The preacher stood before the congregation and said "I have bad news, I have good news, and I have more bad news."
The congregation got quiet. "The bad news is: the church needs a new roof!" the preacher said. The congregation groaned.
"The good news is: we have enough money for the new roof."
A sigh of relief was heard rippling through the gathered group.
"The bad news is: it’s still in your pockets"
The story of Scripture is one of bad news and good news.
It starts off good. As a matter of fact God calls the creation Good and calls the creation of man Very Good.
God’s creation was good but it was marred by sin. All was beautiful and right until sin came into the scene.
Through the disobedience of Adam and Eve came decay, sin, and death.
Cosmically speaking everything got out of whack. We must have a healthy biblical view of how sin affected the creation.
Sin brought about changes even in the earth. Man would now suffer separation from God, physical death, decay, but something about the creation changed.
The relationship with the animal kingdom would change, and even agriculture would change.
The relationship between man and woman would change and not for the better.
DEATH-
Today the one consequence that I want to talk about is death. The physical death of our bodies because of the Fall in the Garden.
Our reality is that our physical bodies have problems, we get sick, we have physical ailments and problems.
God didn’t create us to be that way. God created us to be whole and right and healthy and to live forever.
Sin and Satan are an affront to this good plan. Death has come to destroy God’s good plan. Death is not something to be celebrated but is an intruder.
Death is not something that was meant to be. This was not how it was supposed to be.
Today – The Resurrection of Christ is God’s answer to this problem.
The Resurrection of Christ has cosmic dimensions and is bigger than we could ever imagine. It is something that brings about God’s implementation of His grand rescue plan.
We saw last week that Paul told us in Acts 17 that God has put the world on notice. God has demanded that all men repent – the world will be judged by Jesus Christ and the proof that this is true is His resurrection from the dead.
JEWISH HOPE:
To understand fully what is being told to us in the New Testament we need to dial back the time machine and go back to 1st century Palestine.
What were the Jews expecting in the time of Jesus?
There were giant expectations and folks were waiting in expectation on the coming of the Messiah.
Here are some basic hopes of the Jewish people:
1) Yahweh would return to Zion. In Ezekiel we witnessed the glory of God leaving the Temple.
The Jewish people knew that the end of exile would be marked by the return of God to Zion.
They were home in the Promised Land from Babylon but the 10 northern tribes have never returned and the Shekinah glory of God never returned to the 2nd Temple that was built during the return from Babylon.
2) The Nations or Gentiles would stream to Mount Zion to hear about the Law of God. The Gentiles would look to Zion for their authority.
3) Israel would be vindicated from their suffering at the hands of the pagans
4) The Messiah – the King from the House of David – would be enthroned and reign.
5) The dead that were faithful to the covenant would be resurrected to take part in this new Kingdom of God on earth.
JESUS – FULFILLS ALL OF THESE HOPES
No one in 1000 years would have imagined that that these promises would be tied up and bound together by a single person.
In other words instead of these things happening to the nation of Israel – they would happen to a representative of Israel.
1) Expectation #1 – Jesus was God in flesh – John 1:14 the Word became flesh and Tabernacled (Templed) among us.
Jesus Comes to Jerusalem in Luke 19:44 for the triumphal entry on the week of His passion.
He looks upon Jerusalem and says: This is the TIME OF VISITATION
This is a specific reference to God’s return to Zion and Israel. – God will revisit and return to Israel.
They have missed the point – Here is God in flesh – God has literally returned to Zion to make His visit and what will happen?
It was now what they expected. The visitation of God is not a positive event because He comes and finds the Temple becoming a den or robbers.
He cleanses the Temple right after this – he in Verse 14 of Luke 19 goes right to the Temple.
This is exactly what the Jewish people expected – Yahweh would return to Zion. He would return to the Temple.
Instead of the glory returning to the Temple – the Temple is judged – the purpose for the Temple is over, Now God will dwell with his people through Christ.
Eventually God will dwell in each individual Christian through His Holy Spirit and make us His Temples.
The temple is judged on this day in April 30 AD and will be destroyed utterly by the Romans in 40 years never to be rebuilt.
The new Temple will be God’s people as His way to dwell on this earth.
2) Through Jesus we will see that the Gentiles will hear the good news from Zion. The Gospel spoken of in Isaiah 40-55 will be proclaimed and will start at Zion.
On Pentecost the Church will start and the good news that Isaiah will start out at Zion literally – from the Temple mount the Gospel will be preached and all the Gentiles will hear it.
We will pick up the book of Acts and find that all kinds of people are there at Pentecost and by Chapter 10 we find a pagan roman soldier becoming a follower of God through Christ Jesus.
3) Jesus will suffer at the hand of the pagans and be vindicated – we look a few weeks ago at Psalm 22 and how that Psalm ends in triumph.
Christ will be crucified at the hands of the pagans but be ultimately vindicated by God. He will not stay in the grave but be resurrected.
God will rescue Christ from the hand of the pagans.
4) We see that Jesus is enthroned.
A few weeks ago I preached sermon to you on how Mark’s gospel portrayed to us a coronation scene of a new King.
The irony is that this coronation occurs in the strangest way. The coronation of Israel’s king begins on Sunday of Passion week with the triumphal entry.
Jesus comes from the Mount of Olives riding on a donkey. This is all dripping with imagery of David and the new Davidic King.
Jesus will ultimately be crowned and announced as the king of Israel on the Cross.
The Cross will be His, as John puts it, LIFTING UP. He will crowned and announced as the King of the Jews.
This is the first time that we see Jesus identity come out loud and clear that He is the King of the Jews.
Ultimately his coronation ends with Resurrection and ascension into Heaven.
Romans 1: 3-4
3 concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, 4 who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord,
According to Paul – Jesus ultimate declaration of His Kingship is through the resurrection of the dead.
5) The fifth and final hope of Israel was the general resurrection of the dead of the faithful.
Never would they have imagined that God would have raised up someone before the general resurrection.
God had raised Jesus before the general day of resurrection. This would have been mind blowing to them.
Why would God do such a thing? Why would he raise someone from the dead?
Imagine how the Jewish people had to deal with these new realities. They knew the OT scripture and God had fulfilled all those prophecies explicitly but He did so in a way they had never imagined.
This is Our HOPE – because God has done something Amazing in Jesus Christ that is really good news for us.
I want to switch gears here and talk specifically what the resurrection means to us
Why does it matter? Should you care that Jesus rose from the dead?
First of all, you know deep in your bones that things in this world are not right.
When you watch someone get sick and you watch their bodies break down you know that this is not right. There is more to the story.
The good news this morning is that God is going to put all this right.
We are going to be resurrected from the dead – Get a new body that never gets sick or decays.
1) The doctrine of 1st Fruits
Paul makes an argument to the Church at Corinth as to their hope in the Resurrection that may sound odd to our modern ears.
1 Corinthians 15: 20-24
20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 21 For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own order : Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming, 24 then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power
Paul calls Jesus the first fruits of those who are asleep.
Adam brought death through disobedience in the Garden of Eden. Jesus brings about resurrection from the dead.
Christ is the first fruits of those who are IN CHRIST at his coming. What does Paul mean by First fruits?
Two feasts of the Jews celebrated the first fruits of the harvest.
Passover celebrated the first fruits of the Barley Harvest
Pentecost celebrated the first fruits of the Wheat Harvest.
Both feasts celebrated salvation history events in the story of Israel.
Passover celebrated God’s deliverance from Egypt and the first fruit celebration celebrated God’s promises that the Land would be fruitful.
The first fruit celebrated the harvest and looked forward to the hope that more was to come.
Let me go back to the feasts of Israel to explain this passage and I hope it will come alive to you.
To Understand First fruits we need to understand what happened at the Feast of Passover when Jesus was crucified.
Passover had a high Sabbath. On that Sabbath Jesus was in the grave.
On that very same day that Jesus was in the grave the Jews celebrated a feast that came on the heels of Passover and was really a part of that Passover celebration.
It was the feast of Unleavened Bread.
On That SATURDAY of the SABBATH grain was planted in the ground for the hope of a good grain Harvest.
A grain of wheat was buried symbolically to look forward to the grain harvest that was to come.
Now imagine that imagery – the day Jesus was in the tomb the Jews were planting grain the ground looking forward to the harvest later.
On Sunday of that Passover – the Day Jesus came out of the Grave the Jews celebrated the Feast of First Fruits.
They celebrated the first barley harvest in the Promised Land.
Now think about this image – On Sunday when Jesus came out of the Grave they were celebrating the barley harvest but looking forward to 50 days later when the grain harvest would come.
So this may make sense – Jesus was planted in the ground – rose from the dead and because Jesus came back from the dead we can now look forward when the great harvest will come.
We can look forward to the day when people will come out of their graves.
We LIVE IN THE IN BETWEEN TIME
We live in the time between the resurrection of Jesus Christ the First Fruits and the coming day of great Harvest when we will all be resurrected.
We know that things changed when Jesus rose from the dead – God has established His new Covenant and is bringing about the New Creation
But we are in this tension – we look expectantly to the future but the Bible tells us that our life in Christ begins NOW.
How do we work this out?
Acts 2:38 tells us that the those that were baptized into Christ received the Gift of the Holy Spirit.
This gift of the Holy Spirit was opened up on Pentecost that great feast of celebrating the 2nd Harvest of Israel the Grain harvest.
Now this new Harvest is being realized. These people who are becoming Christians are receiving New LIFE – NOW
So what does that role of the Spirit play? What does that mean to us?
2 Corinthians 1: 21-22
21 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, 22 who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge
When we become Christians God gives us the Holy Spirit as a down payment. The word used here by Paul that is translated in the NASB as ‘pledge’ is the Greek word ARABBON
Arabbon is better understood as a down payment.
It is God’s way of guaranteeing us that we will be raised from the dead. If we become Christians now – God gives us the Spirit as a pledge, down payment to show that He will raise us from the dead.
Paul goes on to specify this role of the Spirit in Romans 8
Romans 8: 9-11
9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Paul specifically tells us that if the Spirit of God dwells in us that He will be the one that energizes us and brings about our Resurrection from the dead.
The same Holy Spirit that was there at the empty tomb and brought Jesus back from the dead will work in us and bring us back from the dead.
The same Spirit that hovered over the watery chaos of Genesis and brought about order from that chaos will bring life back to our bodies.
2) In the in-between time we groan in expectation.
We are waiting people – we want God to come and put this world right.
We want God to come back and bring order to the chaos and give us new glorified bodies.
Romans 8: 18-23
15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba ! Father !" 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. 18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. 23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. We are waiting and groaning for His return.
Earlier I talked to you about how the Earth has been cursed to and in some way the Earth will be put right.
Next week we will look in detail about what it will be like after we are resurrected –w hat will we do and how will we live.
But for today we are concerned with the fact that we are waiting in expectation.
We groan when we look at a world rocked with sin
We groan when we see people get sick that we love – we want God to make it right. The Holy Spirit within us groans within us.
Paul even goes back to the language of first fruits when he describes the Spirit’s role in crying out in our hearts.
Here is the awesome part – that same Spirit of God that articulates our cry to God – that helps us pray when we don’t have words for God – will be the same Spirit that will bring life to our bodies.
It will be this Spirit that will somehow bring about life to our bodies and set the world right.
God is not going to allow this Creation to keep rocking along like this but will make it right.
We are hoping for our revelation of being sons of God so that the entire Creation that is under bondage will be released.
3) We are waiting as aliens – we want our Lord to return because our citizenship is of another place.
Acts 1:11 sets up this hope and expectation
Christ returns to Heaven and we are told that He will COME AGAIN. This word used in the Bible for Christ’s Return over and over again is the Greek word
PAROUSIA – this word has a specific meaning and was used in two ways during the time of the Bible and I think it will help us understand our hope in Christ.
Literally Parousia means to be near or to be with
It also means Presence – that the second coming means that in some way Christ’s presence will be here in a more visible and concrete way.
2 meanings of Parousia in the ancient world :
1) God’s presence in healing or rescue
A good example of this would be when God healed Hezekiah and delivered Israel from the Assyrians. This is a classic example of God’s presence by rescue or redemption – or vindication
2) Imperial Visits of Rome
One way that Parousia is used is when the Emperor would come and visit a Roman colony.
The Romans were king at planting cities all around the world they looked just like Rome and those cities carried Roman culture with them.
You could find these cities in Palestine, Britain, or even Spain.
The Romans would then populate these cities with Roman Colonists that were charged with bringing Roman culture to that area.
Sometimes the Roman Emperor or a high official would visit that colony – this visitation was called a Parousia – He would come and they would meet him outside the walls- and then in victorious procession go with the Emperor into the city and celebrate his coming.
Now we can see that Paul borrows from this imperial language in the New Testament.
Philippians 3: 20-21
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ ; 21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
Paul tells us that we are like these colonial outposts but we are bringing the rule of Heaven to Earth.
Every Church that Paul plants across the empire are outposts of Heaven. Just like the Lord’s Prayer of bringing God’s will to earth as it is in Heaven - that is the role of the Church – God’s rule coming to earth in us.
We are citizens waiting for our Lord and God – we are waiting for the true King.
When he comes we will be transformed.
When the Parousia –or Coming happens our bodies will be transformed
We will be transformed into conformity with His Body.
Do you want to know what your resurrected body will be like?
According to Paul just look at Jesus’ body – Jesus body was resurrected and glorified.
His body had some continuity with the old body – He still had scars from the crucifixion but something was different.
He could eat – they could touch Him, but he could walk through walls. Amazing stuff- a corporeal body but an enhanced body- not confined to our space and time dimensions.
