Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

It’s Easter Sunday, the most important, and significant Christian holiday of the year.

Easter defines Christianity.

It is the centrepiece of our faith.

On Friday we reflected about Christ’s death on the cross and how his death transformed the cross from a human torture device, that represents death and suffering, to an icon that symbolizes life, forgiveness, hope and salvation.

Easter Sunday is the evidence of those truths becoming a reality.

Christians believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross on Friday afternoon, then literally and physically rose from the dead on Sunday morning.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is an essential belief when it comes to the Christian faith.

Yet, many don’t believe it to be true.

There has been much debate over Jesus death and resurrection.

The Resurrection is an Essential Belief

If Jesus is still in the tomb, then their is no evidence that our sins have been fully and freely forgiven.

if the resurrection isn’t true then what we have is death still reigning, death still ruling over humanity, over God’s creation.

it is the resurrection that shows that the bill has been paid in full.

That sin and death have been defeated.

The resurrection should actually be celebrated every time we gather, not just on easter.

often Christians focus on the life of Jesus, the death of Jesus, but we don’t discuss the resurrection of Jesus.

But we should because it is the proof that that everything else is true.

If it’s true then it’s all true, if its not true then none of it is.

The resurrection is part of the joy of being a Christian

As Christ has risen we also will rise with him.

The Goon news of the Gospel, our sins have been forgiven, death has been defeated.

How do we know.....the resurrection!

Many secular scholars have studied the resurrection and try to clam it to be false.

Lets take a quick look at some of their arguments.

Secular Scholarship Against the Resurrection

The following are the top 4 dominant theories agains the resurrection.

The Wrong Tomb

You can giggle.

I didn’t write it.

The theory around this brouhaha of the resurrection of Jesus Christ was these ladies were just so distraught in their grief they showed up at the wrong tomb.

So when they ran back and told these other guys, then Peter ran to the wrong tomb.

Maybe.

I’ve gotten lost before.

Anyone else? I’m not trying to deny what they’ve experienced was traumatic, but if they just went to the wrong tomb and as Christianity began to spread and the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Romans tried to destroy the faith, wouldn’t they just have rolled out his body?

Wouldn’t they have just gone, “Okay, morons.

They just went to the wrong… Here’s his body right here.

His followers are just morons”?

But they didn’t because there was no body to be found.

2. The Followers Were So Filled With Grief They Hallucinated that they Saw Jesus.

Maybe.

I’ve been around traumatic loss.

Maybe they didn’t sleep.

Maybe they started drinking a little too much wine.

I don’t know, but maybe there was a hallucination.

The problem with that is Jesus in his resurrected body appeared, not to just this guy over here and this guy over here, but appeared in front of hundreds of people.

There isn’t a lot of evidence that group hallucination can occur.

He sat down with them.

He ate with them for 40 days.

He walked with them, and then those hallucinations stopped.

Again, this is an absurd theory.

3. The Swoon Theory, has the most traction over the past century.

The swoon theory is Jesus, having been severely beaten, hanging on the cross, blacked out because of loss of blood and because of the beatings he had endured, and they mistakenly believed he was dead and pulled him down and buried him when he was still alive.

It has happened, so maybe they’re onto something.

Maybe Jesus just swooned and then just didn’t come back to life but kind of just pulled himself together and crawled out, somehow miraculously moving the stone, and that was what they thought was the resurrection.

David Friedrich Strauss is not a Christian.

He is a secular historian, and he thought…

“It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre [tomb], who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening, and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to His sufferings, could have given to the disciples the impression that He was a Conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of Life…”

4. The Body was Stolen

His disciples stole the body of Jesus and then made up the resurrection so they could further their Master’s teaching.

The problem with this theory is that scripture often shows us that even the disciples didn’t understand most of the time.

Even during the account of Christ’s death we see the disciples hiding like cowards.

Do we really think they would have stolen the body and come up with the greatest deception ever.

Keep in mind Peter has a wife.

These are men who have families.

Nobody recants and nobody calls it off, and yet the theory is they stole him.

They somehow figured out how to get past the guards, and they stole his body and yet kept the story alive as they were slaughtered one by one and as other men and women by the hundreds were slaughtered.

Because that seemed so absurd, historians then move on and go, “No, what happened wasn’t the disciples stole the body…” Because of course they had been too incompetent for that.

“What happened is the authorities hid the bodies so the disciples couldn’t take the body.”

Again, aren’t we now just trying not to believe?

If the authorities took the body, then as Christianity begins to spread, wouldn’t they just destroy the thing by presenting the body?

These are the top 4 secular reasons to not believe in the resurrection.

Now lets look at reasons and proof of the resurrection.

Biblical Evidence of the Resurrection

Biblical Evidence

The Old Testament prophesies the coming Messiah will die and he will be brought back from death.

We don’t have time in our gathering today, but I would encourage you at some point this weekend to read Isaiah 53.

It is a breakdown, not only of the cross, but what will occur after the cross, namely the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So Isaiah 53 is going to talk about his resurrection.

Jesus taught at least four times on the road to Jerusalem that in Jerusalem he would be arrested by the high priests and he would be turned over to the Gentiles and he would be flogged and he would be murdered and he would be raised from the dead.

It was in stunning detail.

Let me read you some of these.

So Jesus is teaching this is what’s going to come.

Biblically speaking, you have the Old Testament that testifies it’s coming.

You have Jesus’ own teaching, “I will die, and I will come back to life.”

The last thing I would want you to see in regard to biblical evidence is when the resurrection of Jesus Christ is argued by the apostles and other biblical writers it’s rarely argued as, “Have faith in,” but rather, “Talk to those who saw,” eyewitnesses.

Paul’s argument around the resurrection is, “There were at least 500 at one time, most of whom are still alive.

Ask somebody.

I’m not making this up.

The Historic Circumstantial Evidence

The historic circumstantial evidence is through the roof.

1.

The utter and complete transformation of his disciples.

As I’ve already covered, these men were cowardly, weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, and yet something happened to them that turned all of that on its head.

a. Look at Peter.

Peter who denied Jesus three times and basically became a coward hiding from the authorities.

Then this same man stands up about 60 days later at Pentecost and preaches his guts out.

It enrages the powers that be, and they brought him before them and said, “Quit teaching about Jesus.

We have the same power to do to you what we did to him.

Quit it.”

What does Peter do? “Oh, okay”?