Word of Salvation – March 2024

 

He Is Not Here, But He Has Risen

 

Sermon by Harry Burggraaf, B.D. on Luke 24:5,6

Scripture Readings: 1Corinthians 15:1-23; Luke 24:1-12

Psalter Hymnal: 356; 362; 361; 383 (tune: Langham)

 

"Why do you seek the living among the dead?  He is not here but he has risen."

 

Congregation,

Dead men don't come back to life!

In the world as we know it that sort of thing just doesn't happen.

Oh, it’s all very well for some emotional, hysterical women 2000 years ago to say that Christ rose from the grave; but in our scientifically advanced age we know that isn't possible.

All we know of biological processes says that once a person is clinically dead that's the end.

Our chemists, our physicists, our neurologists – all hold that the decay and degeneration of death is irreversible.

When that Roman soldier jabbed his spear into the side and heart of Jesus, when they placed him in the tomb, when they rolled the stone in front of the cave THAT WAS IT.

The end of a troublesome fanatic.  Life could go on as usual.

So say the twentieth century men of knowledge...!

So say our contemporary theologians: the Bultmans, Tillichs, Robinsons.

So says an unbelieving world.

And yet, here it is, recorded in very simple, down to earth, historical narrative, "Why do you look for the living among the dead, Christ isn't here, he has risen."  The words of Luke – a man who was not only a doctor but also a very meticulous and accurate historian.

And we do not need to commit intellectual suicide to believe it; we don't have to take a leap of faith into the dark; we don't have to decapitate our brains to see the truth of the event.  Just look at all the evidence that is given.

 – look for yourself into the empty tomb.  No body there, only a few bandages which the women had quickly draped around the corpse of Jesus before he was buried.  The empty grave well yes perhaps a few fearful women may hot have looked very carefully but what about a sane, rugged, down to earth, no nonsense fisherman – like Peter – he went there specially to check out the story.  The empty tomb is indisputable evidence – never has the body of Jesus been found.

 – perhaps the disciples stole his body in the middle of the night.  That's the story those wily Jewish leaders tried to spread around.  But that's precisely why the guards had been there.  And can you imagine it – those fearful, cowardly disciples, hiding from the leaders – venturing out into the night to steal a body?  And would they be willing to suffer persecution and death for something they knew to be a lie?

 – perhaps the enemies of Jesus stole his body.  But what of the guard, and what of the huge rock that sealed the cave, and why then didn't they produce the body to prove the disciples liars when they claimed he had risen?

Oh no – to declare our faith in a risen Lord is not naive or anti-intellectual  – Christ rose, and God the Holy Spirit was very careful to see that the evidences were recorded — as well recorded as any other contemporary event.

 – think of all the appearances of Jesus, not just to the women at the grave but to Peter and John and the other disciples, to those two men om their way to the town of Emmaus, to Thomas who refused to believe the story until he could actually touch Jesus, to over five hundred people.

 – think of the perplexity of the elders and priests who had killed him in the first place – they were willing to pay big money to the guards to keep them silent, perhaps they even bribed the local press to keep the news from spreading that something did happen that Easter morning 2000 years ago.

 – think above all of the changed disciples from fearful, miserable cowards to men who openly and boldly proclaimed the gospel and blazed the trail for the establishment of Christ's church.

Science may say it’s impossible, modern theologians may try to demythologise it, but the fact remains – CHRIST IS RISEN, the tomb is empty, death was overcome.

God broke through what we might consider to be the natural order of things.  He had indicated that He would many, many centuries before.

He had symbolised it, as it were, in that equally wonderful and dramatic event in the life of Jonah; a big fish spewing up that unbelieving, disobedient Jew after he'd spent three days inside it.  That was a sign – picture language – of Easter.

Recall the words of Jesus to the Pharisees "no sign shall be given you but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

As surely as that fish coughed up Jonah, so surely did Christ break out of death on Easter Sunday.