A body that will never get sick, tired, or break down. The body God had always wanted us to have.
John talks about Christ’s coming – His Appearing and how we should be ready
1 John 2: 28
28 Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.
And what will happen if we are ready for this coming of Christ – This Appearing of Jesus
1 John 3:2
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
We will be able to See Christ just as He is at his coming because we will be made to be like Him – our new bodies will be like His glorious body.
Paul tells us that He is coming – Our King will return and it should be a time of victory and excitement like no other party that has ever happened.
1 Corinthians 15:24 told us earlier that when He Comes we will be raised – When Christ returns – when He is revealed we will be resurrected from the dead.
Now we can put it all together with Paul’s exhortation to the Church at Thessalonica:
1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Paul wants them to know that those that have already died are going to be okay.
The Lord will descend – Remember in Acts 1:11 the Angel promised that He would return just like He left – he will come down from the sky.
The King returns to vindicate the colony of Heaven the Church
We will hear the shout – the trumpet of God – the dead in Christ will rise First
Those that are in the graves will be raised up to new glorified, resurrected bodies.
Imagine that picture of people coming from the graves – those that have had ashes scatter over the oceans bodies coming back together miraculously.
And we are that are still here when he returns will be transformed – somehow – Caught UP together would be synonymous with Paul said in Philippians 3 the idea of transformation
We will be like Christ and we will be with Christ forever.
What a hope – what a wonderful to consider that we will be with Him forever with these new bodies.
And we will have tasks it will not boring.
Are you ready for this? Will you rejoice when He comes? Or will you shrink back?
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The Resurrection of Christ - the evidence
Do you ever have trouble getting your kids ready for church?
Does your house look at a mad house on Sunday morning?
I remember growing up in a house where Church attendance every time the doors were opened was a non-negotiable- I had the proverbial drug problem growing up – I was drug to church every service.
Now – I know why and I appreciate getting to come to Church abut as a kid sometimes my attitude was not the best.
There was one such boy that was like that.
The little boy was not exactly happy about going to church on Sunday morning.
His new shoes were to tight, his tie pinched his neck and the weather outside was just too beautiful to be cooped up inside...so as he sulked in the pew his parents heard him mutter to no one in particular.
"I don’t know why we have to go to church, anyway; they keep telling the same old story and it always comes out the same in the end."
Have all of us got to this point – we keep telling the same outcome?
Well, today I want to share with you that this outcome this story is critically important.
I want to talk to you about the very reason we are here today.
Let me ask you, Why are you here today? What if Jesus were to come in and ask you the question He asked Simon Peter- Who do men say that I am? Who was Jesus?
Are the stories in our Bible accurate? Some say Jesus was just a good man.
Some say His teachings are good for people to pattern their life after sort of like Buddha – He was a good man but not the Son of God.
Today we are going to take up this argument and discuss why you should put your faith in Him.
I will propose to you have one of three options. Either Jesus was exactly Who He claimed to be – the Son of God – or delusional or crazy or even worse a liar and deceiver.
You see a good person would not make claims of Divinity unless it were true – you can’t say Jesus was a good person and at the same time say that He was not the Son of God.
I don’t think I would ever call someone good that willfully deceived thousands of people so that those people would die a violent death due to persecution because of a false belief in a false claim.
Now I will also propose to you – that if today we build a case for Who Jesus is then your life will change – You will have to reorder everything in your life based on that claim.
If He is the Son of the Living God and reigns now in Heaven to return one day – you will have to change everything about your life and live for Him.
HISTORY:
History if full of people that have met this man Jesus Christ and have been changed. One such man is Justin Martyr.
You may have never heard of Justin Martyr but he lived just 100 years after Christ’s ministry on Earth.
He was a Gentile born in Samaria in the Holy Lands. He was born near Jacob’s Well that we read about in John Chapter 4
He was a very good student and a learned philosopher of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
He was looking for pure philosophy. He wanted to know the truth and he felt like he had found the truth in Jesus Christ – he investigated the resurrection of Jesus Christ and felt that Jesus was the true son of God and that He was the way the truth and the life.
Justin went about defending the faith and wrote his famous Apology or defense of the Christian faith around 150 AD. He continued to wear his philosopher’s robe because he thought the Christianity was the true philosophy of life.
He ended up dying for the faith – hence he is called Justin Martyr – because he was martyred.
Justin’s Defense of Christianity hinged on one key component and I think we can learn something from Him.
It was based on this – that Jesus Christ was crucified by the Romans, buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea and then He rose Bodily from the dead and appeared to His followers – risen from the dead.
Now If you haven’t noticed dead people don’t come back to life and they didn’t any more in the ancient world than they do today.
This resurrection would happen in a world where the majority of people didn’t even believe in bodily resurrection.
IN Judaism only the Pharisees believed in Resurrection and this idea was rejected by the Sadducees and the Greeks and Romans. The majority of the world into which the Gospel would spread would not believe that people are raised from the dead.
The Romans and Greeks this idea was detestable – they thought the best you could do is die and escape the body to become a pure spirit.
So this idea of resurrection will be explosive, strange, and a challenge to many people. But Justin Martyr was not the first to begin his argument for the Lordship of Jesus Christ based on the Resurrection from the dead.
We must first turn to the Apostle Paul.
Paul is speaking in Athens, Greece the cradle of ancient philosophy and learning – and if you look at the ancient world it is the closest you can find to how people think in the modern western world. In other words Paul is talking to people that would think a lot like modern skeptic Americans or Europeans.
When he gets to the end of his sermon at Athens he says the following:
Acts 17: 30-31
30 "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
God is now calling all people to repentance – He is not calling all men to relationship with Him. He is now proclaiming that all people will be judged based on Jesus Christ . He is going to judge all of humanity through Jesus Christ and the proof that he provides
He raised Him from the dead. That is proof positive that Jesus is the one through which the Entire world will be judged.
To Paul the linchpin argument for believing in Jesus is that He rose from the dead.
Now Paul elaborates on this and shares with us that the if there is no resurrection then there is no hope for us as Christians.
At Corinth many were saying in the Church there that there was no resurrection from the dead and what was worse they were calling themselves Christians.
Paul goes on the attack in 1 Corinthians 15 and shares with them how pitiful their position is:I Corinthians 15: 13-19
13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised ; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 15 Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised ; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless ; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
He goes on to show that our faith is in vain if there is no resurrection from the dead.
If the dead aren’t raised – if Christ was not raised then we are wasting our time.
Paul goes on to say that it is so critical that if there is no resurrection of Jesus Christ then we have no forgiveness of sins and those that have died are locked in their graves forever.
In other words when we die it is total annihilation – we cease to exist.
But today – just like Paul we will lay down a defense for the resurrection.
We are going to go about this different. Today I am going to treat you like a skeptic. I am not going to appeal to the inspiration of Scripture.
I know that the Bible is God’s inerrant and unalterable Word – I know that you do to for many reasons I believe this.
But today I am going to step back and we are going to let the Bible be an ancient document that gives what some think, and I think are eyewitness accounts.
We are going to look at the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and let you draw a conclusion to what you think.
I will propose an objection to the resurrection and then we will take that argument apart piece by piece.
1) First of all, they made the story up
What if the apostles made the story up? What would a made up story look like?
So the argument would go something like this – the Apostles after Jesus was crucified got together and decided to concoct some story that had Jesus rising from the dead.
A) MOTIVATION
Every lie and fabrication has to have a motivation. If a human being lies they have reason to tell a lie.
For example, a student doesn’t have their homework for class – there is motivation to lie to keep from losing the grade or making a bad grade.
A person late for work would likely have the motivation to make up a story to save their job about traffic or car trouble to keep from getting into trouble.
So did the apostles and followers of Jesus have a motivating factor to lie about His resurrection? I want you to really think about that with me this morning.
So let us go back in time to Jerusalem around 30-33 AD. Jesus has just been crucified, brutally beaten and humiliated by the Romans after a 3 year up and down ministry that saw his following go up and down.
Maybe at the time of the crucifixion Jesus had a following of 500 people.
Now 50 days after the resurrection the Apostles of Jesus, who watched their leader killed brutally, come out on a major Jewish feast day – just 50 days earlier at Passover Jesus was killed, and come out in the Temple and proclaim that He was indeed the Messiah and that believe it or not was raised from the dead.
Basically their argument was this – you tried in vain to kill Him, but God the Father raised Him from the dead to show that He was indeed the Messiah of Israel.
Now let’s think about think about this critically.
Slow down and think- what would they have to gain by making this story up. They could easily go back to Galilee and return home to fishing – lead a quiet life and die a natural death. Love their families, raise kids.
No harm no foul the movement is over- Jesus was just misguided and killed for it.
But they do the unthinkable – they throw their lives away – they go out into the Temple and accuse the people that were there shouting Crucify Him, Crucify Him – they tell that group hey You killed the Messiah of Israel and guess what He rose from the dead.
So to begin with – if the story is fabricated we have to doubt its motivation – every lie is motivated or it wouldn’t occur.
So I would propose to you that there is no real reason to lie – No normal human lies to make their life really hard – such as losing everything and dying. Most humans lie to get out of something or to bring glory to themselves.
So I would propose to you today that the motivation to lie really is not there in the early Church.
It is actually the contrary. Jewish Law in Deuteronomy 21 says that cursed is anyone that hangs on a tree.
It would be very difficult to craft a story to make Jews believe that Jesus was the Messiah because he was hung on a Roman Cross – was made unclean and was cursed under Jewish Law
If you wanted to make up a Messiah Jesus would not be your best candidate.
B) The Story they made up does not have the signs of a made up story.
Let me share with you some details from Jesus resurrection accounts are recorded that would not have been made up by anyone in their right mind.
If you wanted to make up a story that Jesus rose from the dead who would you present as the first witnesses to His resurrection?
I would have maybe a Roman Centurion, maybe a Jewish priest, maybe someone held in high regard by the people.
Let me ask you this, Who were the first people that witnessed Jesus resurrection?
This is really important because it would have been mind-blowing in the 1st century Palestine.
Luke 24: 1-11
1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing ; 5 and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living One among the dead ? 6 "He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, 7 saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." 8 And they remembered His words, 9 and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James ; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. 11 But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.
Now who were the First witnesses to the Resurrection?
Women – they were Mary Magdalene and the women – now why is this important?
Look at the reaction of the apostles and they thought it was nonsense.
Now I am not a chauvinist but I am just telling you about ancient society – but in Judaism according to the Talmud and Mishnah (Rabbinic teaching) a woman’s testimony was untrustworthy.
I Judaism a woman could not give testimony in a court of Law – it was impermissible.
Let me ask you this – If you were going to make up a story why in sam hill would you say that the women were the first witnesses?
Do you know why this is recorded? Because it happened. There is no other normal explanation – they would have whitewashed this out of the story if it weren’t true.
It would have been Peter of John first as the first witnesses not the women – this is Luke at his best – he is giving you the exact precise Greek way of showing the evidence – He doesn’t care if you don’t like the testimony of women – it is just the facts.
So I would propose to you that this is more evidence that the story is not made up.
Another aspect of the story of Jesus that doesn’t sound made up is the interjection of Joseph of Arimethea.
We saw last week that Joseph came and asked for the body of Jesus – he buried him honorably.
The reason this part of the story would not have made it in to a made up story is that Joseph belonged to the Jewish high council.
The Sanhedrin was responsible for having Christ put to death.
Why would you put some one in the story that belonged to the very group that killed Jesus and then put him in a positive light.
Joseph is portrayed positively but the Sanhedrin was held responsible by the early Church for the crucifixion of Christ.
The early Church experienced persecution by the Sanhedrin and this was the group that condemned Christ – so why would you put one of their members in a positive light as the very one that buried Jesus.
This doesn’t sound made up but sounds like it had to be factual.
So as far as the argument goes – for a made up story on two accounts I would propose to you this morning that the position is weak and bad.
First of all there is no motivation to lie
Secondly the information in the account does not bear the signs of embellishment – let me give you an example of what I mean.
If a person is late for work and wants to lie about what happened they would make up a believable story – not that an alien abducted them or an old friend drove 3000 miles to see them right when they were leaving for work they showed up unexpecently.
They would say traffic, wreck, etc. – the same is true for the resurrection account – why in the world put women and a member of the hated Sanhedrin in the story – that makes no sense.
2) Argument - the Empty Tomb- most scholars liberal and conservative agree that something happened to the body of Jesus
In other words – Jesus tomb was empty.
How do we describe the tomb being empty? What is the best plausible evidence that Jesus’ body was not in the tomb after 3 days.
We know that the Jewish authorities never argued that Jesus’ body was missing.
That is an important point - the enemies of the Church never argued that the tomb was empty.
Let me illustrate why this is important. If your Mom told me that you were an honest trustworthy person I would think that is nice but that is your Mom of course she is going to say that.
Well, what if one of your mortal enemies came to me and said – Hey he is honest trustworthy and a good guy- I would say OK I have to believe that because his enemy has no reason to have rose- colored glasses.
Now consider that the enemies of the Church concede that Jesus tomb was empty.
I will tell you this that on Pentecost if the tomb was not empty they would have brought it out. In an arid climate like Jerusalem after 50 days the body would still be recognizable – don think for a second they would not have brought out the body of Jesus.
So how do we go about describing that the tomb was empty?
What is the best answer for that question?
1) Swoon Theory –
Some say that Jesus didn’t die on the cross – that he passed out and in the coolness of the tomb was revived and then rolled the stone away and went to His disciples.
This is the most ridiculous of all the arguments.
A story may illustrate the absurdity of this argument.
One lady wrote in to a question and answer forum.
"Dear Sirs, Our preacher said on Easter, that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think? Sincerely, Bewildered."
