Come to LIFE this Easter Sunday

What a day to be gathering as we remember and celebrate the resurrection of Christ,

altering everything.

And that's basically what we're going to look at here in John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

I want to pray and then we're going to launch into this.

If you've got a Bible handy or an iPad or something like that,

it'd be great if you could get to John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you for the opportunity just to gather now

to have your word open in front of us.

We have just heard that what has been written has been written so that we might see Jesus

and that we might believe in him and that we might have life.

And so we ask that you might do that for us tonight, that we might see him,

that we might believe in him and that we might have life in his name,

that we might live as he lives now forever and in perfection.

And we ask it for your glory.

Amen.

There was an opinion piece in the Herald's Good Weekend yesterday.

It's normally a good morning.

Good Weekend yesterday.

It was written by Benjamin Law and it was titled something like Holidays are Sacred.

Benjamin describes himself as non-religious,

not an atheist, but a happy agnostic, that is, a lifelong doubter.

He suggested if he was to adopt a religious symbol at all, it would be a question mark.

Having said that, he goes on in the short little piece to say that he does, in fact, love Jesus.

Not in the religious sense, obviously,

but I think that everyone can agree that he sounded like a decent fellow.

Jesus distrusted the rich.

He helped the poor and embraced the most shunned and vulnerable members of society.

He was the first Marxist radical.

He goes on to say,

And then he makes his point.

But why stop at Easter and Christmas?

In our cities, especially with their Muslim and Jewish and Buddhist and Hindu communities,

wouldn't it make sense to celebrate and learn about these cultures too?

And he concludes that if we were to do that,

in fact, have a whole heap more public holidays,

and frankly, who wouldn't agree with that?

Or public holidays.

He said not just have more holidays,

but that we'd, in fact, be a more tolerant society.

The piece wasn't militantly anti-religious.

It was positive.

It raised some questions in a fairly authentic manner.

He was fairly honest about where he stood and what his thoughts were.

But for me, it raised the question,

and I think in some ways he's getting at this,

it's the truth question and the meaning question.

Is Christianity one of the cultural options that you can choose from

in a society like Australia at the moment,

including the option that he has chosen,

and that is to be happily a lifelong doubter?

Is Easter, what we're gathered here to celebrate right now,

one of the special religious holidays in a mixed bag

of equally valid religious holidays that we could be celebrating?

Or are we gathered here tonight as we've just sung

and as we'll just hear from God's word

to celebrate something totally unique and wonderful and life-changing

that means that Jesus,

just something a little bit more than just a fairly decent bloke

and potentially the first communist?

And so there are two questions for us here on this Easter Sunday,

and that is the truth question and the meaning question.

Whenever you talk about the resurrection of Jesus,

the truth question and the meaning question are actually intertwined.

The truth question is, well, did it actually happen?

And the meaning question is, who cares if it happened?

Whether it happened or not, who cares?

What difference does it make to my life?

There are people who reject Christianity

because intellectually they don't think that it's true.

But there are other people who reject Christianity,

not because they're convinced it's not true,

but because they can't see why to make any real difference

in their life if it were true,

or they don't want to see

that it makes any real difference in their life.

Recent survey came out,

and I'm going to fudge the figures a little bit, I think,

because I can't remember them totally.

Something like 19% of Australians

believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

And about a similar sort of figure

are completely open to the idea

that he rose again from the dead.

And yet only a very small number of people

actually go to church

and declare themselves to be Christian in our country.

So it's not just a matter of truth,

it's the matter of meaning.

What difference does it make?

40 years ago, there was an assumption in the Western world

that there were fixed natural laws

that made this world understandable

and scientifically manageable.

And unfortunately, these laws did not allow

for the truth claim that someone who was dead

actually would come back alive

and certainly, in Jesus' case, live forever.

The world at that time,

with its scientific understanding of natural laws,

did not allow for things to come back from the dead.

And so unbelief in the claims of Christianity

were often connected to those kinds of assumptions,

an intellectual assumption.

Today, there's a different assumption

behind unbelief in our world.