Some people would like to make the credibility of the Bible depend on the edibility of Jonah – well one thing is certain – the credibility of the Christian faith IS very much dependent on the actuality of the resurrection.  Many theologians today say it doesn't matter whether Christ actually came back to life or not – as long as his spirit and his teaching lives on.  But Paul makes it quite plain in the letter to the Corinthians, where we read – “If Christ is not risen them our preaching is useless and your faith is useless."

If this chronicle of Luke's is not true, then you might as well pack up and go home.  It’s been a useless effort.

Why?

Because the resurrection is the very core, the very nerve centre, the heart of our faith.  Without the resurrection the cross is a tragedy, a huge defeat.  It is the resurrection that finally gives meaning to faith.  That old Reformation document, the Heidelberg Catechism makes that abundantly clear.  Let’s read it together, let’s use its words to express the meaning of an the resurrection for us personally (Q. and A. 45, page 29 – read together).

Why is the resurrection so important, why is it the core of the faith?  Because in rising...
            1.  Christ abolished death
            2.  He made new life possible
            3.  He made our resurrection certain

Death Abolished; New life Actual; Our resurrection Assured.

1.  Death Abolished.

The common notion is that death is something natural.  It is part of the process of existence.

In fact this is so ingrained in the life and thinking of man that we accept it without giving it a second thought.  Science allows no alternative possibility (except in fiction); our whole social set up is geared for it.  We take out expensive life insurances in case we die, we make our last will so that the right people will benefit, funeral directors do a thriving business in handling death – it’s built into our economic, social and cultural life.

But the resurrection makes a lie of that.  'He is risen', is the glorious proclamation that DEATH IS NOT NATURAL – in fact it is the most unnatural phenomenon in creation.

God made this world and mankind for LIFE – for creative fellowship with Himself who is the source of all life.

When he saw and declared that his creation was good it also meant that it pulsed with life and that there was no room for decay.

Death is a foreign intrusion (like an enemy spy in government cabinet, like a stinking rat in the living room).

Why?  Because death is the result of sin, of rebellion against God – and like sin it is alien to creation, totally senseless and meaningless.

And so when Christ rose from the dead it was not unnatural, not against the order of things – but totally natural, for that is how creation was meant to be.

In his resurrection Christ not only declared death unnatural, he also abolished death in principle.

Hang on, you say; that's ridiculous.  We still die.  In spite of Easter people are still slaughtered on the roads, million of children and their parents still die of hunger and malnutrition; in spite of Easter.  I may still have to go through the sorrow and agony of sitting at the death bed of someone with terminal cancer.

Death abolished?

Yes but then we must realise congregation that physical death, the degeneration of our bodies, is but a symptom, a manifestation of a far more terrible reality; it is only the outward result of a more grotesque cause: SEPARATION FROM GOD, separation from the source, the spring of all life and grace and love.  And it is that underlying cause that Christ attacked and conquered and abolished.  Before the actual symptom can be healed (and it will be, that's our last point), the source must be treated.

Like one of the better doctors of today Christ did not prescribe pills for the headache, but he took the surgeon’s knife and cut away the tumour that caused it – he went to the root cause: sin, rebellion, separation – and the resurrection after the cross is proof that he succeeded.

Why do you think Paul could cry out in joy in his letter to the Corinthians: "Death is swallowed up in victory; O Death where is your victory, O Death where is your sting?"

Didn't he know that people all around him were dying; wasn't he aware of his own impending death?

Yes, yes...!

But he also knew that the sting of death is sin, and with that Christ had dealt once for all.

In rising Christ broke the grasp of hell; he crushed the power of Satan to hold us in bondage.  And so new life is possible.

2.  New Life Possible.

Because Christ rose New Life is actually possible.  Sometimes we don't really grasp the magnitude of what happened in that Palestinian garden.  An entirely new order of things is introduced into the world – the old principle of death is abolished, the new principle of resurrection life is introduced – creation can start taking its first steps out of the bondage and curse under which it groans; men can be free again.

You see Christ's life means life for the individual, for you and for me, but it also means new life for the whole of creation.