"Dear Bewildered, Beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross; hang him in the sun for 6 hours; run a spear thru his side...put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens. Sincerely, Charles."
The Romans were experts at killing and there is no doubt that they killed Jesus.
He was a wanted politically charged character they would make real sure He was dead.
Realize also that scourging on its own killed many people.
Now imagine this swoon theory.
Jesus beaten half to death, dehydrated, thumbs no longer work because of the radial nerve damage, probably exposed internal organs, rolls away a stone walks into the city and inspires His followers to say that He had risen.
You have to be kidding.
So what could the other argument be –
2) They found the wrong tomb.
The disciples went to the wrong tomb – this is crazy because the tomb was close to the site of crucifixion and would have been well-known
Also, you would have had to have multiple trips to the tomb and multiple people get the wrong site.
I would think the very site of Jesus burial would have been important enough for them to remember where it was.
Also, Joseph of Arimathea’s burial plot would have been well known because he was wealthy and well-known in Jerusalem.
This may be one of the worst of the arguments against the empty tomb.
3) The Disciples stole the body to set up their claim.
This goes back to the first century and is actually found in the Bible.
In Matthew 28:13 we see the chief priests get together with the elders and tell bribe the soldiers into saying that the disciples stole the body from the tomb.
Now lets consider this argument and see if it makes sense.
First of all, it goes back to the idea of motivation.
Jesus would not have been a good candidate for a the Messiah because of his curse from hanging on a tree as well as they disciples had no reason to do this.
The could have easily slipped back to Galilee to fishing and living a normal life.
If they steal the body – they will have to fight a group of trained professional soldiers.
We learn that the government had put a seal on the tomb meaning that it would have been punishable by death to take the body.
Why would they steal the body?
They had become cowards when Jesus was arrested, why now would they act courageous with a nutty act like this?
But the most compelling argument against the Apostles stealing the body is the changed lives of the apostles.
Between the crucifixion of Jesus and Pentecost just 50 days later something extraordinary occurred.
They were transformed and convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead.
They were willing to be beaten and eventually would die for this testimony.
You might think well on 9/11 the hijackers died for their belief in Islam. You might think that dying for some cause is not a sure fire indicator of the truth of a claim.
And I would say that you are right in that assumption.
The difference in the apostles and the 9/11 hijackers is that 9/11 hijackers could not know for sure that their beliefs were false.
If the apostles stole the body of Jesus they would have known for sure that it was all a hoax.
There is no one in their right mind that would die for something that they knew for sure was a lie.
Bartholomew was beaten to death with rods
James the son of Alpheus was stoned and clubbed to death
Andrew was crucified
Peter was crucified upside down
Matthew and Thomas was killed by a spear
James was beheaded
Philip was scourged and crucified
Simon the Zealot was also crucified
Paul was beheaded
The only Apostle that we know that died of natural causes was John. The rest died brutal bloody deaths.
I will propose to you that the only plausible explanation that could account for the changed lives of these men is that they saw Jesus Christ risen from the dead.
They were changed forever by what they saw.
The only way we could account for the empty tomb, the unlikely story of the women, the changed lives of the apostles is that Jesus Christ really did come back from the dead.
HE APPEARED TO OTHERS
Paul names specifically four groups that Jesus appeared to:
1 Corinthians 15: 5-8
5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep ; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles ; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
Jesus appeared to 500 people that were still living at the time of the writing of 1 Corinthians.
About 30 years later there were still many people that saw the risen Christ.
Paul is telling the Corinthians Church – Hey don’t take my word for it just go ask the over 500 that He appeared to.
He mentions the 12 apostles but he also mentions a very important person.
James the brother of Christ.
We know from John’s Gospel that Jesus brothers did not believe in Him. During Jesus earthly ministry James his brother did not believe that He was the Messiah.
Something happened to James because he ends up writing the book of James but also becomes a pillar of the Jerusalem Church.
We see from Paul that Jesus appeared to James resurrected. Imagine what that meeting would have been like. Think about James and his reaction when he saw his Jesus risen from the dead. That is how we account for the dramatic change in James’s life and attitude. His mind was changed because he saw Jesus resurrected.
The last person that I want to present to you is the Apostle Paul
Paul who was a persecutor of the Church was transformed by something. WE know that he saw Jesus and it was his vision of Christ that changed everything.
Paul went from a persecutor to a preacher of the Gospel because he knew that God raised Jesus from the dead.
As I close our lesson this morning I want to let the Apostle Paul an eyewitness to the resurrection give us a closing message from the book of Philippians.
Philippians 3: 8-11
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death ; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead
We encourage you this day to lay hold to the hope of the resurrection of Christ.
Does your house look at a mad house on Sunday morning?
I remember growing up in a house where Church attendance every time the doors were opened was a non-negotiable- I had the proverbial drug problem growing up – I was drug to church every service.
Now – I know why and I appreciate getting to come to Church abut as a kid sometimes my attitude was not the best.
There was one such boy that was like that.
The little boy was not exactly happy about going to church on Sunday morning.
His new shoes were to tight, his tie pinched his neck and the weather outside was just too beautiful to be cooped up inside...so as he sulked in the pew his parents heard him mutter to no one in particular.
"I don’t know why we have to go to church, anyway; they keep telling the same old story and it always comes out the same in the end."
Have all of us got to this point – we keep telling the same outcome?
Well, today I want to share with you that this outcome this story is critically important.
I want to talk to you about the very reason we are here today.
Let me ask you, Why are you here today? What if Jesus were to come in and ask you the question He asked Simon Peter- Who do men say that I am? Who was Jesus?
Are the stories in our Bible accurate? Some say Jesus was just a good man.
Some say His teachings are good for people to pattern their life after sort of like Buddha – He was a good man but not the Son of God.
Today we are going to take up this argument and discuss why you should put your faith in Him.
I will propose to you have one of three options. Either Jesus was exactly Who He claimed to be – the Son of God – or delusional or crazy or even worse a liar and deceiver.
You see a good person would not make claims of Divinity unless it were true – you can’t say Jesus was a good person and at the same time say that He was not the Son of God.
I don’t think I would ever call someone good that willfully deceived thousands of people so that those people would die a violent death due to persecution because of a false belief in a false claim.
Now I will also propose to you – that if today we build a case for Who Jesus is then your life will change – You will have to reorder everything in your life based on that claim.
If He is the Son of the Living God and reigns now in Heaven to return one day – you will have to change everything about your life and live for Him.
HISTORY:
History if full of people that have met this man Jesus Christ and have been changed. One such man is Justin Martyr.
You may have never heard of Justin Martyr but he lived just 100 years after Christ’s ministry on Earth.
He was a Gentile born in Samaria in the Holy Lands. He was born near Jacob’s Well that we read about in John Chapter 4
He was a very good student and a learned philosopher of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
He was looking for pure philosophy. He wanted to know the truth and he felt like he had found the truth in Jesus Christ – he investigated the resurrection of Jesus Christ and felt that Jesus was the true son of God and that He was the way the truth and the life.
Justin went about defending the faith and wrote his famous Apology or defense of the Christian faith around 150 AD. He continued to wear his philosopher’s robe because he thought the Christianity was the true philosophy of life.
He ended up dying for the faith – hence he is called Justin Martyr – because he was martyred.
Justin’s Defense of Christianity hinged on one key component and I think we can learn something from Him.
It was based on this – that Jesus Christ was crucified by the Romans, buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea and then He rose Bodily from the dead and appeared to His followers – risen from the dead.
Now If you haven’t noticed dead people don’t come back to life and they didn’t any more in the ancient world than they do today.
This resurrection would happen in a world where the majority of people didn’t even believe in bodily resurrection.
IN Judaism only the Pharisees believed in Resurrection and this idea was rejected by the Sadducees and the Greeks and Romans. The majority of the world into which the Gospel would spread would not believe that people are raised from the dead.
The Romans and Greeks this idea was detestable – they thought the best you could do is die and escape the body to become a pure spirit.
So this idea of resurrection will be explosive, strange, and a challenge to many people. But Justin Martyr was not the first to begin his argument for the Lordship of Jesus Christ based on the Resurrection from the dead.
We must first turn to the Apostle Paul.
Paul is speaking in Athens, Greece the cradle of ancient philosophy and learning – and if you look at the ancient world it is the closest you can find to how people think in the modern western world. In other words Paul is talking to people that would think a lot like modern skeptic Americans or Europeans.
When he gets to the end of his sermon at Athens he says the following:
Acts 17: 30-31
30 "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
God is now calling all people to repentance – He is not calling all men to relationship with Him. He is now proclaiming that all people will be judged based on Jesus Christ . He is going to judge all of humanity through Jesus Christ and the proof that he provides
He raised Him from the dead. That is proof positive that Jesus is the one through which the Entire world will be judged.
To Paul the linchpin argument for believing in Jesus is that He rose from the dead.
Now Paul elaborates on this and shares with us that the if there is no resurrection then there is no hope for us as Christians.
At Corinth many were saying in the Church there that there was no resurrection from the dead and what was worse they were calling themselves Christians.
Paul goes on the attack in 1 Corinthians 15 and shares with them how pitiful their position is:I Corinthians 15: 13-19
13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised ; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 15 Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised ; 17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless ; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
He goes on to show that our faith is in vain if there is no resurrection from the dead.
If the dead aren’t raised – if Christ was not raised then we are wasting our time.
Paul goes on to say that it is so critical that if there is no resurrection of Jesus Christ then we have no forgiveness of sins and those that have died are locked in their graves forever.
In other words when we die it is total annihilation – we cease to exist.
But today – just like Paul we will lay down a defense for the resurrection.
We are going to go about this different. Today I am going to treat you like a skeptic. I am not going to appeal to the inspiration of Scripture.
I know that the Bible is God’s inerrant and unalterable Word – I know that you do to for many reasons I believe this.
But today I am going to step back and we are going to let the Bible be an ancient document that gives what some think, and I think are eyewitness accounts.
We are going to look at the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and let you draw a conclusion to what you think.
I will propose an objection to the resurrection and then we will take that argument apart piece by piece.
1) First of all, they made the story up
What if the apostles made the story up? What would a made up story look like?
So the argument would go something like this – the Apostles after Jesus was crucified got together and decided to concoct some story that had Jesus rising from the dead.
A) MOTIVATION
Every lie and fabrication has to have a motivation. If a human being lies they have reason to tell a lie.
For example, a student doesn’t have their homework for class – there is motivation to lie to keep from losing the grade or making a bad grade.
A person late for work would likely have the motivation to make up a story to save their job about traffic or car trouble to keep from getting into trouble.
So did the apostles and followers of Jesus have a motivating factor to lie about His resurrection? I want you to really think about that with me this morning.
So let us go back in time to Jerusalem around 30-33 AD. Jesus has just been crucified, brutally beaten and humiliated by the Romans after a 3 year up and down ministry that saw his following go up and down.
Maybe at the time of the crucifixion Jesus had a following of 500 people.
Now 50 days after the resurrection the Apostles of Jesus, who watched their leader killed brutally, come out on a major Jewish feast day – just 50 days earlier at Passover Jesus was killed, and come out in the Temple and proclaim that He was indeed the Messiah and that believe it or not was raised from the dead.
Basically their argument was this – you tried in vain to kill Him, but God the Father raised Him from the dead to show that He was indeed the Messiah of Israel.
Now let’s think about think about this critically.
Slow down and think- what would they have to gain by making this story up. They could easily go back to Galilee and return home to fishing – lead a quiet life and die a natural death. Love their families, raise kids.
No harm no foul the movement is over- Jesus was just misguided and killed for it.
But they do the unthinkable – they throw their lives away – they go out into the Temple and accuse the people that were there shouting Crucify Him, Crucify Him – they tell that group hey You killed the Messiah of Israel and guess what He rose from the dead.
So to begin with – if the story is fabricated we have to doubt its motivation – every lie is motivated or it wouldn’t occur.
So I would propose to you that there is no real reason to lie – No normal human lies to make their life really hard – such as losing everything and dying. Most humans lie to get out of something or to bring glory to themselves.
So I would propose to you today that the motivation to lie really is not there in the early Church.
It is actually the contrary. Jewish Law in Deuteronomy 21 says that cursed is anyone that hangs on a tree.
It would be very difficult to craft a story to make Jews believe that Jesus was the Messiah because he was hung on a Roman Cross – was made unclean and was cursed under Jewish Law
If you wanted to make up a Messiah Jesus would not be your best candidate.
B) The Story they made up does not have the signs of a made up story.
Let me share with you some details from Jesus resurrection accounts are recorded that would not have been made up by anyone in their right mind.
If you wanted to make up a story that Jesus rose from the dead who would you present as the first witnesses to His resurrection?
I would have maybe a Roman Centurion, maybe a Jewish priest, maybe someone held in high regard by the people.
Let me ask you this, Who were the first people that witnessed Jesus resurrection?
This is really important because it would have been mind-blowing in the 1st century Palestine.
Luke 24: 1-11
1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing ; 5 and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living One among the dead ? 6 "He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, 7 saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again." 8 And they remembered His words, 9 and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James ; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. 11 But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them.
Now who were the First witnesses to the Resurrection?
Women – they were Mary Magdalene and the women – now why is this important?
Look at the reaction of the apostles and they thought it was nonsense.
Now I am not a chauvinist but I am just telling you about ancient society – but in Judaism according to the Talmud and Mishnah (Rabbinic teaching) a woman’s testimony was untrustworthy.
I Judaism a woman could not give testimony in a court of Law – it was impermissible.
Let me ask you this – If you were going to make up a story why in sam hill would you say that the women were the first witnesses?