Today, the assumption is

there's a personal law inside of me.

You could call it individualism.

One form of individualism

is a personal law that says

I do not have to adapt my life

to anything that I don't find personally satisfying

or personally helpful to me.

That is, truth for me

is what I find personally satisfying

or what I find useful or helpful for me.

And so in the end,

don't give a rip whether Jesus rose from the dead or not.

Because whether he did or not is not my issue.

My issue is, do I actually care?

Even if it is true,

what difference does it make to my life day by day?

And so if you can't see

why it actually matters for life now,

then this personal law

will just view the resurrection of Jesus

in the same way that you might view a UFO.

I really don't need to bother about it.

Unless it's hovering over my house

late at night.

Now, some of us think, in fact,

if you're of a younger generation,

you will definitely think this way

and probably not even know

that's the way you think.

It's just part of the cultural soup

that you've been marinating in

since you were born.

Now, I think both questions,

the truth question

and the so what question,

are important to address at the same time.

So let's deal with the truth question

to start with.

The great C.S. Lewis,

the writer of the Narnia series

and a bunch of other stuff,

you know, he was a professor in Oxford

and other things like that,

wrote that in a world

that was making such rapid advancement

in scientific understanding,

he said there's a danger

of what he called chronological snobbery.

It's the assumption that any conclusion

that was made by previous generations

was based on ignorance.

For instance, chronological snobbery

might lead some to conclude

that the people who were living

around Jesus' time

were just gullible peasants

who were just ignorant of reality,

just excitable, stupid people.

But that's not the picture we get here

in the first couple of verses

of John chapter 20.

John 20 · chapter mention

If you've got your Bibles there,

it'd be great if you could open them up

to the passage that Nick and Sam

read out to us.

John chapter 20,

John 20 · chapter mention

look at the first couple of verses with me.

Early on the first day of the week,

while it was still dark,

Mary Magdalene went to the tomb

and saw that the stone

had been removed from the entrance.

And so she came running to Simon Peter

and the other disciple,

the one that Jesus loved,

and said, notice what she says here,

they have taken the Lord out of the tomb

and we don't know where they've put him.

Now, before he was crucified,

Jesus had mentioned a number of times,

after I'm dead,

I'm actually going to come back to life.

And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He said a number of times

and then we kind of struck with the disciples,

this is what's going to happen.

Even though it was mentioned so many times,

Mary goes to the tomb,

sees the tomb's empty

and she doesn't conclude

there's been a resurrection here.

The first assumption for her

is that the body has been removed.

It's down there in verse 13 as well.

She's working on the assumption.

Later on we find out

that the Jewish leaders

have come along in the middle of the night,

stolen the body of Jesus

and dumped it somewhere

outside the city limits.

Like us, Mary didn't just assume

that Jesus came back to life

and even Peter and John,

two of Jesus' key disciples,

didn't automatically jump to the conclusion

that Jesus had resurrected either.

Notice verses eight and nine here.

Finally, the other disciple

who had reached the tomb first

also went inside.

He saw and he believed.

They did not,

they still did not understand

from scripture

that Jesus had to rise from the dead.

So when he goes there,

John sees and believes.

He saw and he believed

what Mary just told him,

that Jesus' body's not there.

So looks in the tomb,

oh yeah, Mary's right,

the body's not there.

Tomb's empty.

And yet they still hadn't clicked

that Jesus had risen again

as he said he would.

And so this tells me

that the,

at least three of the early disciples

of Jesus

were not just a bunch

of silly peasants,

easily excitable,

gallible people

who believe any sort of story

that came along.

Even though Jesus

had told them repeatedly

that he would come back to life,

they weren't actually

looking for it.

And yet,

what they were confronted with

as they went to the tomb

was a bodiless tomb.

There was no body in the tomb.

You cannot play around

with the resurrection of Jesus

and see that maybe

it was just some sort

of spiritual resurrection.

There was no body.

