Easter, April 4, 2021 NOTES NOT EDITED
Used Tombstones
John 20:1-18 (Service Video: “Joseph Got His Tomb Back”)
SIS—Nothing is more important to understanding the Christian message than understanding the significance of the empty tomb.
SCRIPTURE READING: John 20:1-11
An eye-catching ad appeared in a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, newspaper's classified section a few years ago. Big, bold letters advertised "Used Tombstone." The ad's text read as follows: "Used tombstone for sale. Real bargain to someone named 'Dingo.' For more information call . . . and then the number was listed.” When Joseph of Arimathea was finally buried, he was buried in a used Tomb. Jesus borrowed it for three days and gave it back.
There is no more important word in the Easter Story than the word, “empty.” The word, “empty” is what fills the Easter Story with meaning—and with power.
A little boy named, Philip, was born with Down syndrome. As an eight-years old, he had a hard time finding acceptance, even in the Sunday school class he attended. Through some creative intervention, though, Philip began to be accepted by his classmates. One Sunday morning at Easter, the Sunday school teacher gave her students a plastic, hollow egg and instructed them to go outside and find symbols of new life and place them in the egg. Afterwards, they would share what they found with the class. The children ran about the church property in a fury to find an appropriate item. They then returned to the classroom to share their finds. One by one, the teacher opened their eggs and displayed the symbol they found: a flower, a leaf, even a butterfly. The class responded to each with “Ooos” and “Awws” until the teacher opened the last egg. Instead of a beautiful flower or leaf, the egg was empty. “That’s not fair,” one boy spoke up, “somebody didn’t do it!” Philip spoke up in the egg’s defense, “That’s mine, I did that”. Annoyed the other boy shouted, “Philip, you don’t do anything right! There’s nothing there!” Philip responded “I did do it! It’s empty! Just like the tomb! The tomb was empty!”
There are THREE ASPECTS of the Resurrection Story that outline how fundamental the Empty Tomb is to Christianity:
❶ The Tomb Was Empty:
It is the Essential Part of |
the
Christian Message (vv 1-2)
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In all four gospels we have the central issue of the “empty tomb.” John is the last gospel to be written and records what the church had been teaching for at least 20 to 30 years. In John’s gospel we read
The fact that the tomb was empty that first Easter Morning has never been seriously challenged in over 2000 years.
Even Jewish scholar, Geza Vermez concludes: "But in the end, when every argument has been considered and weighed, the only conclusion acceptable to the historian must be that . . . the women who set out to pay their last respects to Jesus found to their consternation, not a body, but an empty tomb."
The fact that the tomb was empty and the only reasonable, historic explanation for it was the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundation—indeed the very essence—of Christianity. The Apostle Paul would summarize it like this in 1Corinthians 15:14:
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I would never suggest that someone embrace Christianity because it is somehow helpful emotionally, socially, or even spiritually. Other religious people would argue their particular brand of religion is “helpful.” No, there is no good reason to embrace Christianity unless it is true. And, if it is true, all other approaches to spirituality and eternal issues are false.
So, we can take the historical record at face value—as nearly all reputable scholars do and have for two thousand years—When Mary and the other women arrived at the tomb that first Easter – it was empty. Surprisingly, remarkably empty.
This brings me to another important matter in regard to Easter.
❷ The Empty Tomb Begs for an Explanation? (Verse 2b)
Mary herself, offers the most logical explanation from a human standpoint. She says;
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Someone stole the body. That seemed almost unquestionable because if there is one thing that human kind has learned over the millennia of being on earth is this: “dead people stay dead!”
The reason there
is any debate about the resurrection at all is not that there is no “evidence”
for it, as we will see, but because the default position in human, common sense
thinking is: “dead people stay
dead.” Resurrections don’t happen!