Do you know why this is recorded? Because it happened. There is no other normal explanation – they would have whitewashed this out of the story if it weren’t true.
It would have been Peter of John first as the first witnesses not the women – this is Luke at his best – he is giving you the exact precise Greek way of showing the evidence – He doesn’t care if you don’t like the testimony of women – it is just the facts.
So I would propose to you that this is more evidence that the story is not made up.
Another aspect of the story of Jesus that doesn’t sound made up is the interjection of Joseph of Arimethea.
We saw last week that Joseph came and asked for the body of Jesus – he buried him honorably.
The reason this part of the story would not have made it in to a made up story is that Joseph belonged to the Jewish high council.
The Sanhedrin was responsible for having Christ put to death.
Why would you put some one in the story that belonged to the very group that killed Jesus and then put him in a positive light.
Joseph is portrayed positively but the Sanhedrin was held responsible by the early Church for the crucifixion of Christ.
The early Church experienced persecution by the Sanhedrin and this was the group that condemned Christ – so why would you put one of their members in a positive light as the very one that buried Jesus.
This doesn’t sound made up but sounds like it had to be factual.
So as far as the argument goes – for a made up story on two accounts I would propose to you this morning that the position is weak and bad.
First of all there is no motivation to lie
Secondly the information in the account does not bear the signs of embellishment – let me give you an example of what I mean.
If a person is late for work and wants to lie about what happened they would make up a believable story – not that an alien abducted them or an old friend drove 3000 miles to see them right when they were leaving for work they showed up unexpecently.
They would say traffic, wreck, etc. – the same is true for the resurrection account – why in the world put women and a member of the hated Sanhedrin in the story – that makes no sense.
2) Argument - the Empty Tomb- most scholars liberal and conservative agree that something happened to the body of Jesus
In other words – Jesus tomb was empty.
How do we describe the tomb being empty? What is the best plausible evidence that Jesus’ body was not in the tomb after 3 days.
We know that the Jewish authorities never argued that Jesus’ body was missing.
That is an important point - the enemies of the Church never argued that the tomb was empty.
Let me illustrate why this is important. If your Mom told me that you were an honest trustworthy person I would think that is nice but that is your Mom of course she is going to say that.
Well, what if one of your mortal enemies came to me and said – Hey he is honest trustworthy and a good guy- I would say OK I have to believe that because his enemy has no reason to have rose- colored glasses.
Now consider that the enemies of the Church concede that Jesus tomb was empty.
I will tell you this that on Pentecost if the tomb was not empty they would have brought it out. In an arid climate like Jerusalem after 50 days the body would still be recognizable – don think for a second they would not have brought out the body of Jesus.
So how do we go about describing that the tomb was empty?
What is the best answer for that question?
1) Swoon Theory –
Some say that Jesus didn’t die on the cross – that he passed out and in the coolness of the tomb was revived and then rolled the stone away and went to His disciples.
This is the most ridiculous of all the arguments.
A story may illustrate the absurdity of this argument.
One lady wrote in to a question and answer forum.
"Dear Sirs, Our preacher said on Easter, that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that the disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think? Sincerely, Bewildered."
"Dear Bewildered, Beat your preacher with a cat-of-nine-tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross; hang him in the sun for 6 hours; run a spear thru his side...put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours and see what happens. Sincerely, Charles."
The Romans were experts at killing and there is no doubt that they killed Jesus.
He was a wanted politically charged character they would make real sure He was dead.
Realize also that scourging on its own killed many people.
Now imagine this swoon theory.
Jesus beaten half to death, dehydrated, thumbs no longer work because of the radial nerve damage, probably exposed internal organs, rolls away a stone walks into the city and inspires His followers to say that He had risen.
You have to be kidding.
So what could the other argument be –
2) They found the wrong tomb.
The disciples went to the wrong tomb – this is crazy because the tomb was close to the site of crucifixion and would have been well-known
Also, you would have had to have multiple trips to the tomb and multiple people get the wrong site.
I would think the very site of Jesus burial would have been important enough for them to remember where it was.
Also, Joseph of Arimathea’s burial plot would have been well known because he was wealthy and well-known in Jerusalem.
This may be one of the worst of the arguments against the empty tomb.
3) The Disciples stole the body to set up their claim.
This goes back to the first century and is actually found in the Bible.
In Matthew 28:13 we see the chief priests get together with the elders and tell bribe the soldiers into saying that the disciples stole the body from the tomb.
Now lets consider this argument and see if it makes sense.
First of all, it goes back to the idea of motivation.
Jesus would not have been a good candidate for a the Messiah because of his curse from hanging on a tree as well as they disciples had no reason to do this.
The could have easily slipped back to Galilee to fishing and living a normal life.
If they steal the body – they will have to fight a group of trained professional soldiers.
We learn that the government had put a seal on the tomb meaning that it would have been punishable by death to take the body.
Why would they steal the body?
They had become cowards when Jesus was arrested, why now would they act courageous with a nutty act like this?
But the most compelling argument against the Apostles stealing the body is the changed lives of the apostles.
Between the crucifixion of Jesus and Pentecost just 50 days later something extraordinary occurred.
They were transformed and convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead.
They were willing to be beaten and eventually would die for this testimony.
You might think well on 9/11 the hijackers died for their belief in Islam. You might think that dying for some cause is not a sure fire indicator of the truth of a claim.
And I would say that you are right in that assumption.
The difference in the apostles and the 9/11 hijackers is that 9/11 hijackers could not know for sure that their beliefs were false.
If the apostles stole the body of Jesus they would have known for sure that it was all a hoax.
There is no one in their right mind that would die for something that they knew for sure was a lie.
Bartholomew was beaten to death with rods
James the son of Alpheus was stoned and clubbed to death
Andrew was crucified
Peter was crucified upside down
Matthew and Thomas was killed by a spear
James was beheaded
Philip was scourged and crucified
Simon the Zealot was also crucified
Paul was beheaded
The only Apostle that we know that died of natural causes was John. The rest died brutal bloody deaths.
I will propose to you that the only plausible explanation that could account for the changed lives of these men is that they saw Jesus Christ risen from the dead.
They were changed forever by what they saw.
The only way we could account for the empty tomb, the unlikely story of the women, the changed lives of the apostles is that Jesus Christ really did come back from the dead.
HE APPEARED TO OTHERS
Paul names specifically four groups that Jesus appeared to:
1 Corinthians 15: 5-8
5 and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep ; 7 then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles ; 8 and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.
Jesus appeared to 500 people that were still living at the time of the writing of 1 Corinthians.
About 30 years later there were still many people that saw the risen Christ.
Paul is telling the Corinthians Church – Hey don’t take my word for it just go ask the over 500 that He appeared to.
He mentions the 12 apostles but he also mentions a very important person.
James the brother of Christ.
We know from John’s Gospel that Jesus brothers did not believe in Him. During Jesus earthly ministry James his brother did not believe that He was the Messiah.
Something happened to James because he ends up writing the book of James but also becomes a pillar of the Jerusalem Church.
We see from Paul that Jesus appeared to James resurrected. Imagine what that meeting would have been like. Think about James and his reaction when he saw his Jesus risen from the dead. That is how we account for the dramatic change in James’s life and attitude. His mind was changed because he saw Jesus resurrected.
The last person that I want to present to you is the Apostle Paul
Paul who was a persecutor of the Church was transformed by something. WE know that he saw Jesus and it was his vision of Christ that changed everything.
Paul went from a persecutor to a preacher of the Gospel because he knew that God raised Jesus from the dead.
As I close our lesson this morning I want to let the Apostle Paul an eyewitness to the resurrection give us a closing message from the book of Philippians.
Philippians 3: 8-11
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death ; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead
We encourage you this day to lay hold to the hope of the resurrection of Christ.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
The Burial of Christ
The Resurrection of Christ – Part 1
One Sunday morning there was a salesman visiting a Church.
He did not go to church very often and he could not remember the last time he had attended. The Salesman had been mostly inattentive and had been sleeping most of the time.
He heard the preacher say something that got his attention. He heard one word that made him pay attention.
The preacher finished the sermon and the invitation was offered.
To everyone’s surprise the salesman came forward at the invitation.
When the preacher came over to find out what he needed the man told him “ I came down because you mentioned something about a commission, you even called it a great commission!”
We believe it or not there are people around that don’t even know the great commission.
They don’t have a clue as to what should be preached to the nations or why it should be preached.
In a poll by Barna it was found that 90 percent of modern Americans cannot define the Great Commission.
70 % could not quote John 3:16
Only 31 percent could give a basic meaning of the gospel.
When Barna combined all three categories – knowing the Great Commission, the content of John 3:16 and the basic definition of the Gospel only 4 percent could do so.
That is staggering – we are living in a time when the fields are ripe for the Gospel.
We are living in a time when many of our neighbors don’t know the basics and are to be quiet frank – the are lost in their sins.
The past four weeks we looked in depth at the cross of Christ and what it means.
Today we are turning to the Resurrection.
If you wonder why – we can rest assured that the basic message of the early Church was three fold:
There were three things that were non-negotiable and had to be taught-
1) That Jesus was God in flesh – John 1:14 that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is Lord and God
2) The death of Jesus was in our place- basically Jesus died for us
3) Jesus was bodily raised from the dead – Jesus was raised to a new glorified corporeal body.
If you boil down the book of Acts and the writings of Paul those three things were the focus of the early Christian message.
From the crucifixion narrative we will pick up this morning and look at the story of Jesus burial.
Remember a few weeks ago we read Paul’s Synopsis of the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus died, was buried, and was resurrected.
As we look at this story of Jesus burial and the story of enigmatic man named Joseph of Arimathea we must take our minds back to the event.
Imagine how things had spiraled out of control.
One minute Jesus is drawing crowds- people are coming to him in large numbers.
He enters Jerusalem on Sunday- and He is greeted like a king – He is Israel’s King – He comes from the Mount of Olives which is identified with King David- He rides in
People are crying out Hosanna! Hosanna!
But just a few days later – Friday of that same week He will be on a Roman cross.
Imagine the trauma of the followers, imagine how shocking it would be for His followers to see this happen.
In today’s lesson there will be great irony. Jesus will be abandoned by most of His followers at the cross.
Only John- His mother and some of the women will be there for Him.
But what is more shocking two secret followers named Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus will be there to take care of Jesus body. Two unlikely suspects –
Two men that belonged to the very ruling party that put Jesus on the cross will come through and provide a burial fit for a King.
Before we start lets look at ancient Jewish burial practices:
Today we will look at the burial of Jesus – we have so many times focused on the cross and resurrection but this morning I want to look at an aspect of the gospel that Jesus was buried.
Before we turn to John 19 – lets look a little bit at ancient Jewish burial practices:
In the first century, the practice of burying multiple bodies in a common tomb or grave had given way to the practice of placing the body in a hewn-out crypt or chiseled shelf in a wall.
After a year or so, the bones of the deceased were gathered and placed in a box, otherwise known as an ossuary.
The crypt or shelf could then be re-used for another burial cycle.
Jews do not embalm the bodies of their dead, but allow them to "return to the earth".
It may be for this reason that the Bible and Jewish tradition holds that the dead are to buried on the day they have died in order to avoid defiling the Land God gave them.
We read in Deuteronomy 21: 22-23
22 "If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God ), so that you do not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.
Anything dead, including people, would affect the purity of the Jew, causing him to have to endure a period of cleansing, during which the individual would not be eligible for worship activities.
Numbers 19: 11-13 tells us that anyone that touches a dead body is unclean for seven days and must go through a ritual purity exercise that involved a washing with water.
The responsibility of properly burying the dead typically fell to the relatives, but by Jewish tradition, was also considered a "civic" duty.
The deceased person was cleaned with water and wrapped in a burial shroud usually made of linen.
As the body was wrapped, it was not uncommon to anoint it with aromatic herbs and spices.
In Biblical times, given the climate of the Holy Land, bodily decay would begin quite rapidly.
By using the aromatic materials, the smell associated with decay could be covered for a short time.
Next the body was laid in a tomb or shelf to begin the yearlong wait until the bones could be re-interned in an ossuary.
It was customary for relatives to visit the body for several days after the death.
Often they would add more herbs and spices to the body when they visited to mask the increasingly apparent odor.
John 19: 38-42
38 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus ; and Pilate granted permission. So he came and took away His body. 39 Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. 40 So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42 Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
FIRST OF ALL, JESUS WAS DEAD WHEN HE CAME OFF THE CROSS
In Mark 15 we find that Pilate was shocked that Jesus died so quickly.
Because if was the Sabbath – we find that the soldiers came to break the legs of the victims. In breaking the legs of the victim they were hastening death.
The condemned would no longer be able to push up to get air in their lungs but would die much quicker.
When they came to Jesus they found he was already dead. – the thrust a spear into His side and blood and water came out.
IN 1986 the Journal of the American Medical Association did a study on the crucifixion. They concluded form the evidence that Jesus was dead when taken off the cross –
They concluded that the scourging would have caused hypovolemic shock and he would have died from both the shock and exhaustion asphyxia
Hypovolemic shock would come on because of the loss of blood from the scourging.
This would cause the heat to beat faster and a drop in blood pressure.
In John 19:34 it says, "One of the soldiers, with a spear, pierced his side, and immediately came there out blood and water."
Fluid would form around the heart and lungs and when the soldier pierced the side of Christ this pericardial sack would be ruptured as well as the contents of the heart.
This is why blood and water flowed and is a sure sign that Jesus is dead at this point.
All this is important to lay down the fact that Jesus did in fact die on the cross before He was taken down.
The Jewish authorities wanted Jesus off of the cross because of the coming Sabbath.
