Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Who is this Jesus Christ that we’re always talking about, who died on the cross some 2,000 years ago and rose again from the dead? Some say He was a good moral teacher. Others say He was a prophet. Still others say that He was just some mythical figure that the Christian Church made up. Programs are always popping up somewhere on T.V., either on the History, National Geographic, or Discovery channels, intending to inform you of the real Jesus. The eye-witness accounts of Him confess Him to be God in the flesh. And yet, there are and have been many others in history who either claim to be God or at least to have a spark of the divine within them. There are a number of religious leaders whose followers attribute miracles and prophecies to them. Muhammad is one. Televangelists are another. Miracles are even said to be found among Buddhists and Hindus. What, if anything, sets Jesus apart from them? How can we know for certain that Jesus Christ is who the N.T. documents claim Him to be?
The answer is Christ’s resurrection from the dead. For Christians, the facticity of the truth claims concerning Jesus hinges upon whether He really and truly rose from the dead or not. While in other religions it really doesn’t matter whether their leaders are alive or dead, according to the Apostle Paul, if Jesus Christ is still dead, if His body still lies buried somewhere, then Christians have no business believing in Him or His words. They make God out to be a liar by saying that He raised Jesus from the dead when He didn’t. They’re still in their sins, since death - the wages of sin - still has the last word. And because of this they have no certain hope of any kind of life after death. If Jesus has not been raised from the dead, then Christians are of all people most to be pitied. It were ridiculous for them to follow Jesus, because no matter how good and moral a person He might have been, if He didn’t come out of the tomb as He promised He would, then He was either a liar or a lunatic. And if He Himself did not come back to life, then He is powerless to bring us back to life. His promises about giving us eternal life would be null and void, since they are all dependent upon His overcoming death and the grave. If Jesus is still dead, go ahead and choose whatever religion or religious leader you want to follow. It would make no difference, since none of them can overcome death. Death still wins in the end.
You see, death is the ultimate problem for humanity. Everyone knows this, though many deny it. Some say it’s just a part of life. Others say that it’s a doorway into a better life. Still others say that it’s a way to shed your earthly body and become one with the universe. But the fact is, no one wants to die. Even those who kill themselves are trying to escape the problems they face in this life only to go on to a better plane of existence somewhere else. The fact is, death is an enemy; it was never meant to be in the first place; it is the consequence of sin, something that we cannot overcome ourselves. And no matter how good a religious system and its god or leader appear to be, if they haven’t overcome death for us, then what good are they really? They may promise some kind of life after death, but they have no proof for it. How do they know what’s on the other side of death, if anything, when they haven’t gone through it themselves and come back to tell us about it? Oh, yes, people claim to have had visions and near-death experiences, but no one has ever actually come back to life after having been dead and buried for three days. No one, that is, except for Jesus Christ, as the N.T. documents claim. But can we trust these documents? How can we be sure that Jesus actually did come back to life on the third day after His crucifixion and walk out of the tomb?
We can be sure for a number of reasons. First, the N.T. documents give us reliable information about Jesus. We know this, because they were written by eye-witnesses of Jesus as well as those who knew those eye-witnesses. Second, the claim that Jesus had risen from the dead was being circulated while hostile witnesses to Jesus (those who had crucified Him) were still alive. Any one of them could have produced the body of Jesus if they wanted to, as His burial was public and His tomb even had a guard posted outside of it to make sure that no one stole the body. Third, Jesus didn’t keep His resurrection a secret, but He appeared to more than 500 witnesses at one time. In today’s Gospel text He first appeared to His disciples, proving that He had indeed risen from the dead by showing them His hands and feet (the very hands and feet that had been nailed to a cross just days earlier) and by eating a piece of broiled fish in their presence. And fourth, these eye-witnesses all died martyrs deaths for claiming that Jesus had in fact risen from the dead. Now, it’s one thing to die for something you believe is true but isn’t. It’s another thing to die for something you know is a lie. If the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus only to claim that He had risen from the dead, the minute someone threatened to crucify them for maintaining such a thing is the minute they would have quit the charade and revealed where they had hidden the body. But none of them did that. All but the Apostle John went to their deaths proclaiming Christ crucified and risen from the dead.