It is impossible to convince
someone of the truth of Christianity if they dismiss, out of hand, the
possibility of the “supernatural.” If there is no supernatural, there is no
God, and no such thing as meaning, purpose, or even truth—end of discussion. On the other hand, if there is the possibility
of the supernatural—and as I said life is foolish and meaningless without
it—then resurrection is not only possible, but it is provable!
Remember Paul said: “No resurrection. No truth to Christianity.”
A persistent “anti-supernatural” bias has permeated every area of modern thought from science to religion to politics. Any evidence for the resurrection (and there is a lot) is not even considered a “possibility.”
Whether or not you believe the resurrection took place rests on whether or not you have an “open mind” or a “closed mind.” If you have a closed mind, no amount of evidence will convince you that Jesus Christ raised from the dead and Christianity is nothing but a myth.
You are like the person at a political rally. This person was a die-hard follower of her chosen candidate and his party. There was no amount of evidence anybody could ever offer that would get her to change her mind, or her political party. She was a “Yellow-dog Democrat.” She would vote for a “yellow-dog” as long as it was running against a Republican.
So, she proudly wore a button that
said, “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my
minds made up!”
What you believe is possible
determines how you view the evidence for the resurrection and the empty tomb. So,
let me survey some of the answers for the Empty Tomb, without a resurrection.
① The
first and most obvious human answer was that given by the
woman: Someone took the body. The question then becomes, “who” took the
body and where did they put it. Keep in
mind that in 2020 years of skeptics trying to produce the dead body of Jesus,
it has never happened—not then; not now; not ever! This was the original counter-explanation
offered by Jewish authorities to squelch any message of a Resurrected Messiah.
Matthew records this original plot to cover-up the empty tomb: Matthew 28:12–13
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Notice, however, no campaign was launched to locate the “stolen body” because the Jewish authorities knew the idea was preposterous on the face of it. For one, the tomb had the seal of the Roman Emperor and allowing it to be open by such neglect as falling asleep would have been a death sentence for the Roman soldiers.
And, if
the disciples had indeed stolen the body they would have had to break into the
tomb, violating the seal of the Roman Emperor, push a two-ton stone up an incline, away from
the entrance of the tomb, take the body, and do it so stealthily that the best
soldiers in the world would not notice.
② Another theory offered to explain the Empty Tomb without a resurrection is called the “Swoon Theory.” This states that Jesus survived the brutal beating and the crucifixion, was wrapped head to toe in fabric, placed in a cold, dank tomb and without food, water or care awoke in the blackness, fully refreshed, pushed away a two-ton stone and walked out—again, without the Roman guard noticing. If the Romans were good at anything, they were good at “crucifying people to death.” Nobody survived crucifixion. Plus, the Bible specifically notes the “mixture of blood ushering forth from the spear shoved into His side indicating the Lord’s heart had ruptured.” Jesus was most certainly dead!
③ Some have suggested that
the women and the disciples went to the wrong tomb. Do you think Mary, the mother of Jesus,
forgot where they buried Him? Joseph of Arimathea, who donated the tomb was a
prominent man whose tomb would have been well known. Plus, if they “wrong tomb” was empty, why not
just go to the right one?
④ One of
the most profoundly unbelievable explanations to attempt to ignore the fact of
the resurrection is the Mass Hallucination Theory. The premise is that everyone who claimed to
see the Risen Lord (including 500 at one time, 1Cor. 15:6) were having a “mass hallucination.” This attempt to explain the Empty Tomb
without a resurrection does not meet the criteria for a “single hallucination,”
much less 500 people hallucinating at the same time. Even secular psychiatrists reject such a
theory.
The Empty Tomb that first Eastern Sunday begged for an answer as to why it was empty. Theory after theory has been offered alternatives for the resurrection for over 2000 years. Not one such theory has had any credibility. As we learned earlier, the fact of the Empty Tomb is one of the most historically validated events in human history. There must be an answer. There is an answer. It is the same answer the angel gave the women that first Easter Sunday, Mat 28:6
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Write
this down. It came to me in the shower this very morning: “People do not reject the gospel
because it has been disproven—people reject the gospel because it disapproves
of their lifestyle!