Here is the irony of the entire thing – Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
Here we have the Jewish authorities trying to honor the Sabbath by trying to get the Lord of the Sabbath off the cross quickly.
Joseph of Arimathea – Joseph was a rich man that came to Pilate to ask for the body of Christ.
The normal Roman practice was to allow the body to stay on the cross to decompose to bring about more shame on the person.
This is a special case for two reasons – first of all, Joseph is a man of influence and Pilate was already reluctant to crucify Christ so He allows Joseph to take the body.
Also it is the day before a high HOLY SABBATH – this is the concluding Sabbath to the Passover and would violate Jewish Law
The last thing Pilate needed was a Jewish revolt or uprising because a body was on the cross on the Sabbath when over 1 million zealous Jews would be in Jerusalem.
Pilate may not have been nice but he was shrewd and knew better than inciting the people.
1) JOSEPH in GOD’S PLAN
We know that Joseph was a rich man and that is important because of a prophecy made by Isaiah
Isaiah 53: 9
And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
This prophecy made 750 years before Christ tells us that he would be crucified with criminals but a rich man would be with Him in his death – this rich man was Joseph of Arimathea.
Joseph was part of God’s plan and didn’t even know it.
Joseph was part of Old Testament prophecy as well as he would have a critical role in getting Christ in the grave before the end of the day.
Joseph was also part of a prophecy that Christ had made Himself concerning His own burial.
Matthew 12: 38-40
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." 39 But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign ; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet ; 40 for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The People wanted a sign from Jesus that He was from God.
He told them that the ultimate sign would be His death burial and resurrection. He would be in the ground for three days and nights.
Now this makes Joseph’s role important. He must get Jesus body into the grave before 6 PM.
The Jewish reckoning of evening is 3PM to 6PM. The new day began at 6PM. To a Jew the day ran from 6PM of one day to 6PM of the next day.
Also in Jewish rabbinical literature we see that if you were in the grave for any part of a day then they considered that to be an entire day.
What I mean is this. Jesus predicted that he would be in the earth for 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. Saying a day and night in the Jewish way of thinking meant the entire day.
Because Joseph takes the body of Jesus and buries him at a tomb close to the site of crucifixion he gets him in the tomb before 6PM.
Jesus dies at 3PM and Joseph buries him at 6PM – so Jesus would have been considered to be in the grave on Friday, Saturday and then Sunday.
He was in the grave part of the day on Friday, and part of the day on Sunday – but to the Jewish way of thinking this would be counted as an entire day.
So we see that Joseph of Arimethea was actually part of God’s plan in that he would make sure Jesus had a proper burial in fulfillment of prophecy from both the OT and from Jesus Himself.
2) JOSEPH RISKED A GREAT DEAL
Mark 15:43 tells us that Joseph was a prominent member of the Sanhedrin – the ruling body of the Jews.
This gives us more respect for Joseph – he was risking his life by doing this – to be a member of the Sanhedrin – the very people that wanted Jesus dead, and now he is going secretly to ask for the body of Christ.
Mark and Luke also tell us that Joseph was a man awaiting the Kingdom of God and the implication is that he understood the work of Jesus being identified with this coming Kingdom.
John’s Gospel gives us some clues as to exactly how Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus felt about Jesus
They both considered him to be the King of Israel.
When one considers two points of respect that is give Jesus – first of all Jesus is given a New Tomb.
This would only be a luxury reserved for the very rich. Joseph shows his respect in putting Jesus in a new tomb.
Also, Nicodemus brings 100 pounds of spices for the body. This is above beyond what a normal burial would require.
This is a burial fit for a king – this is the King of the Jews just as the sign on the cross said.
Now looking at Jesus death we see TWO natural HUMAN responses that we can learn from today:
1) Peter’s response to Jesus death.
You may think this is an odd lesson to latch onto but Peter is a great example of misunderstanding the mission of Jesus.
In Mark 8: 31-33
31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind Me, Satan ; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."
Jesus had predicted His own death at the hands of the Jewish leaders.
But what is more interesting is the response of Peter – he rebukes Jesus –
Peter is thinking in human terms – the Messiah should not be disgraced – He cannot die –
What type of Messiah would die?
Jesus rebukes Him for this attitude – Peter is missing the entire point.
Just as I mentioned last week the Jews could not place Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant teaching into their belief system.
They wanted Rambo, they wanted King David to come in and whip the Romans and throw them out of Palestine.
But Jesus way will be the way of the cross- the cross was necessary
The Eastern Orthodox Church has a saying the comes straight from the early Church they say that Jesus defeated death by trampling death by death
Jesus defeated death by dying. He had to die.
The cocoon of the Emperor moth is flask like in shape. To develop into a perfect insect, it must force its way through the neck of the cocoon by hours of intense struggle.
Entomologists explain that this pressure to which the moth is subjected is nature’s way of forcing a life giving substance into its wings.
Wanting to lesson the seemingly needless trials and struggles of the moth, an observer said, "I’ll lesson the pain and struggles of this helpless creature!"
With small scissors he snipped the restraining threads to make the moth’s emergence painless and effortless. The creature never developed wings.
For a brief time before its death it simply crawled instead of flying through the air on rainbow colored wings!
(By the way.....the struggles of childbirth...i.e., the child squeezing through the birth canal are also a God designed way of forcing liquid out of the newborn’s lungs.)
Sorrow, suffering, trials, and tribulations are wisely designed to grow us into Christlikeness. The refining and developing processes are oftentimes slow, but through grace, we emerge triumphant.
IN the same way Jesus went through the pain of the cross and going into the unknown of death to open up a way for us.
They say the a Possum will not go into its den if it only sees one pair of tracks entering into it.
They realize that whatever animal entered the den is still there.
But when they see two sets of tracks –one entering and the other leaving – they realize that it is safe to go in
The same is true for us and death – Jesus entered death and came through death so that we can enter death knowing that Christ has trampled down death.
2) Response to Jesus burial –
The natural response to death is preservation of the body.
They wanted to put spices and aromatics on Jesus body to try to slow down the decay and smell of decomposition.
Nicodemus and Joseph worked to preserve the body but also we learn in Luke 23 that some women from Galilee also wanted to preserve the body.
Luke 23: 55-56
55 Now the women who had come with Him out of Galilee followed, and saw the tomb and how His body was laid. 56 Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes. And on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
Then into chapter 24
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
They came thinking to find a dead decaying body of Jesus but they were shocked to find the tomb was empty.
We live in a death denying culture that tries to avoid the topic.
We don’t want to accept the fact that death is the way of all of us unless we are here when Christ returns.
This response to preserve the body just shows that they were natural and human.
There is nothing wrong with thus but with Jesus it was totally unnecessary.
He had told them he would rise again and that He did.
When Peter preached his sermon at Pentecost he quoted from one of Psalms written 1000 years before Christ:
Acts 2: 26-29
26 'THEREFORE MY HEART WAS GLAD AND MY TONGUE EXULTED ; MOREOVER MY FLESH ALSO WILL LIVE IN HOPE ; 27 BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT ABANDON MY SOUL TO HADES, NOR ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY. 28 'YOU HAVE MADE KNOWN TO ME THE WAYS OF LIFE ; YOU WILL MAKE ME FULL OF GLADNESS WITH YOUR PRESENCE.' 29 "Brethren , I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
Peter points out to them that David predicts that there will be one that will come that will not stay in the grave –He will be raised,
His body will not see decay – he will not decompose in the tomb but will rise again.
He goes on to point out that David died and was still buried but Jesus’ tomb is empty.
We can look to the death and burial of Jesus with Hope – we know that He has blazed a trail before us and has opened up death.
Our bodies will rest in the grave while our spirits are in Heaven with Christ until the great day of resurrection.
On that day our bodies will be raised to new life.
One of my favorite passages on baptism connects this idea of Jesus burial with our baptism.
If you have been baptized I want you to think back to that event and place this passage in your heart –
Think about what you said when you were baptized into Christ by that very action:
Romans 6: 1-11
1 What shall we say then ? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase ? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death ? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin ; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again ; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all ; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
We have been BAPTIZED INTO HIS DEATH
BURIED WITH HIM IN BAPTISM
THIS BAPTISM IS A CONNECTION WITH CHRIST’S DEATH – WE ARE IDENTIFIED WITH CHRIST – WE EMBRACE HIS WORK
WE SAY TO THE WORLD THAT WE BELIEVE THAT HE DIED AND WAS BURIED
Coming out of the water shows the world that we are a new person
Jesus death broke the hold of sin and death on our lives.
Looking to Jesus death, burial and resurrection we can see that we are to die to self- put to death the old man
Bury the old man - raise up just as Christ was raised up.
That is why Baptism is so significant to Christians – think about how powerful that image is to a lost and dying world.
Sometimes we forget how significant our own baptism really was. I have heard of Christians even celebrating with their children their baptism date just like a birthday – it reminds them every year that they were made new in Christ.
One Sunday morning there was a salesman visiting a Church.
He did not go to church very often and he could not remember the last time he had attended. The Salesman had been mostly inattentive and had been sleeping most of the time.
He heard the preacher say something that got his attention. He heard one word that made him pay attention.
The preacher finished the sermon and the invitation was offered.
To everyone’s surprise the salesman came forward at the invitation.
When the preacher came over to find out what he needed the man told him “ I came down because you mentioned something about a commission, you even called it a great commission!”
We believe it or not there are people around that don’t even know the great commission.
They don’t have a clue as to what should be preached to the nations or why it should be preached.
In a poll by Barna it was found that 90 percent of modern Americans cannot define the Great Commission.
70 % could not quote John 3:16
Only 31 percent could give a basic meaning of the gospel.
When Barna combined all three categories – knowing the Great Commission, the content of John 3:16 and the basic definition of the Gospel only 4 percent could do so.
That is staggering – we are living in a time when the fields are ripe for the Gospel.
We are living in a time when many of our neighbors don’t know the basics and are to be quiet frank – the are lost in their sins.
The past four weeks we looked in depth at the cross of Christ and what it means.
Today we are turning to the Resurrection.
If you wonder why – we can rest assured that the basic message of the early Church was three fold:
There were three things that were non-negotiable and had to be taught-
1) That Jesus was God in flesh – John 1:14 that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is Lord and God
2) The death of Jesus was in our place- basically Jesus died for us
3) Jesus was bodily raised from the dead – Jesus was raised to a new glorified corporeal body.
If you boil down the book of Acts and the writings of Paul those three things were the focus of the early Christian message.
From the crucifixion narrative we will pick up this morning and look at the story of Jesus burial.
Remember a few weeks ago we read Paul’s Synopsis of the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus died, was buried, and was resurrected.
As we look at this story of Jesus burial and the story of enigmatic man named Joseph of Arimathea we must take our minds back to the event.
Imagine how things had spiraled out of control.
One minute Jesus is drawing crowds- people are coming to him in large numbers.
He enters Jerusalem on Sunday- and He is greeted like a king – He is Israel’s King – He comes from the Mount of Olives which is identified with King David- He rides in
People are crying out Hosanna! Hosanna!
But just a few days later – Friday of that same week He will be on a Roman cross.
Imagine the trauma of the followers, imagine how shocking it would be for His followers to see this happen.
In today’s lesson there will be great irony. Jesus will be abandoned by most of His followers at the cross.
Only John- His mother and some of the women will be there for Him.
But what is more shocking two secret followers named Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus will be there to take care of Jesus body. Two unlikely suspects –
Two men that belonged to the very ruling party that put Jesus on the cross will come through and provide a burial fit for a King.
Before we start lets look at ancient Jewish burial practices:
Today we will look at the burial of Jesus – we have so many times focused on the cross and resurrection but this morning I want to look at an aspect of the gospel that Jesus was buried.
Before we turn to John 19 – lets look a little bit at ancient Jewish burial practices:
In the first century, the practice of burying multiple bodies in a common tomb or grave had given way to the practice of placing the body in a hewn-out crypt or chiseled shelf in a wall.
After a year or so, the bones of the deceased were gathered and placed in a box, otherwise known as an ossuary.
The crypt or shelf could then be re-used for another burial cycle.
Jews do not embalm the bodies of their dead, but allow them to "return to the earth".
It may be for this reason that the Bible and Jewish tradition holds that the dead are to buried on the day they have died in order to avoid defiling the Land God gave them.
We read in Deuteronomy 21: 22-23
22 "If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, 23 his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God ), so that you do not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.
Anything dead, including people, would affect the purity of the Jew, causing him to have to endure a period of cleansing, during which the individual would not be eligible for worship activities.
Numbers 19: 11-13 tells us that anyone that touches a dead body is unclean for seven days and must go through a ritual purity exercise that involved a washing with water.
The responsibility of properly burying the dead typically fell to the relatives, but by Jewish tradition, was also considered a "civic" duty.
The deceased person was cleaned with water and wrapped in a burial shroud usually made of linen.
As the body was wrapped, it was not uncommon to anoint it with aromatic herbs and spices.
In Biblical times, given the climate of the Holy Land, bodily decay would begin quite rapidly.
By using the aromatic materials, the smell associated with decay could be covered for a short time.
Next the body was laid in a tomb or shelf to begin the yearlong wait until the bones could be re-interned in an ossuary.
It was customary for relatives to visit the body for several days after the death.
Often they would add more herbs and spices to the body when they visited to mask the increasingly apparent odor.
John 19: 38-42
38 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus ; and Pilate granted permission. So he came and took away His body. 39 Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. 40 So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42 Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
FIRST OF ALL, JESUS WAS DEAD WHEN HE CAME OFF THE CROSS
In Mark 15 we find that Pilate was shocked that Jesus died so quickly.
