Why Resurrection?                                                                                                                                            Rev. Colin S. Marshall

17^th January 2010                                                                                                                     St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Mt. Roskill

Readings: Psalm 138, Isaiah 53:9-12, Matthew 28:1-20, 1 Corinthians 1:12-26

What is your reaction when someone tells you that they have seen someone who is dead?  I’ve found that the response varies by the type of person quite considerably.  Many ethnic groups have interaction with the dead as very much a part of their cultural makeup.  Respect for the dead, because of what they might do otherwise, underlies many cultural practices and is the basis of many fears and primordial superstition.  This is a fascinating study in itself but we won’t go there today.  What about us, what do we believe?  What do the Scriptures teach?

Over the last two weeks we have considered the questions: why faith? And why Jesus?  We move now to consider some of the questions about what we believe and why some of these beliefs are considered fundamental to our Christian faith.

If we were to consider some parts of the Bible we might consider that death was the end, that there was nothing after death at all.  You live, you die.  Full stop.  That’s it. King Solomon for example, with all his wisdom, considered for most of his life, that everything that there was happened here on earth.  For Solomon, who wrote the Book of Ecclesiastes amongst others, everything had a time and place to happen in this life.  But death obliterated everything and everyone; for Solomon the wise man and the fool died alongside each other and were equally forgotten (Ecc 2:14-16).  Yes Solomon believed that God judged everyone, but that judgment and its consequences took place on this earth during our lives (cf. 3:19, 9:4-7).  Solomon was the total empiricist, an early Thomas if you like.  “I have seen / I saw and therefore I know” was his essential modus-operandi.  The poor were poor because they deserved it for what they had done or because God had already determined that their situation was to be their lot in life.  The rich and powerful were so because God was blessing them because they had done well and had God’s blessing.  Solomon’s views were not without support and many people followed this thinking even right up until Jesus’ day.  In Jesus day these beliefs were enshrined in the theology of the Sadducees, the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem.  For them there was no life after death, no human spirit no eternal life or judgment in the hereafter no punishment for things done wrong.  Life, here and now, was all there was and for the Sadducees life was quite comfortable because they were obviously chosen and blessed. 

But Solomon’s thinking was sadly flawed.  His understandings which had started so well were corrupted by the beliefs that he allowed to come into the country from foreign and pagan deities.  In giving in to the demands of his numerous wives and concubines Solomon had allowed the development of pagan worship in Israel.  So wise in some areas, Solomon was so seriously flawed in others.  The thinking of pagan belief had tainted Solomon’s own understandings and brought confusion and placed a veil before the truth God would have had him understand.  Solomon had been seduced by pagan religion and philosophy. 

But the witness of the Old Testament makes Solomon’s sin as obvious as David’s adultery.  Isaiah, Job, Ezekiel, Daniel and many of the Old Testament prophets looked forward to what God would do in the future and the justice and restoration God would bring to all His people.  They looked forward to the time when they would sit with Ezekiel and Moses, who had already gone on ahead before them.  The prophecy of Ezekiel 37 spoke powerfully to a people who understood that metaphorically and literally the dried bones of their nation would be restored and they would stand again, renewed, before God.  How much more literal could you get than the words from Ezekiel 37:12-14 “Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. ¹⁴ I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.” Some, like Isaiah (66:24), also recognized that God would execute justice bringing everlasting torment to those who had opposed the will of God; a punishment that would begin after death and continue unceasingly.  In Daniel 12:1-3 we read “There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.

These Old Testament writers could write with such confidence because their views were not corrupted by pagan belief but they could hear the Spirit speaking to them with clarity.  But all of these pale significantly against the greatest testimony to life after death.  And strangely it comes from one of the very earliest biblical figures: from Abraham himself.  Everyone who followed, including Solomon and the Sadducees, should have learnt this very early lesson from Abraham, but many didn’t or had not.

The story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac is one of the oddest in the Scriptures.  It is strange because in the Bible human life is of the utmost value.  The sacrifice of children was, correctly, seen as among the most abhorrent features of the pagan world.  It is incredibly sad to see that it is now happening again in various parts of South America.  There are only two accounts of child sacrifice in the Scriptures: that of Isaac by Abraham and of Jesus by God.  Both are special in that they are all about, not simply death, but rather the power of resurrection.  To shy away from them as too horrific is to miss a very, very important lesson.

Firstly, the lesson of Abraham.  When God called Abram from the Ur of the Chaldees he called a man from a pagan world to be the father of His people.   God was establishing a new nation that was to be the light to the world.  When we come to God we come with all the baggage of our past.  God gives us forgiveness, a new life, a new spirit, a new community and begins a work in our life that will last throughout our lives.  He begins transforming our minds and changing who we are, if we let Him.  Sometimes this means we have to confront things about ourselves, our families, our cultures, our practices that are difficult.  We are challenged to do so in order that we will see them for what they are and make decisions to follow a Godly path instead of following the old way. Each small victory for the ways of God builds into the new life that we have in Him. 

God’s command to sacrifice Isaac was grievous to Abraham.  Not because of religious belief.  That early there was no understanding that child sacrifice was wrong per se.  Rather it was painful because Abraham was old and Isaac was his only true son (Ishmael, a son outside of marriage was not, culturally, considered a true son).  Abraham was rich with herds of animals that he would have willingly sacrificed but God didn’t want those.  God wanted what was most precious to Abraham, his beloved son.  In the culture Abraham had grown up in, and still in many cultures today, children are considered a man’s immortality.  Your children continue your DNA and with it something of you.  Culturally, for Abraham to kill and burn his only son was to completely destroy his immortality.  Knowing this Abraham had to deeply consider just what it was God was asking.  Was it about obedience, complete obedience at all costs?  Yes it was, but there was something more wasn’t there?