Nowhere better is this illustrated than in the letter Paul wrote to the Roman Christians – we read a part of it earlier.

(Read Romans 6:4;5)

"Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death ... we have become united with him in the likeness of his death ... our old self crucified .... our body of sin done away with."

Is that your experience congregation – have you identified with Christ in his death by loading on him your sin, your rebellion, your disobedience – was the death he died your death, do you believe he suffered on the cross and died for YOU, have you come to him in repentance?

If that is the case then praise God, for then his resurrection is also yours; his victory is yours – as Paul says:

"In order that as Christ was raised from the dead... we too might walk in newness of life.... certainly we shall also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.  We can consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God."

It’s like being joined in a unbreakable business partnership – there’s the hardships, the worry, the financial strain at initial investment – but then the share in the growth, the profit, the success, the security.

Identified, unified in his death – his death the end of our sin and rebellion and separation, and...

Identified, unified in his resurrection – his life the energy, the motive power of our new life of faith.

Are we indeed dead to sim and alive to God?  Is Easter a reality in our lives?  So often we go around as if Christ were not risen at all, as if death was still victorious.  We put ourselves into places of temptation, we tamper with sin, we meddle with the old principle of death – and what is it like?  It’s like hanging around that smelly, stuffy tomb which Jesus left: "why do you look for the living among the dead?"

Does our work, our reading, our dating, our entertainment, our church life cry out: CHRIST IS RISEN, death you've been defeated, sin you've lost?

And do we carry this principle of new life to all of creation?

A little further on in Romans Paul says that the whole of creation was subjected to futility but will also be set free from its bondage, its slavery to corruption.  That of course will finally be completed when Christ comes again and there will be a new earth and heaven where righteousness dwells.

But the seeds, the beginning of it lie with us who by faith already possess the new life principle.  To me that would seem to have practical implications.  Shouldn't Christians be in the forefront of the conservation movement which tries to prevent the destruction of creation by pollution, and which seeks to get some sense into the greedy squandering of resources.

Shouldn't Christians be the first to call a halt to the ever increasing gigantism of industry which tends to dehumanize people?

Shouldn't we be in the forefront of demanding social justice in industry, an equal distribution of creations riches, standards of truth and purity in advertising and the arts?

If the resurrection means new life for creation then Christians should be the most radical people around.  One thing is quite sure: when Christ comes again there will be radical changes.

3.  Resurrection assurance.

And that is our final observation – the fact that Christ rose from the grave has a future dimension the open grave indicates a future hope.

The catechism puts it beautifully: "the resurrection of Christ is to us a sure pledge of our blessed resurrection."

Many people scoff at the idea of life after death.  The idea of a new body is a joke.  But Easter is the greatest evidence that it will happen.  2000 years ago a man defeated death, he rose from the grave, and his resurrection is the model, the prototype for those who are united, related to him by faith.

Just as surely as a tadpole changes to a frog because of the inbuilt genetic mechanism so surely will our mortal bodies be clothed in immortality because of the life principle established by Christ's resurrection.  Paul compares it to a seed which is put into the soil and dies, and then shoots and grows and bears fruit.  Our resurrection at the end of time will be the fruit of his.

Or in more modern terminology it’s like a radically new model car.  Before the new model can come out and be produced a prototype is designed and made – the thousands of cars that follow are exact copies of the prototype... and the initial prototype makes them possible.  Of course in many ways this is a mystery and we can only use very inadequate language and examples to describe it but the fact that he is risen, guarantees, assures our resurrection.  Physical death too will finally be eliminated and there will be a new and perfect creation.

Is it all a dream, pie in the sky....?

No, no, look at the empty tomb, look at the risen Christ, there is all the evidence you need..

Sin's bond's severed,
We're delivered;
Christ has bruised the serpent's head;
Death no longer, is the stronger;
Hell itself is captive led.
Christ has risen, from death's prison;
O'er the tomb He light has shed.

(Praise him our exalted head.)