Because if was the Sabbath – we find that the soldiers came to break the legs of the victims. In breaking the legs of the victim they were hastening death.
The condemned would no longer be able to push up to get air in their lungs but would die much quicker.
When they came to Jesus they found he was already dead. – the thrust a spear into His side and blood and water came out.
IN 1986 the Journal of the American Medical Association did a study on the crucifixion. They concluded form the evidence that Jesus was dead when taken off the cross –
They concluded that the scourging would have caused hypovolemic shock and he would have died from both the shock and exhaustion asphyxia
Hypovolemic shock would come on because of the loss of blood from the scourging.
This would cause the heat to beat faster and a drop in blood pressure.
In John 19:34 it says, "One of the soldiers, with a spear, pierced his side, and immediately came there out blood and water."
Fluid would form around the heart and lungs and when the soldier pierced the side of Christ this pericardial sack would be ruptured as well as the contents of the heart.
This is why blood and water flowed and is a sure sign that Jesus is dead at this point.
All this is important to lay down the fact that Jesus did in fact die on the cross before He was taken down.
The Jewish authorities wanted Jesus off of the cross because of the coming Sabbath.
Here is the irony of the entire thing – Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.
Here we have the Jewish authorities trying to honor the Sabbath by trying to get the Lord of the Sabbath off the cross quickly.
Joseph of Arimathea – Joseph was a rich man that came to Pilate to ask for the body of Christ.
The normal Roman practice was to allow the body to stay on the cross to decompose to bring about more shame on the person.
This is a special case for two reasons – first of all, Joseph is a man of influence and Pilate was already reluctant to crucify Christ so He allows Joseph to take the body.
Also it is the day before a high HOLY SABBATH – this is the concluding Sabbath to the Passover and would violate Jewish Law
The last thing Pilate needed was a Jewish revolt or uprising because a body was on the cross on the Sabbath when over 1 million zealous Jews would be in Jerusalem.
Pilate may not have been nice but he was shrewd and knew better than inciting the people.
1) JOSEPH in GOD’S PLAN
We know that Joseph was a rich man and that is important because of a prophecy made by Isaiah
Isaiah 53: 9
And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
This prophecy made 750 years before Christ tells us that he would be crucified with criminals but a rich man would be with Him in his death – this rich man was Joseph of Arimathea.
Joseph was part of God’s plan and didn’t even know it.
Joseph was part of Old Testament prophecy as well as he would have a critical role in getting Christ in the grave before the end of the day.
Joseph was also part of a prophecy that Christ had made Himself concerning His own burial.
Matthew 12: 38-40
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." 39 But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign ; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet ; 40 for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The People wanted a sign from Jesus that He was from God.
He told them that the ultimate sign would be His death burial and resurrection. He would be in the ground for three days and nights.
Now this makes Joseph’s role important. He must get Jesus body into the grave before 6 PM.
The Jewish reckoning of evening is 3PM to 6PM. The new day began at 6PM. To a Jew the day ran from 6PM of one day to 6PM of the next day.
Also in Jewish rabbinical literature we see that if you were in the grave for any part of a day then they considered that to be an entire day.
What I mean is this. Jesus predicted that he would be in the earth for 3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth. Saying a day and night in the Jewish way of thinking meant the entire day.
Because Joseph takes the body of Jesus and buries him at a tomb close to the site of crucifixion he gets him in the tomb before 6PM.
Jesus dies at 3PM and Joseph buries him at 6PM – so Jesus would have been considered to be in the grave on Friday, Saturday and then Sunday.
He was in the grave part of the day on Friday, and part of the day on Sunday – but to the Jewish way of thinking this would be counted as an entire day.
So we see that Joseph of Arimethea was actually part of God’s plan in that he would make sure Jesus had a proper burial in fulfillment of prophecy from both the OT and from Jesus Himself.
2) JOSEPH RISKED A GREAT DEAL
Mark 15:43 tells us that Joseph was a prominent member of the Sanhedrin – the ruling body of the Jews.
This gives us more respect for Joseph – he was risking his life by doing this – to be a member of the Sanhedrin – the very people that wanted Jesus dead, and now he is going secretly to ask for the body of Christ.
Mark and Luke also tell us that Joseph was a man awaiting the Kingdom of God and the implication is that he understood the work of Jesus being identified with this coming Kingdom.
John’s Gospel gives us some clues as to exactly how Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus felt about Jesus
They both considered him to be the King of Israel.
When one considers two points of respect that is give Jesus – first of all Jesus is given a New Tomb.
This would only be a luxury reserved for the very rich. Joseph shows his respect in putting Jesus in a new tomb.
Also, Nicodemus brings 100 pounds of spices for the body. This is above beyond what a normal burial would require.
This is a burial fit for a king – this is the King of the Jews just as the sign on the cross said.
Now looking at Jesus death we see TWO natural HUMAN responses that we can learn from today:
1) Peter’s response to Jesus death.
You may think this is an odd lesson to latch onto but Peter is a great example of misunderstanding the mission of Jesus.
In Mark 8: 31-33
31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, "Get behind Me, Satan ; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."
Jesus had predicted His own death at the hands of the Jewish leaders.
But what is more interesting is the response of Peter – he rebukes Jesus –
Peter is thinking in human terms – the Messiah should not be disgraced – He cannot die –
What type of Messiah would die?
Jesus rebukes Him for this attitude – Peter is missing the entire point.
Just as I mentioned last week the Jews could not place Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant teaching into their belief system.
They wanted Rambo, they wanted King David to come in and whip the Romans and throw them out of Palestine.
But Jesus way will be the way of the cross- the cross was necessary
The Eastern Orthodox Church has a saying the comes straight from the early Church they say that Jesus defeated death by trampling death by death
Jesus defeated death by dying. He had to die.
The cocoon of the Emperor moth is flask like in shape. To develop into a perfect insect, it must force its way through the neck of the cocoon by hours of intense struggle.
Entomologists explain that this pressure to which the moth is subjected is nature’s way of forcing a life giving substance into its wings.
Wanting to lesson the seemingly needless trials and struggles of the moth, an observer said, "I’ll lesson the pain and struggles of this helpless creature!"
With small scissors he snipped the restraining threads to make the moth’s emergence painless and effortless. The creature never developed wings.
For a brief time before its death it simply crawled instead of flying through the air on rainbow colored wings!
(By the way.....the struggles of childbirth...i.e., the child squeezing through the birth canal are also a God designed way of forcing liquid out of the newborn’s lungs.)
Sorrow, suffering, trials, and tribulations are wisely designed to grow us into Christlikeness. The refining and developing processes are oftentimes slow, but through grace, we emerge triumphant.
IN the same way Jesus went through the pain of the cross and going into the unknown of death to open up a way for us.
They say the a Possum will not go into its den if it only sees one pair of tracks entering into it.
They realize that whatever animal entered the den is still there.
But when they see two sets of tracks –one entering and the other leaving – they realize that it is safe to go in
The same is true for us and death – Jesus entered death and came through death so that we can enter death knowing that Christ has trampled down death.
2) Response to Jesus burial –
The natural response to death is preservation of the body.
They wanted to put spices and aromatics on Jesus body to try to slow down the decay and smell of decomposition.
Nicodemus and Joseph worked to preserve the body but also we learn in Luke 23 that some women from Galilee also wanted to preserve the body.
Luke 23: 55-56
55 Now the women who had come with Him out of Galilee followed, and saw the tomb and how His body was laid. 56 Then they returned and prepared spices and perfumes. And on the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
Then into chapter 24
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
They came thinking to find a dead decaying body of Jesus but they were shocked to find the tomb was empty.
We live in a death denying culture that tries to avoid the topic.
We don’t want to accept the fact that death is the way of all of us unless we are here when Christ returns.
This response to preserve the body just shows that they were natural and human.
There is nothing wrong with thus but with Jesus it was totally unnecessary.
He had told them he would rise again and that He did.
When Peter preached his sermon at Pentecost he quoted from one of Psalms written 1000 years before Christ:
Acts 2: 26-29
26 'THEREFORE MY HEART WAS GLAD AND MY TONGUE EXULTED ; MOREOVER MY FLESH ALSO WILL LIVE IN HOPE ; 27 BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT ABANDON MY SOUL TO HADES, NOR ALLOW YOUR HOLY ONE TO UNDERGO DECAY. 28 'YOU HAVE MADE KNOWN TO ME THE WAYS OF LIFE ; YOU WILL MAKE ME FULL OF GLADNESS WITH YOUR PRESENCE.' 29 "Brethren , I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
Peter points out to them that David predicts that there will be one that will come that will not stay in the grave –He will be raised,
His body will not see decay – he will not decompose in the tomb but will rise again.
He goes on to point out that David died and was still buried but Jesus’ tomb is empty.
We can look to the death and burial of Jesus with Hope – we know that He has blazed a trail before us and has opened up death.
Our bodies will rest in the grave while our spirits are in Heaven with Christ until the great day of resurrection.
On that day our bodies will be raised to new life.
One of my favorite passages on baptism connects this idea of Jesus burial with our baptism.
If you have been baptized I want you to think back to that event and place this passage in your heart –
Think about what you said when you were baptized into Christ by that very action:
Romans 6: 1-11
1 What shall we say then ? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase ? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death ? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin ; 7 for he who has died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again ; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all ; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
We have been BAPTIZED INTO HIS DEATH
BURIED WITH HIM IN BAPTISM
THIS BAPTISM IS A CONNECTION WITH CHRIST’S DEATH – WE ARE IDENTIFIED WITH CHRIST – WE EMBRACE HIS WORK
WE SAY TO THE WORLD THAT WE BELIEVE THAT HE DIED AND WAS BURIED
Coming out of the water shows the world that we are a new person
Jesus death broke the hold of sin and death on our lives.
Looking to Jesus death, burial and resurrection we can see that we are to die to self- put to death the old man
Bury the old man - raise up just as Christ was raised up.
That is why Baptism is so significant to Christians – think about how powerful that image is to a lost and dying world.
Sometimes we forget how significant our own baptism really was. I have heard of Christians even celebrating with their children their baptism date just like a birthday – it reminds them every year that they were made new in Christ.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
the Cross of Christ in the OT - Psalm 22
The story of the basset hound appeared in Tacoma, Washington newspaper.
The dog's name was Tattoo. The reporter wrote, "Tattoo didn't plan on going for a run that evening, but when his owner accidentally shut the poor dog's leash in the car door and drove away from home, Tattoo had little choice."
Now, thankfully when he started driving, a policeman saw the poor dog's dilemma and pulled the car over.
The cop had one interesting observation -- he said, "That basset hound was picking up his feet and putting them down [just] as fast as he could." Amazingly, his short legs got him up to 25 miles an hour in spite of being rolled several times!
Do you ever feel like that little Basset Hound? Do you feel like life is moving so fast that you cant catch your breath?
Today I want to invite you to slow down and study God’s word with us.
Let’s take the next few minutes and study things that are much more important than anything else that we can have going on.
Over the past three weeks we have focused on the Cross of Jesus.
We have looked at how the Cross represents our Substitute – he took on our sins and was crushed on our behalf.
We have looked at how the cross is a victory over sin and death.
We looked last week at the doctrine of the Suffering Servant found in Isaiah 53 and in the four servant songs of Israel that span the gap of Isaiah 42-53.
This week we will close out the series on the cross and look at another astonishing passage from the OT about the cross.
As a matter of fact I hope you are convinced after last week and this week that you can preach the gospel from the Old Testament.
Peter tells us in his sermon at Pentecost:
David...a prophet...foresaw and spoke...of the Christ" (Acts 2:29-31).
Charles Spurgeon the great English Preacher said this off the Psalm we will look at today:
"We should read reverently, putting off our shoes from off our feet, as Moses did at the burning bush, for if there be holy ground anywhere in Scripture it is in this psalm" (C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, vol. 1, p. 365).
Psalm 22 is a Messianic Psalm.
It is also a Passion Psalm, telling of the death of the Christ. David is the author.
Although we usually think of him as a king and secondly as a writer of Psalms, Peter in Acts 2 calls him a prophet.
Peter was referring to other Psalms by David and his prophecy of the resurrection rather than the death of Jesus, but his description as quoted above is appropriate for our study.
In this Psalm of David we have a treasure house of information about the death of Jesus.
In 1842 a minister in England, John Stevenson, wrote a book entitled Christ on the Cross.
He included one sermon in this book for each verse of Psalm 22. That means he wrote thirty-one sermons on the cross of Jesus based on Psalm 22.
Obviously this Old Testament passage merits our very careful consideration.
Psalm 22 can conveniently be divided into two parts. The first half (verses 1-21) is the cry of a persecuted saint.
The second half (verses 22-31) speaks of deliverance and hope.
It is possible that Jesus meditated upon Psalm 22 while he suffered crucifixion, maybe even quoting it in totality as he hung there on Calvary.
The Psalm begins with the familiar words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?" (Psa. 22:1).
So Jesus quoted the beginning of Psalm 22 while on the cross. Is that all he quoted?
Maybe and maybe not. We may have just a skeleton outline of what he actually said.
It is possible that he quoted the ending of Psalm 22.
John tells us that right before Jesus died he said, "It is finished" (Jn. 19:30).
While this may have been an independent saying meaning that his suffering was finished, it is possible that it is the ending of Psalm 22.
It ends with the words, "he has wrought it" (Psa. 22:31).
You can translate that "He has done it", "He has finished it", or "he has performed it" (NASB).
While they sound very different in English, in the original they are very similar expressions.
Now we do not know if Jesus quoted the whole Psalm or even meditated on it as he suffered on the cross, but we do know he thought of it enough to quote the opening verses.