Abraham matched faithfulness with insight and obedience. 

In Genesis 12:21 we learn that God promised Abraham that his descendents would come through Isaac.  And God does not lie.  Therefore if God wanted Abraham to kill Isaac then Isaac was, in some miraculous way, going to rise from the dead.  Therefore Abraham could go ahead and do what God had asked knowing God knew how this was going to work out and it wasn’t going to be terminal.  Abraham acted but was saved from the act of killing by divine intervention.  And his faithfulness to God’s command, even a great personal cost, was greatly rewarded.  In the New Testament the writer of Hebrews 11 makes this clear to us.  He writes: By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, ¹⁸ of whom he had been told, “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” ¹⁹ He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

The second child sacrifice, if you will, is God’s giving of His own Son.  We know the text from John 3:16 well: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  But have you thought about it in parallel with the story of Abraham?   Jesus, like Abraham, had to trust in God to carry out His mission, particularly the last part.  God’s plan for Jesus was that He would die for the sins of the world, for your sin and my sin.  But for that to happen and fulfill God’s plan Jesus had to live a life in obedience to God and to die on the Cross.  At every point Jesus had the option of rejecting the plan and doing His own thing.  Just like Abraham.  As I mentioned last week the testing of a thing is when reality replaces theory.  When faith is put into action.  In this case ultimate action.  Jesus believed, like Abraham had before Him, that God would raise Him from the dead.  This wasn’t just a theory in His head that Jesus thought about.  Throughout the gospels He told His disciples over and over what was going to happen to Him.  He would go to Jerusalem.  He would be tried, tortured and crucified by the rulers of the city.  He would die.  Jesus knew, just as Isaiah knew, as the Psalmist knew, as many writers of the Old Testament Scriptures  knew, the Messiah had to come, suffer and die for the sin of humanity.  Jesus accepted His destiny with a confidence in the promises of God that His death would not be the end but rather the start. 

 So we come to the resurrection itself.  Jesus died and was buried.  On the third day He rose from the dead and thereafter was seen by many.  We know this because we have heard it countless times.  But put yourself for a moment in the place of the apostles and Jesus disciples.  Did they believe it?  Didn’t they just wait around waiting for Jesus’ resurrection to happen so they could get on with things because He had told them what was going to happen?  No.  Not at all.  Death is the human end and we, like it or not accept it.  It tears at the fabric of our lives with pain and grief like nothing else.  Jesus disciples were so destroyed by what happened to Jesus that they acted like any other person would do.  They despaired and wondered what would happen to them.  Their plans were wrecked, their hopes for the future dashed.  They were disconsolate.  All the confidence they had was gone.  Then Jesus returned from the dead.

One of the greatest aspects of the Scripture is its recording of reality.  When Jesus first appeared the disciples, from the women, to the gathered disciples, to Thomas, to some who met on the mountain-top all questioned, doubted, wrestled with the fact that Jesus was alive.  To their mind-sets it just couldn’t happen.  I believe is this happened in our time we would have just as much trouble believing it.  Luke attributes it to their “slowness of heart to believe what the prophets had declared”, (Luke 24:25). I attribute it to a very natural humanness. But it’s this very skepticism that is in itself helpful to us.  The disciples believed through spending time with Jesus and their lives changed immeasurably because of it.  The rest of their lives and their sacrificial deaths became the most eloquent and decisive proof that they knew Jesus had been resurrected. 

While it is tempting to outline the arguments for the physical resurrection of Jesus, though with a transformed and glorious body, as described in the gospels and in 1 Corinthians 15 I will avoid the temptation. What we do want to do though is briefly note the consequences of the resurrection; what it all means.

Firstly, the resurrection of Christ is God’s faithfulness to us in fulfilling His Word and dealing with human sin through the line of Abraham and David.  Where human effort could not remove the taint of sin God did it Himself through Jesus.  God, once again, is proven true and faithful.  It shows that history is working towards a climax and that God is completely and totally in control.  Secondly, Jesus resurrection validates all that He said and taught in His lifetime.  It validates His teaching and example.  It places God’s seal of approval on Jesus’ way of dealing with the poor, with women, with the weak and sinful, with the errant and the sick.  It also affirms God’s anger against sin and those who would distort His Word and attempt to negate His teaching with false dismissive theology on one hand or legalistic hedging on the other.  In recognition of both of these aspects we must also acknowledge that what God has ordained that has yet to happen will come about.  Thirdly, the resurrection is a salient lesson, as Paul so aptly points out in 1 Corinthians 1, against the foolish wisdom of man that looks to humanity and our abilities for the answers. God is not a man nor His abilities or thoughts limited to ours.  We are foolish when we try to make God in our image or limit who He is.  We are reminded that God uses the foolish things to humble those wise in their own eyes, that God’s weaknesses is greater than the greatest of human strength or ability.  When we put ourselves before the things of God we make a foolish mistake.  Fourthly, Jesus’ resurrection proves what the prophets foretold and Abraham knew.  Life exists after death.  This is not all there is but what comes next is better if we know and love the Lord.  This gives us hope, for ourselves and for those who have gone before.  We can have confidence that we will see and be with our loved ones again as they live in the Lord.

But most of all the resurrection proves, beyond any doubt, the incredible love that God has for each and every one of us.  God has not abandoned us to be alone in the universe to wrestle and struggle with all that there is.  He is intimately involved with us in this life and the life to come.  He participates with us.  He understands with us.  He walks with us.  And next week we will look at ‘Why the Holy Spirit’ as we further our understanding of how God is with us now.  Why the resurrection?  Because God lives up to His Word.