Today, however, even some Christians have a hard time believing that the body of Jesus actually came back to life. To some, it doesn’t really matter whether the Lord’s body is still buried somewhere or not. To them it’s simply a matter of faith. Whether Jesus actually came back from the dead bodily or just in spirit, whether He arose from the grave or simply arose in your heart, makes no difference to them. It’s all about what you want to believe. But again, if Jesus only arose in your heart and His body still lies dead somewhere, then we’re back to the fact that Jesus did not actually overcome death, and we who believe in Him are of all people most to be pitied.
But the Apostle Paul will not allow us to have a dead Jesus. A dead Savior is no Savior at all. Paul, however, assures us that that is not the case with Jesus. “In fact, Christ has been raised from the dead,” he writes, a fact to which he, the other Apostles, and over 500 others were eye-witnesses, who saw, touched, and heard the risen Christ. But why is His resurrection important? First, it proves that He is who He claimed to be - God in the flesh. In Romans Paul writes that Jesus “was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead.” If anyone can rightly be called God, it is the One who has overcome death for us - Jesus Christ. But secondly, it means that Jesus can be believed. If anyone’s Word can be trusted, it is this One who has been raised from the dead. He not only promises us eternal life, but He delivers on that promise, showing not only that He has the power over death, but that He will use that power to raise us who believe in Him from the dead as well.
And that’s what His resurrection means for us. Christ’s resurrection is no mere historical fact. He didn’t rise from the dead just to prove who He was. He didn’t do it to show off or simply to demonstrate His power. God has the power to do anything, including the power to cast us into hell. Without an explanation as to what Christ’s resurrection means for us, it might mean that Jesus has come back from the dead to punish us now for what we did to Him. But He hasn’t come back from the dead to pour out His vengeance upon us. Instead, as we hear in today’s Gospel text, Jesus intends “that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His Name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” In overcoming death, Jesus has also overcome the cause of death - our sin. As Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Because we sin, we die. But in Jesus we have the forgiveness of our sins. That’s the good news of Good Friday, that Jesus died for your sins, suffering the punishment and death you deserve on account of your rebellion and disobedience against God. For the sake of His once and for all sacrifice, God no longer holds your sins against you. The proof He gives you is the resurrection of His Son. That’s what we’re celebrating today. By raising Jesus from the dead God shows that your sins have all been answered for and taken away by Jesus. Since the wages of sin - death - has been removed by Christ, that means that the cause of death - sin - has also been dealt with. For those of you who repent of your sins and trust in God’s forgiveness for Christ’s sake, you no longer have to fear death. It no longer has the last word. It’s fangs have been removed. When you die that’s not the end for you; you don’t go to hell, but you go to be with the Lord. But that’s not the end of your body. There will be no naked spirits in heaven. Just as the grave could not hold on to Jesus’ body, so it will not be able to hold on to yours either. Because Jesus has been raised from the dead, so you will be also, when Jesus comes again.
Now, some have wondered just what kind of bodies we’ll have when we’re raised from the dead. Well, in today’s Gospel text the Lord shows us. We won’t be ghosts, like the disciples thought Jesus was. Instead, we’ll have bodies just like His, bodies of flesh and bone, yet not as they are now. Right now our bodies grow old, get sick, and eventually die. But St. Paul writes that when our Lord returns to raise us from the dead, He will transform our lowly bodies, so that they will be like His glorious body. They will be bodies that will never grow old, get sick, or die, immortal bodies that will be fit for eternity with the Lord. In another place Paul writes, “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
That victory is what we are celebrating today on this day of our Lord’s resurrection. By raising Jesus from the dead, God has vindicated the fact that Jesus is His only-begotten Son. He has vindicated His Son’s work of paying for our sins on the cross. And He has vindicated His Son’s Word that whoever believes in Him has eternal life, the forgiveness of sins, the hope of the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Neither Allah, nor Buddha, nor any other person, god, or character in the history of mankind has ever or will ever be able to do what Jesus Christ alone has done. He has risen from the dead; He has overcome sin, death, the devil, and the grave for you. Amen. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!