As we study this Psalm I think you will see that the whole Psalm would have been a very appropriate meditation or quotation for our Lord on Golgotha.
With this I want to share the first 17 verses with Psalm 22 with you this morning.
Now keep in mind that this Psalm was written 1000 years before Christ was born.
Now this morning I want you to put this prayer and passage on the lips and mind of Christ on the cross – now before you baulk on this and think I am crazy, I want you to consider something –
This will make much more sense if you will do this – as we read this and understand this passage this morning think about the Cross.
Psalm 22: 1-17
1 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. 2 O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer ; And by night, but I have no rest. 3 Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. 4 In You our fathers trusted ; They trusted and You delivered them. 5 To You they cried out and were delivered ; In You they trusted and were not disappointed. 6 But I am a worm and not a man, A reproach of men and despised by the people. 7 All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, 8 "Commit yourself to the LORD ; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him." 9 Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb ; You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts. 10 Upon You I was cast from birth ; You have been my God from my mother's womb. 11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near ; For there is none to help. 12 Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. 13 They open wide their mouth at me, As a ravening and a roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint ; My heart is like wax ; It is melted within me. 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws ; And You lay me in the dust of death. 16 For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; 18 They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.
1) My God, My God why has they forsaken me.
One of the most fascinating things about this passage is the fact that Jesus quoted the first verse from the Cross.
We read in Matthew 27:
In Matthew 27:46 Jesus quotes this verse from the Cross:
46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI ?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?"
What did Jesus mean when he cried out that God had forsaken him?
It is said that 16th c. theologian Martin Luther once sat in his study for hours to meditate on this passage.
For hours he sat oblivious to the world around him. Finally, someone heard him say, “God forsaking God . . . no one can understand that” and he went on about his business.
The great 19th c. preacher, C.H. Spurgeon, preached a message on this passage and said,
“I think I can understand the words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" as they are written by David in the 22nd Psalm; but the same words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
when uttered by Jesus on the cross, I cannot comprehend, so I shall not pretend to be able to explain them.”
Many explanations have been offered to try to soften the tone of these words.
If we take the cry of Jesus seriously, it must mean that God did forsake him.
For a brief period of time symbolized by the darkness, God withdrew his presence from Christ that he might completely suffer for our sins.
Think how horrible it must feel to be forsaken.
At some point in your life you have been forsaken by someone--friends, relatives, or a mate.
Being forsaken can leave you with an empty feeling inside that gives life a bad taste.
Let us not forget that Jesus was forsaken by God for our sake.
Notice the change in the relationship – Jesus always addressed God as Father, but here he has become as distant as a sinful man crying out to his God.
Notice the change in the relationship – Jesus always addressed God as Father, but here he has become as distant as a sinful man crying out to his God.
In the midst of this cry we are able to catch a glimpse into the depth of Christ’s suffering on the cross. His physical pain was torturous.
Emotionally he was worn out. But spiritually was where the real pain and suffering were.
The spiritual agony of taking on the sin of the world was more than anyone should have to endure.
At this moment, Christ was not the beloved Son in whom the Father was well-pleased (Matt. 3 / Matt. 17), but instead he was now the object of God’s wrath.
At this moment Christ was becoming the atonement / payment for our sin.
Rom. 6:33 – “The wages of sin is death…”
Galatians 3: 13
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us-for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE "
This moment of forsakenness comes when Jesus takes on our sin – he becomes a literal curse on our behalf.
He is accursed so that we don’t have to experience the separation of the Father.
Paul makes his appeal to become a Christian based on this fact of Jesus taking on our sin.
2 Corinthians 5: 20-21
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Paul tells us that Christ, who is sinless, embodies sin and literally becomes sin so that we can have righteousness.
God wants to cloth us with His righteousness based on the work of Christ.
So in this first verse of Psalm 22 we get a glimpse into Christ becoming desolate – separated from God the Father because of sin.
2) An Appeal to God for Help – Crying out for God’s Vindication:
In Psalm 22: 3-5 we see that Christ is appealing to God
He then appeals as high as he can, to God's moral character.
God is pictured as being enthroned on the prayers of praise of Israel (vs. 3).
The point is that God has been worthy of praise in the past.
God has rescued his people in the past so that they have sung his praises. Surely he will do the same again for this persecuted saint.
Verse 4 is a clear reminder to God of his past actions.
3) I am but a worm
In order to bring forth the mercy of God the Psalmist compares his value to that of a worm (vs. 6). His life has as much value as the life of a worm.
How much do we value a worm?
We step on a worm, but we lose no sleep over it.
We take worms and go fishing with them, and it does not bother us in the least.
Have you ever thought about what we actually do to a worm when we put it on a fishhook?
Can you imagine that being done to you?
Can you imagine a huge piece of steel being run through your body from end to end?
That is what we do to worms!
The Psalmist feels like a worm. He is treated as nothing. He is shown no mercy. He is defenseless.
Now imagine these words in the mouth of Christ or these thoughts as He is on the Cross -
4) Taunting on the Cross Psalm 22: 7-8
Verse 7 recalls the scenes of the cross where the spectators taunt Jesus, daring him to come down from the cross and save himself.
The very Greek word used in the LXX translation of this verse is also used by Luke in his narration (Lk. 23:35).
Luke 23: 35-37
35 And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, "He saved others ; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One." 36 The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine, 37 and saying, "If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself !"
5) In verse 11 of Psalm 22 – Strong bulls have surrounded me.
In several verses of this Psalm the plight of the Psalmist is compared to that of one surrounded by wild or dangerous animals.
The picture is that of the strong circling and closing in on the weak.
Bulls in Palestine, and everywhere I guess, are in the habit of circling close to an object that arouses their curiosity. Then at the slightest provocation they might attack.
Bashan is a geographical area famous for its rich pasture land which would mean lots of bulls.
6) My Bones are out of joint
Psalm 22 verse 14 – his bones are out of joint
This was a fact of Roman persecution – they would sublux the shoulder joint to make death come quickly.
Many times the shoulders would come out of joint after hanging on the cross for long periods of time.
This is a historically accurate description of a crucifixion.
7) My tongue cleaves to my Jaw
Psalm 22: 15 – my tongue cleaves to my jaw
He is dried up like a potsherd – a potsherd is a dried up, dried out piece of pottery.
This pottery was very dry and brittle – Jesus’s strength is drained out and He is poured out unto death.
This describes a person with cotton mouth or in a state of dehydration.
Crucifixion would bring on dehydration because of the loss of fluids. Jesus would be in much worse shape than most because He endured scourging as well as crucifixion.
John 19: 28
After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, "I am thirsty."
John's account tells us specifically that Jesus was thirsty on the cross.
8) They can see all of my bones
Psalm 22 verse 17 tells us that all of his bones can be seen.
One thing that would happen after the brutal beating that a scourging victim took was that their rib cage may be exposed.
The scourging was administered on the back first and then the victim would be flipped over and beaten on their torso until they lost consciousness.
9) They pierce my hands and feet
Psalm 22 verse 16 he talks about a band of evil doers have encompassed me and have pierced my hands and feet.
This is probably one of the most fascinating parts of this prophecy – David writes this some 500 – 700 years before Crucifixion will be invented as a form of execution.
This is amazing that He would predict in detail that this Messiah would be pierced in his hands and feet.
10) They divide my garments – the cast lots for His garments.
Psalm 22 verse 18 tells us that they will cast lots and divide his garments.
Many scholars at one time questioned the historicity of the dividing of the garments of Jesus -but archaeologists have found that this is true of Roman crucifixion- this was a perk of having crucifixion detail if you were a Roman soldier.
They got to gamble for the garments of the condemned. Pretty morbid when you think about the practice.
Matthew 27: 35
35 And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots
Don’t you find it amazing that David would be able to predict a practice of Roman soldiers during a crucifixion some 1000 years before the event would take place.
If you have ever doubted the inspiration of Scripture, well this passage should help you get over that doubt.
TURNING POINT
There is a marked turning point in this Psalm 22 – it doesn’t leave us at the cross – it doesn’t end with just pain and anguish – it leads us upward to hope.
In verse 19 The Psalmist Cries out to God for deliverance again and by verse 22 we see God’s vindication:
Psalm 22: 22-31
22 I will tell of Your name to my brethren ; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. 23 You who fear the LORD, praise Him; All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel. 24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted ; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard. 25 From You comes my praise in the great assembly ; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him. 26 The afflicted will eat and be satisfied ; Those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Let your heart live forever ! 27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations will worship before You. 28 For the kingdom is the LORD'S And He rules over the nations. 29 All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship, All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him, Even he who cannot keep his soul alive. 30 Posterity will serve Him; It will be told of the Lord to the coming generation. 31 They will come and will declare His righteousness To a people who will be born, that He has performed it.
Now notice how this victory applies to all:
All the Nations and Families of the Earth will worship God because of this vindication.
God will be made known to a new generation – a clear indication of the Gentiles that the Gospel will go to.
So let us put all this in perspective.
Psalm 22: 1-18 give us a vivid picture of desolation
Crucifixion, thirst, beatings,
Christ’s passion
But in verse 19 we see a clear indication that this suffering Messiah will be vindicated – we know that it is the resurrection from the dead.
He will be vindicated and because of that the whole earth will rejoice. All people will worship God because of this vindication.
Now as we close out I want to share two thoughts of application with you:
1) The Altar and the Table
I am now working on a Master’s thesis and my topic as I have told you is the Lord’s Supper but what I want to share with you is this:
Psalm 22 is connected to the Lord’s Supper
The Early Church saw this Psalm as a Thanksgiving Psalm – the Lord’s Supper was called the Eucharist –
Literally that means Thanks.
You see this Psalm was read to be and understood connected to the Lord’s Supper
Let me explain- the Early Christians saw the Cross of Christ as the altar of God on which the perfect lamb was sacrificed
In the Temple on Passover when the Lambs were slaughtered they were stretched out and hung on sticks in the shape of a cross.
On that day of crucifixion that true lamb of God was stretched out on the cross. The once and for all perfect sacrifice for your sin.
The Lords Supper table is seen as the place to celebrate, commemorate, and share in the fellowship we have in God –
The cross being the Altar and the Table being a place of celebration of our forgiveness of sin.
Today when you come to the Lord’s Table – it is a time to celebrate what Jesus did – He died and gave you life.
Don’t ever take this Lord’s Supper lightly – don’t forget – don’t go through the motions but really stop today and think about that cross and the pain and anguish – think about the victory won for you.
2) The CROSS is the only HOPE FOR THE WORLD
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a prisoner in Russia.
He was a critic of the Soviet Union and his first imprisonment happened in 1945 for speaking out against Stalin.
He was converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity while in a Gulag or work camp.
he was on a program of hard labour and slow salvation.
One day he felt like giving up.
He felt his life could not make a difference.
He sat down on a bench knowing that when he was spotted by a guard he would be ordered back to work when he failed to respond the guard would bludgeon him to death.
As he sat waiting, head down, he felt a presence. slowly he lifted his eyes.
Next to him sat an old man with a wrinkled, utterly expressionless face.
Hunched over, the old man drew a stick through the sand at Solzhenitsyn’s feet deliberately tracing out the sign of the cross.
As Solzhenitsyn stared at the rough outline his entire perspective shifted.
Yet in that moment, he knew that the hope of all mankind was represented by that simple cross - and through its power anything was possible.
Solzhenitisyn slowly got up , picked up his shovel and went back to work - not knowing that his writings on truth and freedom would one day enflame the whole world
You need the cross in your life – if you are not a Christian – grab hold to the victory won for you.
This same symbol that kept Solzhenitisyn going is one that can transform your life.
The Cross of Christ can mean more for you than you could ever imagine.
He was deserted that you might never be deserted.
-- He was abandoned that you might never be abandoned.
-- He was forsaken that you might never be forsaken.
-- He tasted death that you might experience life.
The dog's name was Tattoo. The reporter wrote, "Tattoo didn't plan on going for a run that evening, but when his owner accidentally shut the poor dog's leash in the car door and drove away from home, Tattoo had little choice."
Now, thankfully when he started driving, a policeman saw the poor dog's dilemma and pulled the car over.
The cop had one interesting observation -- he said, "That basset hound was picking up his feet and putting them down [just] as fast as he could." Amazingly, his short legs got him up to 25 miles an hour in spite of being rolled several times!
Do you ever feel like that little Basset Hound? Do you feel like life is moving so fast that you cant catch your breath?
Today I want to invite you to slow down and study God’s word with us.
Let’s take the next few minutes and study things that are much more important than anything else that we can have going on.
Over the past three weeks we have focused on the Cross of Jesus.
We have looked at how the Cross represents our Substitute – he took on our sins and was crushed on our behalf.
We have looked at how the cross is a victory over sin and death.
We looked last week at the doctrine of the Suffering Servant found in Isaiah 53 and in the four servant songs of Israel that span the gap of Isaiah 42-53.
This week we will close out the series on the cross and look at another astonishing passage from the OT about the cross.
As a matter of fact I hope you are convinced after last week and this week that you can preach the gospel from the Old Testament.
Peter tells us in his sermon at Pentecost:
David...a prophet...foresaw and spoke...of the Christ" (Acts 2:29-31).
Charles Spurgeon the great English Preacher said this off the Psalm we will look at today:
"We should read reverently, putting off our shoes from off our feet, as Moses did at the burning bush, for if there be holy ground anywhere in Scripture it is in this psalm" (C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, vol. 1, p. 365).
Psalm 22 is a Messianic Psalm.
It is also a Passion Psalm, telling of the death of the Christ. David is the author.
