March 26, 2012  

Sunday Sermon at True Life Community Church

I had the opportunity yesterday to speak to True Life Community Church on the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus.  It was an extraordinary opportunity to share with fellow believers and one atheist.  Although the atheist did not identify himself, I was told a woman was bringing her atheist husband to the service.  Maybe he felt, after hearing the talk, that he didn’t have enough evidence to confront me.  I just don’t know.

The talk centered on what are five historical facts about Jesus and His resurrection; the first being that Jesus died from Roman crucifixion.  The Romans were experts at death and when one considers that Jesus was scourged before crucifixion it makes the process even more certain of its desired outcome.  Scourging was called “half-way death” by the Romans.  Josephus once called it like “filleting a man to the bone”.  It is widely accepted by historical scholars that Jesus died at the hands of the Romans.  The thought that He may have survived the process is without a medical, scientific, historical, or reasonable basis.

The second historical fact was that Jesus was prepared for burial and placed in a tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea.  There are several independent attestations of this fact.  The fact that there are numerous independent attestations of the burial of Jesus makes the fact of His death even more certain.  Why would there be so many accounts of Joseph going to Pilate to request Jesus’ body if Jesus were not dead?

It is also worth mentioning that knowledge of who buried Jesus and where the tomb was located, is also, therefore, multiply confirmed.

The third historical fact is that the tomb was found empty on the first day of the week following Jesus’ death.  This fact also has multiple attestations in the four gospels as well as in other New Testament writings.   The testimony that women were the discoverers of the empty tomb is the most compelling aspect of this fact.  Embarrassing details in historical accounts has for a long time been a significant indicator of historical accuracy.  One does not include embarrassing details about an event or a person if it isn’t true.  If the story were fiction, you would expect a much different story.  For example, one would expect that men found the tomb empty or that the disciples found the tomb empty.  But this has never been the case and it never developed in the early years of the church either.  The story has always been that women discovered the empty tomb.  The embarrassing detail is that women in first century Palestine were second class citizens whose testimony about anything was given no credibility.  Indeed, women’s testimony was not even accepted in a court of law at that time.  So for the story to be that women discovered the tomb empty in four separate gospels, the logical, reasonable assumption is that it actually happened that way.

The fourth fact is that Jesus’ disciples came to believe, against all odds, that they saw Jesus alive after His death.  Indeed we can verify that Jesus not only appeared to his disciples, but that he had additional appearances after his death to over 500 people, some of whom were skeptics and opposed to him.  When you consider the emotional state of the disciples after Jesus’ death, it is compelling that they saw something that caused them to have the dramatic behavior change that is documented.  Virtually all historians admit that the disciples preached of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem, the very city in which he was executed, weeks after the event.  In the face of severe threats of death, they stuck to their beliefs.  Not one of them varied in their conviction that Jesus was the Messiah and that God had raised Jesus from the dead.  I like to ask, would you die for a belief you knew was a lie?

The fifth, and maybe most significant, are the conversions of James, Jesus’ half-brother, and Paul.  Here are two skeptics whose remarkable transformation to active followers of Jesus and ardent proclaimers of his resurrection is difficult to explain in any other context than that which is provided in the gospels, particularly that God raised Jesus from the dead.  James and Paul had to have seen the risen Lord to make that kind of dramatic behavioral change that we know occurred.

Considering this historical evidence, it is reasonable and logical to conclude that God raised Jesus from the dead.  The question then becomes, ‘So what?’.  This is where the discussion turned to one’s own decision and how that might be made.  It is important to have faith in Jesus, but it is just as important to examine the facts and the evidence that supports that faith.  We do this in our lives all the time, or at least we should.  When making an important decision we should base that decision on the facts and the evidence.  Is the decision right?  Does the decision reflect reality?  We may not always be able to be 100% certain that the decision we make is the best one, but if we enter into the decision making process with an open and clear mind, the chances of arriving at the best possible decision is increased.  Letting our emotions and feelings dictate our decisions without any reason involved, can, and often does, lead to disaster.

So it was a wonderful morning and, I hope, a productive one for the lone atheist in the crowd.  Maybe I planted a seed that the Holy Spirit will feed and develop.