Here is what one of the greatest authorities on the resurrection in modern history says about the resurrection as the theory for the empty tomb: “After more than 700 hours of studying this subject and thoroughly investigating its foundation, I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, OR it is the most fantastic fact of history” (J. McDowell).
The Empty Tomb is a fact. The Empty Tomb begs for an answer and the Resurrection is the only reasonable explanation. Third we must consider:
❸ The Empty Tomb is a Call to Believe (v8)
8 So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. Circle those words, “and believed.”
It is not
enough to simply “see the evidence for the resurrection.” Facts will never get you into
heaven. The Bible says that “even the devils know the facts of Who Jesus is and What He did, and
yet they fear and tremble in the face of eternal punishment” (Jam 2:19, paraphrased).
Let me repeat something I said earlier. I would never suggest that someone embrace Christianity because it is somehow helpful emotionally, socially, or even spiritually. Other religious people would argue their particular brand of religion is “helpful.” Honestly, many times my faith has not been helpful emotionally or socially. Sometimes, the burden of following Jesus has torn the very fabric of my life. It hasn’t brought me material prosperity or social status. But, I don’t believe in Christ because “the gospel is helpful but because it is true.” Yes, ultimately faith ALWAYS—AND I STRESS ALWAYS—keeps me safe beneath the shelter of the wings of the Almighty. But, I don’t believe the gospel because it is helpful, but because it is true. And, because it is true, it IS INDEED, helpful.
The word, “believe,”
in verse 8 of John,
chapter 20 (and throughout the Bible) is not about “knowing the facts of
Jesus life.” Believing in the Greek
New Testament is most often a verb—an action verb. Believing means “responding to the call of
Jesus Christ to follow Him even to the point of death!” Do-nothing faith
is not Biblical faith. James, prompted by the Holy Spirit, writes, James 2:18:
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Belief isn’t faith until we act upon it by surrendering to Jesus Christ as the Lord of Life and serving Him sacrificially every day of our lives. Faith happens when knowledge makes that 8 to 10 inch journey from your head to your heart. [SLIDE]
[CLOSE] The Empty Tomb most certainly was empty; but, it was empty for a reason. Jesus emptied the tomb of death so He could fill us with His life. Easter is about “emptiness” in many ways. We live in an incredibly Empty universe. Most of the universe is empty space occupied by nothing but dark matter and quantum fields.
Astronomers have found a big empty
place in the universe. A massive void. This hole is gigantic, nearly a billion
light-years across. Inside it there are no planets, no stars, no galaxies, no
gases. It’s just a huge cold, empty spot.
A whole lotta nothing.
It can stretch and even boggle your mind to think of the incredible distances
between stars in the sky. You might be aware that a light-year is a unit of
distance — it’s the distance that light can travel in one year. One light-year
equals about six trillion miles. Quite a distance.
And how about that massive void, that huge cold spot in the sky? It’s 10
billion light-years away and nearly a billion light-years across (six
billion-trillion miles across!) Our tiny heads cannot even begin to
comprehend a hole that gigantic. It’s been described as a big bubble in the
cosmic pancake batter.
But, as empty as the vast cosmos beyond the stars may be, it is not the
emptiest place in the universe. The emptiest
space in all creation is the human heart that is not filled with
Jesus. Jesus emptied the tomb so He
could fill the emptiness in every human heart longing for meaning and purpose.
Augustine said it so many centuries ago but it is so very true: “My heart is
restless [empty] until it finds its rest in Thee.”
If you want to be “filled” with God’s eternal blessings, you must embrace the
fact of the empty tomb. ①The
tomb was indeed, empty. ②The
only explanation that fits the facts is the Resurrection of Jesus; and ③the
Empty Tomb and Resurrection calls you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and
be saved. Then you will celebrate fully
Jesus Christ as “Your King.”
CLOSING
VIDEO: “That’s
My King!”
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