Although we usually think of him as a king and secondly as a writer of Psalms, Peter in Acts 2 calls him a prophet.
Peter was referring to other Psalms by David and his prophecy of the resurrection rather than the death of Jesus, but his description as quoted above is appropriate for our study.
In this Psalm of David we have a treasure house of information about the death of Jesus.
In 1842 a minister in England, John Stevenson, wrote a book entitled Christ on the Cross.
He included one sermon in this book for each verse of Psalm 22. That means he wrote thirty-one sermons on the cross of Jesus based on Psalm 22.
Obviously this Old Testament passage merits our very careful consideration.
Psalm 22 can conveniently be divided into two parts. The first half (verses 1-21) is the cry of a persecuted saint.
The second half (verses 22-31) speaks of deliverance and hope.
It is possible that Jesus meditated upon Psalm 22 while he suffered crucifixion, maybe even quoting it in totality as he hung there on Calvary.
The Psalm begins with the familiar words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?" (Psa. 22:1).
So Jesus quoted the beginning of Psalm 22 while on the cross. Is that all he quoted?
Maybe and maybe not. We may have just a skeleton outline of what he actually said.
It is possible that he quoted the ending of Psalm 22.
John tells us that right before Jesus died he said, "It is finished" (Jn. 19:30).
While this may have been an independent saying meaning that his suffering was finished, it is possible that it is the ending of Psalm 22.
It ends with the words, "he has wrought it" (Psa. 22:31).
You can translate that "He has done it", "He has finished it", or "he has performed it" (NASB).
While they sound very different in English, in the original they are very similar expressions.
Now we do not know if Jesus quoted the whole Psalm or even meditated on it as he suffered on the cross, but we do know he thought of it enough to quote the opening verses.
As we study this Psalm I think you will see that the whole Psalm would have been a very appropriate meditation or quotation for our Lord on Golgotha.
With this I want to share the first 17 verses with Psalm 22 with you this morning.
Now keep in mind that this Psalm was written 1000 years before Christ was born.
Now this morning I want you to put this prayer and passage on the lips and mind of Christ on the cross – now before you baulk on this and think I am crazy, I want you to consider something –
This will make much more sense if you will do this – as we read this and understand this passage this morning think about the Cross.
Psalm 22: 1-17
1 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. 2 O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer ; And by night, but I have no rest. 3 Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. 4 In You our fathers trusted ; They trusted and You delivered them. 5 To You they cried out and were delivered ; In You they trusted and were not disappointed. 6 But I am a worm and not a man, A reproach of men and despised by the people. 7 All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, 8 "Commit yourself to the LORD ; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him." 9 Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb ; You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts. 10 Upon You I was cast from birth ; You have been my God from my mother's womb. 11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near ; For there is none to help. 12 Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. 13 They open wide their mouth at me, As a ravening and a roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint ; My heart is like wax ; It is melted within me. 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws ; And You lay me in the dust of death. 16 For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; 18 They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.
1) My God, My God why has they forsaken me.
One of the most fascinating things about this passage is the fact that Jesus quoted the first verse from the Cross.
We read in Matthew 27:
In Matthew 27:46 Jesus quotes this verse from the Cross:
46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI ?" that is, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?"
What did Jesus mean when he cried out that God had forsaken him?
It is said that 16th c. theologian Martin Luther once sat in his study for hours to meditate on this passage.
For hours he sat oblivious to the world around him. Finally, someone heard him say, “God forsaking God . . . no one can understand that” and he went on about his business.
The great 19th c. preacher, C.H. Spurgeon, preached a message on this passage and said,
“I think I can understand the words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" as they are written by David in the 22nd Psalm; but the same words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
when uttered by Jesus on the cross, I cannot comprehend, so I shall not pretend to be able to explain them.”
Many explanations have been offered to try to soften the tone of these words.
If we take the cry of Jesus seriously, it must mean that God did forsake him.
For a brief period of time symbolized by the darkness, God withdrew his presence from Christ that he might completely suffer for our sins.
Think how horrible it must feel to be forsaken.
At some point in your life you have been forsaken by someone--friends, relatives, or a mate.
Being forsaken can leave you with an empty feeling inside that gives life a bad taste.
Let us not forget that Jesus was forsaken by God for our sake.
Notice the change in the relationship – Jesus always addressed God as Father, but here he has become as distant as a sinful man crying out to his God.
Notice the change in the relationship – Jesus always addressed God as Father, but here he has become as distant as a sinful man crying out to his God.
In the midst of this cry we are able to catch a glimpse into the depth of Christ’s suffering on the cross. His physical pain was torturous.
Emotionally he was worn out. But spiritually was where the real pain and suffering were.
The spiritual agony of taking on the sin of the world was more than anyone should have to endure.
At this moment, Christ was not the beloved Son in whom the Father was well-pleased (Matt. 3 / Matt. 17), but instead he was now the object of God’s wrath.
At this moment Christ was becoming the atonement / payment for our sin.
Rom. 6:33 – “The wages of sin is death…”
Galatians 3: 13
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us-for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE "
This moment of forsakenness comes when Jesus takes on our sin – he becomes a literal curse on our behalf.
He is accursed so that we don’t have to experience the separation of the Father.
Paul makes his appeal to become a Christian based on this fact of Jesus taking on our sin.
2 Corinthians 5: 20-21
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Paul tells us that Christ, who is sinless, embodies sin and literally becomes sin so that we can have righteousness.
God wants to cloth us with His righteousness based on the work of Christ.
So in this first verse of Psalm 22 we get a glimpse into Christ becoming desolate – separated from God the Father because of sin.
2) An Appeal to God for Help – Crying out for God’s Vindication:
In Psalm 22: 3-5 we see that Christ is appealing to God
He then appeals as high as he can, to God's moral character.
God is pictured as being enthroned on the prayers of praise of Israel (vs. 3).
The point is that God has been worthy of praise in the past.
God has rescued his people in the past so that they have sung his praises. Surely he will do the same again for this persecuted saint.
Verse 4 is a clear reminder to God of his past actions.
3) I am but a worm
In order to bring forth the mercy of God the Psalmist compares his value to that of a worm (vs. 6). His life has as much value as the life of a worm.
How much do we value a worm?
We step on a worm, but we lose no sleep over it.
We take worms and go fishing with them, and it does not bother us in the least.
Have you ever thought about what we actually do to a worm when we put it on a fishhook?
Can you imagine that being done to you?
Can you imagine a huge piece of steel being run through your body from end to end?
That is what we do to worms!
The Psalmist feels like a worm. He is treated as nothing. He is shown no mercy. He is defenseless.
Now imagine these words in the mouth of Christ or these thoughts as He is on the Cross -
4) Taunting on the Cross Psalm 22: 7-8
Verse 7 recalls the scenes of the cross where the spectators taunt Jesus, daring him to come down from the cross and save himself.
The very Greek word used in the LXX translation of this verse is also used by Luke in his narration (Lk. 23:35).
Luke 23: 35-37
35 And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, "He saved others ; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One." 36 The soldiers also mocked Him, coming up to Him, offering Him sour wine, 37 and saying, "If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself !"
5) In verse 11 of Psalm 22 – Strong bulls have surrounded me.
In several verses of this Psalm the plight of the Psalmist is compared to that of one surrounded by wild or dangerous animals.
The picture is that of the strong circling and closing in on the weak.
Bulls in Palestine, and everywhere I guess, are in the habit of circling close to an object that arouses their curiosity. Then at the slightest provocation they might attack.
Bashan is a geographical area famous for its rich pasture land which would mean lots of bulls.
6) My Bones are out of joint
Psalm 22 verse 14 – his bones are out of joint
This was a fact of Roman persecution – they would sublux the shoulder joint to make death come quickly.
Many times the shoulders would come out of joint after hanging on the cross for long periods of time.
This is a historically accurate description of a crucifixion.
7) My tongue cleaves to my Jaw
Psalm 22: 15 – my tongue cleaves to my jaw
He is dried up like a potsherd – a potsherd is a dried up, dried out piece of pottery.
This pottery was very dry and brittle – Jesus’s strength is drained out and He is poured out unto death.
This describes a person with cotton mouth or in a state of dehydration.
Crucifixion would bring on dehydration because of the loss of fluids. Jesus would be in much worse shape than most because He endured scourging as well as crucifixion.
John 19: 28
After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, "I am thirsty."
John's account tells us specifically that Jesus was thirsty on the cross.
8) They can see all of my bones
Psalm 22 verse 17 tells us that all of his bones can be seen.
One thing that would happen after the brutal beating that a scourging victim took was that their rib cage may be exposed.
The scourging was administered on the back first and then the victim would be flipped over and beaten on their torso until they lost consciousness.
9) They pierce my hands and feet
Psalm 22 verse 16 he talks about a band of evil doers have encompassed me and have pierced my hands and feet.
This is probably one of the most fascinating parts of this prophecy – David writes this some 500 – 700 years before Crucifixion will be invented as a form of execution.
This is amazing that He would predict in detail that this Messiah would be pierced in his hands and feet.
10) They divide my garments – the cast lots for His garments.
Psalm 22 verse 18 tells us that they will cast lots and divide his garments.
Many scholars at one time questioned the historicity of the dividing of the garments of Jesus -but archaeologists have found that this is true of Roman crucifixion- this was a perk of having crucifixion detail if you were a Roman soldier.
They got to gamble for the garments of the condemned. Pretty morbid when you think about the practice.
Matthew 27: 35
35 And when they had crucified Him, they divided up His garments among themselves by casting lots
Don’t you find it amazing that David would be able to predict a practice of Roman soldiers during a crucifixion some 1000 years before the event would take place.
If you have ever doubted the inspiration of Scripture, well this passage should help you get over that doubt.
TURNING POINT
There is a marked turning point in this Psalm 22 – it doesn’t leave us at the cross – it doesn’t end with just pain and anguish – it leads us upward to hope.
In verse 19 The Psalmist Cries out to God for deliverance again and by verse 22 we see God’s vindication:
Psalm 22: 22-31
22 I will tell of Your name to my brethren ; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. 23 You who fear the LORD, praise Him; All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel. 24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted ; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard. 25 From You comes my praise in the great assembly ; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him. 26 The afflicted will eat and be satisfied ; Those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Let your heart live forever ! 27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations will worship before You. 28 For the kingdom is the LORD'S And He rules over the nations. 29 All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship, All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him, Even he who cannot keep his soul alive. 30 Posterity will serve Him; It will be told of the Lord to the coming generation. 31 They will come and will declare His righteousness To a people who will be born, that He has performed it.
Now notice how this victory applies to all:
All the Nations and Families of the Earth will worship God because of this vindication.
God will be made known to a new generation – a clear indication of the Gentiles that the Gospel will go to.
So let us put all this in perspective.
Psalm 22: 1-18 give us a vivid picture of desolation
Crucifixion, thirst, beatings,
Christ’s passion
But in verse 19 we see a clear indication that this suffering Messiah will be vindicated – we know that it is the resurrection from the dead.
He will be vindicated and because of that the whole earth will rejoice. All people will worship God because of this vindication.
Now as we close out I want to share two thoughts of application with you:
1) The Altar and the Table
I am now working on a Master’s thesis and my topic as I have told you is the Lord’s Supper but what I want to share with you is this:
Psalm 22 is connected to the Lord’s Supper
The Early Church saw this Psalm as a Thanksgiving Psalm – the Lord’s Supper was called the Eucharist –
Literally that means Thanks.
You see this Psalm was read to be and understood connected to the Lord’s Supper
Let me explain- the Early Christians saw the Cross of Christ as the altar of God on which the perfect lamb was sacrificed
In the Temple on Passover when the Lambs were slaughtered they were stretched out and hung on sticks in the shape of a cross.
On that day of crucifixion that true lamb of God was stretched out on the cross. The once and for all perfect sacrifice for your sin.
The Lords Supper table is seen as the place to celebrate, commemorate, and share in the fellowship we have in God –
The cross being the Altar and the Table being a place of celebration of our forgiveness of sin.
Today when you come to the Lord’s Table – it is a time to celebrate what Jesus did – He died and gave you life.
Don’t ever take this Lord’s Supper lightly – don’t forget – don’t go through the motions but really stop today and think about that cross and the pain and anguish – think about the victory won for you.
2) The CROSS is the only HOPE FOR THE WORLD
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a prisoner in Russia.
He was a critic of the Soviet Union and his first imprisonment happened in 1945 for speaking out against Stalin.
He was converted to Eastern Orthodox Christianity while in a Gulag or work camp.
he was on a program of hard labour and slow salvation.
One day he felt like giving up.
He felt his life could not make a difference.
He sat down on a bench knowing that when he was spotted by a guard he would be ordered back to work when he failed to respond the guard would bludgeon him to death.
As he sat waiting, head down, he felt a presence. slowly he lifted his eyes.
Next to him sat an old man with a wrinkled, utterly expressionless face.
Hunched over, the old man drew a stick through the sand at Solzhenitsyn’s feet deliberately tracing out the sign of the cross.
As Solzhenitsyn stared at the rough outline his entire perspective shifted.
Yet in that moment, he knew that the hope of all mankind was represented by that simple cross - and through its power anything was possible.
Solzhenitisyn slowly got up , picked up his shovel and went back to work - not knowing that his writings on truth and freedom would one day enflame the whole world
You need the cross in your life – if you are not a Christian – grab hold to the victory won for you.
This same symbol that kept Solzhenitisyn going is one that can transform your life.
The Cross of Christ can mean more for you than you could ever imagine.
He was deserted that you might never be deserted.
-- He was abandoned that you might never be abandoned.
-- He was forsaken that you might never be forsaken.
-- He tasted death that you might experience life.
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