. Jesus was dead – no doubt
2. Jesus tomb was empty – no doubt
3. Jesus was seen bodily resurrected
John again testifies to us the truth he has seen, the truth that was seen by many, and again he has three witnesses of Mary, the disciples and of course Thomas.

Now Thomas cops a hard time in my opinion, but I am glad he is there, he is a details man, and he is the sure witness we all want isn’t he.
I want to hear from a man who saw the wounds which showed it really was Jesus body.
24 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.
25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!"
27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
28 Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
I mean, ‘resurrected, really?’
And Thomas the doubter says to us, ‘resurrected really!’
Hands in holes, hands in sides, and hands on heart, resurrected really!

Jesus was bodily resurrected and Thomas shows us the right response, ‘my Lord and my God’.

But maybe 3 witnesses aren’t enough for you, because let’s face it there is a lot at stake, well listen to the testimony of the apostle Paul:
1 cor 15:3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.
6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,
8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

Over 500 people testified to what they personally saw – they saw the truth, the truth John has testified to us from the pages of his gospel.

Jesus was seen Bodliy Resurrected.

Conclusion:
There are only 2 options when you are confronted with the truth, you can try and deny it, or you can believe it. Neither makes the truth any more or any less true, the truth is true whether anyone believes it or not, but denying the truth does have an impact on you and your life.

To deny the truth, always winds up in problems, like a Bat that denies the truth that power-lines are not tree branches!

Ultimately if you deny the truth of the resurrection, it may mean some moral freedom for now, but it ultimately ends in hopelessness and despair, because everyone and everything dies and turns to dust. And eventually we (the centre of the known universe – well at least our universe) are remembered no more.

Without the resurrection of the dead, which is to say without the resurrection of Jesus, life has no ultimate purpose or meaning. Sure it has glimpses of good and happiness sure, but in this view all life happens in the face of a chasm of non-existence.

Death comes to everyone and in order to understand life, you need to be able to give some account of death.

Jesus resurrection is not a truth we believe because we need it, but in fact the opposite is true, the truth is there is a resurrection from the dead, and the deep down conviction we have about this truth and our real need, is revealed to be true, when we see the content and proof of our conviction laid out before our eyes in the gospel message, that Jesus was raised from the dead.

These are truly shocking thoughts aren’t they, that life without Jesus Resurrection is a life without hope. But the truth is, the Bible says things are worse than that. The Bible says we are not extinguished at death, but we are raised to face our maker and give and account for our life, and account for how we treated his Son:
john3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

The message of the cross and the resurrection go together, you can try to deny the truth, but truth always catches up with us in the end.

The second option is you can believe the truth, the truth that Jesus really was bodily raised from the dead, the truth that he is God’s Son the Lord, our God and creator, the one who died on the cross and rose to life to show his power over sin and death, the one who gives eternal life to all who believe in his name.
Jesus and his death and resurrection is the truth that gives live meaning, purpose and hope.

- Jesus really did die on the cross
- Jesus tomb really was empty
- Jesus really was bodily resurrected.

John has told us the truth:
john 20:30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.
31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

john 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;
26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"