And one of the great

historical evidences

for the resurrection

is that the tomb

where Jesus was buried,

which was guarded

by the Romans,

handpicked by the Jewish leaders,

was actually empty

on the third day.

Even the enemies of Jesus

could never produce the body.

And if they could have,

we wouldn't be sitting here

right now.

They would have nipped

this early thing

called Christianity

in the bud

right there and then,

dealt with it,

over and done with

and it would have gone

by the wayside

of every other nutcase movement

that began

back in those times.

Some have come up

with the explanation

as to why the tomb

was empty.

For instance,

some have suggested

that he never really died.

He was just

really sick.

And they put him

in the cool tomb,

closed it over,

three days in pure darkness,

and nice cool weather

and he revived

and revived enough

from the spear

going through his side

and the nail holes

and the crown of thorns

and everything else

that revived enough

to remove the stone

that took several people

to put it in place

and to disappear

and, I don't know,

wander off down the Sea of Galilee

or something like that.

it really goes against

the horrible realities

of crucifixion,

against the rigorous steps

that Pilate and the leaders

demanded to make sure

that he was

and that he was,

in fact, dead.

The steps that they took

to make sure

that no one got in

or out of that tomb.

Others have suggested

the disciples of Jesus

stole the body.

on one level,

you think that's pretty odd.

I mean,

Peter and James,

Peter and John

go to the tomb.

All they discovered

is folded bedclothes.

So why on earth,

I don't get this point,

why on earth

would they go in,

steal the body

and unwrap it all,

first of all,

take all the grave clothes off,

put them in a pile

on one side,

fold them up neatly

and run off

with a dead,

naked body?

I don't get that.

Who does that?

But more significantly,

if they took the body,

it would mean

that these disciples

began to risk their lives

and in fact,

did in fact go to death,

give themselves up to death

for something that they knew

was in fact

nothing more than

an April Fool's joke.

A complete hoax.

How else do you account

for the dramatic change

in the disciples

after Good Friday

if it wasn't

for the resurrection?

The fact that they were

utterly dejected,

they were terrified

after the death of Jesus,

they did not have hope

for a resurrection,

they were ready

to go back fishing,

these were the guys

who abandoned him,

denied that they knew him,

all took off.

They were scared

of the authorities

as we just read,

the doors were locked,

they were hiding

in a secluded room,

unwilling to believe

the first reports

of Jesus' resurrection.

And yet in a matter

of just a few weeks,

these same men

were overflowing

with joy

and with courage

and ready to die

for Jesus.

Why?

What had happened?

their own explanation

is that the Jesus

they saw dead

came back to life.

Now the evidence

is there for sure,

but doubting the resurrection

is pretty common.

Strangely enough,

the first person

to doubt the resurrection

was not a person

opposed to Christianity,

but in fact

one of Jesus'

chief supporters,

a man called Thomas.

He wasn't there

when Jesus

first appeared

to his disciples

and he came

to him soon after.

Down in verse 24,

it says,

now Thomas,

called Didymus,

one of the twelve,

was not with the disciples

when Jesus came

and so the other disciples

told him,

we've seen the Lord.

But he said to them,

unless I see

the nail marks

in his hand

and put my fingers

where the nails were

and put my hand

in his side,

I will not believe it.

Unless I see it

for myself,

I won't believe it.

I'll believe it

if God shows himself

to me.

Now the odd thing

is that resurrection

wouldn't have been

a new idea for Thomas.

He's an Orthodox Jew

and they believed

in everyone being resurrected

to face judgment

when God calls an end

to this world

as we know it.

But here he doubts

the resurrection of Jesus.

His response

to the news

is absolute.

He makes demands

in absolute terms.

Unless I see,

unless I place my hands,

I will not believe.

He demands

exhaustive proof

rather than

sufficient evidence.

A number of years ago,

I was flying home

from Canada

and I walked up

to customs,

handed over my passport

and after the awkward

pause there

of wondering

if I've done

anything wrong,

the guy says,

hmm,

says here

that you're

a minister.

I said,

yeah,

that's right.

And he goes,

right.

