Easter Sunday, March 23, 2007

John 20:24-31

 

 

Our currency proclaims that we are “one nation under God” and our coins state “in God we trust.”  There are those in our nation who wish to remove those slogans from our coins. But whether these slogans are removed or not, our Federal Government has made an even more telling statement regarding our corporate faith: Good Friday and Easter are no longer national holidays. 

 

The birth of Jesus or Christmas is a holiday because it helps our economy and we like to celebrate birthdays; everyone has one.  We celebrate the birthdays of Martin Luther King, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Christopher Columbus (a telling and interesting selection of four out of all who have helped make our nation great), and even the birthday of our nation. Somehow, magically, all of these men were born on a Monday each and every year, even though our birthdays fall on different days of the week each year.

 

But Easter is different. Easter is a religious statement. All men have birthdays, but no one other than Jesus claimed he rose from the dead.  Not that he was resuscitated only to die at a later date, but that He was buried and rose to life in a recognizable body that was still somehow different than our current bodies. This claim is different from the claims of any other religious leader who walked as a man on this earth. This truth is the heart of our faith and is the only reason we are gathered here today. 

 

Notice what Paul says: “But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men” (1 Corinthians 15:12-19).

 

We need to be blunt this morning.  We need to put all of our religious cards on the table and honestly and unabashedly proclaim that the man Jesus who walked on this earth was the promised Jewish Messiah, the Christ, who fulfilled all of the prophecies made about the Messiah in the Old Testament.  More than that, however, this same man named Jesus was also the Son of God in the fullest possible meaning those words can have.  That is to say, the man Jesus was also God incarnate which means God became enfleshed to reveal the character and nature of God to us.

 

One story from the Gospel of John explains these truths more fully and clearly than any other.  Watch with me if you would, these words from John 20 focusing especially on verses 24-31.

 

When you read or watch the Biblical account of Jesus’ bodily appearances to the disciples after His resurrection, you will notice they fall into groups of fives. There were five appearances on first Easter day (to Mary Magdalene, to the women, to the two on the way to Emmaus, to Peter, and then to the ten).  Then there are five more spread over 40 days and then no more, other than the appearance to Saul of Tarsus.

 

If someone were to make up a lie, like telling the world that Elvis Presley was still alive, the lie would start out with someone seeing him somewhere and making news.  Then a few more would make the same claim, and then more and more and more people would make the same claim until everyone had to believe he was alive because of the mounting number of personal sightings.  It would make no sense to spread a lie or a rumor by having many people witness it at first and then fewer and fewer people make the same claim as time when on. The few number of public appearances Jesus made, must lead us somewhere else.

 

That somewhere else is understood only when we consider the role witnesses and faith play in Christianity. The apostles were specifically chosen to be witnesses of everything Jesus did and said.  Jesus told the apostles in Acts 1:8, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." We know the apostles took this command to heart because they made this truth a necessity when they chose someone to replace Judas.  Acts 1:21-22 says: “Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection."  

 

Every aspect of Christianity eventually leads us to the cross and to the resurrection, Good Friday and Easter.  The rest of the story is about how Jesus remained sinless so He could be our perfect sacrifice and of the signs, wonders, and teachings He gave to his witnesses so they could spread His message once He left this earth. John reminds of this fact when he states: “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31).

 

There is far more to the life of Jesus than is recorded for us. The gospel writers selected important accounts and arranged them in such a way that if we will sit and read their account from beginning to end, as we would read any book, at the end of our reading we would be faced with a choice.  We are forced to decide is this a true account of the life, death, and bodily resurrection of the man called Jesus, or is it a made up story, a lie, a rumor spread to entice people for whatever other ends the gospel writers might have had. It is difficult to believe these writers had any ulterior motives or any other result in mind than our belief in Jesus when they flatly state this is their intended purpose and they personally gave their lives as a living testimony of their belief in what they wrote.  We are left only to believe what they wrote actually happened and is true or to believe that they were deceived. 

 

The apostles and Thomas physically saw Jesus alive the three years they lived with Him and witnessed everything He did.  These same men physically saw Jesus alive after he had been wrapped in death’s clothes and buried in a stone tomb.  The same is true of a group of women who followed Him. Thomas’ assessment of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was simply and bluntly: "My Lord and my God!"

 

Calling Jesus God went beyond the term they used out of respect and for Jesus in His role as the Christ, the Jewish Messiah.  That term was Lord.  Even that term, however, was pregnant with meaning as it is the Greek word for the Hebrew word used in the Old Testament for God.  But when Thomas calls Jesus “God” he is removing all doubt.  Jesus and God are one in the same.  Jesus was God in human form walking on the earth, showing us His nature through His signs, wonders, and teachings, and then proving He was God by coming back to life after Rome, an impartial observer, pronounced Him dead.

 

John restates this truth again when we asks us to join them, even though we did not have the privilege of seeing Jesus in his resurrected body, in believing Jesus is the Christ (or the Jewish Messiah), the Son of God. Jesus Himself tells us we are “blessed” if we are able to believe the testimony of His personally selected witnesses, the apostles, who wrote or were the sources behind the writing of the gospels.

 

This morning, Jesus’ final words, directed in context to Thomas, are his message to us sitting here. Jesus said to Thomas: "Because you have seen me, you have believed.” Jesus’ exact words to us are: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." When we believe we are promised life eternally lived with Jesus.  John, Thomas, and the rest of the apostles invite each of us to read their words, their eye witness accounts, and make up our minds for ourselves.