Okay,

so what would you say

to a person

who says to you,

show me God

and I'll believe in him?

And,

you know,

I'm sort of sitting

there going,

oh man,

I just want to go home.

And is this a test

to see whether

I'm actually a minister

or,

you know,

somewhere else dodgy

or is this guy

a genuine,

asking a genuine question?

And I'm,

you know,

all these things

are running through my brain

thinking,

is this a test

so I can get home

or what's going on here?

And I thought,

well,

best thing I can do

is just go for broke

and just give it to him

and see what happens

and hopefully

I'll get home sometime.

I said to him,

great question.

And Jesus said,

interestingly enough,

if you see me,

you see God.

He declared to be,

declared himself

to be God himself

and he did lots of miracles

to prove it

and no question about that.

He raised people

from the dead,

he healed people,

he stopped water

and storms

and everything like that.

And it's interesting

that in some of those miracles,

a particular miracle

in case,

was he actually raised

this guy called Lazarus

from the dead.

The Jewish leaders

put him in

to the tomb

four days later,

Jesus comes along

and in full view

of everyone,

he says,

Lazarus,

come on out.

Lazarus came out

and what they wanted

to do to Jesus

in that particular moment

was actually kill him.

That's because seeing

doesn't equal believing.

And John chapter 20 says,

John 20 · chapter mention

blessed are those

who don't physically see

and yet believe.

John chapter 20

John 20 · chapter mention

himself says

that there is sufficient evidence

that what John has written

was enough

that you might see Jesus

and actually believe in him.

But in the end,

it's a matter of the will.

I said,

God could appear to you right now.

In fact,

I could be God right now.

And I could prove to you

that I'm God right now.

And you could see me,

but seeing doesn't equal believing

because believing

is a matter of the will.

It's not just about the intellect.

It's a matter of the heart

and the will.

And so I would encourage you

to see that it might be

a matter of the will

of your heart

of whether you actually

believe the evidence or not.

I said,

that's basically

what I would say.

And he said,

fair enough,

gave my passport

and away I went.

And this is what Thomas does here.

Thomas rejects the witness

of 10 or more

of his trusted friends.

He dictates

absolute terms to God

about believing,

believing,

but he hasn't grappled

with the fact

that seeing

is not necessarily

believing.

Many people saw

the miracles of Jesus,

I just said,

and yet they didn't believe.

The Jewish leaders

plotted to kill Jesus

the moment Lazarus

walked out of the tomb.

There are further

and deeper dimensions

to believing

than just simply seeing.

Belief in Jesus,

belief in the resurrection

comes down to a matter

of the will.

And so what happens

with Thomas?

Read verse 26 here with me.

A week later,

his disciples were in the house

again and Thomas

was with them.

Though the doors were locked,

Jesus came and stood

among them and said,

peace be with you.

Then he said to Thomas,

put your finger here,

see my hands,

reach out your hand

and put it into my side.

Stop doubting and believe.

When Jesus finally

did appear to Thomas,

he said to him,

stop doubting and believe.

The call from Jesus

to Thomas was

stop disbelief and believe.

Now Jesus was merciful

to Thomas here.

He came to him

and demonstrated

his resurrection

and Thomas believed.

And Jesus' intention

was not that everyone

everyone would see him

and believe

in the same way

that Thomas would.

He didn't appear

to everyone

after his resurrection,

but he did appear

to well over 500 people

at different times.

Enough saw him alive.

And John,

who wrote this biography,

was one of those eyewitnesses.

And this is what he says

about how we come

to see and believe.

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 thereby believing

you may have life

in his name.

What he is saying

is that what is written

in this biography

of Jesus' life,

his ministry,

his death,

and his resurrection,

is everything that you need

in order to believe.

You don't need to know

anything more

than what is written

in John's Gospel

or the other biographies

of Jesus

to believe and to see.

And so my first challenge

is pick one up.

Maybe you haven't done that

in a long time.

Just pick one up

and read it.

What I think is fantastic

about John 20

is,

and it particularly strikes me,

is the transparency

of what John

has written here.

The first followers

of Jesus

should have easily

believed in the resurrection.

But they were the first

to significantly doubt it.

The New Testament

doesn't even try

to cover up

their doubting.

And that's good for us.

It's good for us

to see that it's not

easy to believe

just as hard

as it was

then

as it is

now.

There's a transparency

to it.

If you don't find it

easy to believe,

that's okay.

Of course,

there are also

those who refuse

to look into

the sufficient evidence

for Jesus' resurrection

because it's not

a matter

about having

sufficient evidence.

It's more

a matter

of the claims

that Jesus

has made

about himself

and his mission.

And this is the

so what question.

That is,

it's not about

the intellect,

it's about the heart

and the will.

There is a

comfortable place

of happy ignorance.

There is a place

of

being

happily

a lifelong doubter

as

Benjamin Law

has put it.

I'm happy

to be a lifelong doubter.

I'm happy

to stay

in this position

is what he's saying.

Notice what Thomas

says when he realized

that Jesus

had come back

to life.

Verse 28,

if you like,

answers the so what.

What's the significance

of the resurrection?

He says,

my Lord

and my God.

They're the first

words

that come out

of Thomas' mouth

when he touched

his hands

and put his,

touched Jesus' hands

and put his hand

in his side.

They're the first words

that come out

of his mouth.

The first words

were not

about the resurrection.

It's like,

how did you do that?

Like,

you know,

how do you hold,

how do you drink water

with holes in your hands

and what was it like

three days in darkness?

What was it like

on the other side?

Tell me about death.

It was a multitude

of questions

that he could have had

but the first thing

that came out

of his mouth

was the implications

of the resurrection.

My Lord

and my God.

What he's

recognizing here

is because of the resurrection

everything that Jesus

said about himself

was true.

Every promise

that he's made

is true.

He is God.

He is the king

of the universe.

He is my Lord.

He is my God.

He is my boss.

He is the judge

of all humanity.

He is God.

And the resurrection

means that what Jesus

promised

he must have delivered.

He went to the cross

on Friday

taking upon himself

the sin of the world

so that we can have

direct access to God

and his resurrection

proves that he was effective.

And I can have

direct access to God

because of his death

on the cross.

That's the answer

to the so what question.

The resurrection

means that all

human guilt

and sin

and shame

has been dealt with

finally and fully.

It means that death

has not only

been confronted

but it's been

conquered

by Jesus.

It means that new

and true life

can be experienced

before death

and eternal life

after death.

It means that hope

for better things

has gone from the

category of

maybe

to an absolute

certainty.

It means that a new

heavens and a new

earth where those

who trust in Jesus

will live forever

like he lives

forever

is coming.

that is what

Jesus offers

those

who put their

trust in him

for those who

believe in him.

We don't just see him

but believe in him.

And what that means

is that Jesus

is a lot more

than just a

decent fellow.

The first

communist

not that I

agree that he was

the first communist

he's a lot

more.

He isn't just

one option

amongst many.

Something

incredibly unique

and life changing

and world view

shaping

happened

on that first

Easter Sunday.

Do you see it?

Do you believe it?

And so

sitting here

in 2015

we don't have

Thomas'

direct evidence.

We're

sitting here

a lot more

like Mary

and Peter

and John

at the tomb.

There is

sufficient evidence

and either

we see

through it

or we don't.

And what

John has

written here

is these

things 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.

And so

friends

God has

brought you

here this

Easter

for this

message

for this

bit of the

Bible

and for

this story

the resurrection

of Jesus

so that

you might

see

Jesus

so that

you might

believe

Jesus

and that

you might

have life

in his

name

a life

in Jesus

that triumphs

over death

and beyond

death.

And so

my prayer

for you

and for us

as a church

here

is that

this Easter

that you

will now

or that you

might very

soon by

God's grace

see

and believe

in Jesus

and in

seeing the

resurrected

Jesus

and believing

in him

that you

will have

life

that lives

forever

as he

lives

forever

Amen.

Thank you.