Sermon from June 5, 2011
"Resurrection"
Mark 16:6

Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”

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.” I’d like to see those hands. Wouldn’t you?

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” – John 20:24-28.

Science and the Resurrection
Now, here’s a question for you. Suppose Thomas knew that the earth revolved around the sun. Suppose he knew and accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution. Suppose he knew and accepted Einstein’s theory of relativity. How do you think he would have responded when Jesus said to him, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe?”

I’d like to think that if Thomas had known modern science, he would have said, “Newton, Darwin, and Einstein missed something. A new fact has appeared, and we have to adjust the way we look at the world, including science.” When we confess, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead,” we aren’t denying other facts; we are saying a new fact has appeared that changes the way we look at everything.

Remember Jesus’ disciple, Peter? He ran away when the authorities arrested Jesus, and later that night he denied Jesus three times. Forty days later, he stood in the temple and declared his allegiance to Jesus, whatever the authorities did to him. What changed? Peter had seen Jesus, alive again.

Every generation starts the process all over. Jesus rose from the dead forever. What will the new generation do with that fact? What will you do with that fact? One measure of the power of that fact is that in 2011 there are about two billion people who believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. That’s an unknown power for change.

Not a Ghost
A young man came to our church in Upstate NY in the 1970s. He was twenty-something. He and I sat alone in my living room and talked about faith and life. He told me that his mother had died recently. I expressed my condolences. He appreciated that and then told me a story that sort of made the hair on the back of my head stand up.

He had been reading in bed one night at home alone. He never changed the volume or the tone of his voice as he said, “My mother appeared by my bed, and we just looked at each other. Neither of us spoke. Then she just disappeared. The next night, the same thing happened. But she never came again.” It was the first of many paranormal experiences people have told me over the years. It wouldn’t surprise me if many of you have had such an experience. I tell the story here to make a point.

When Christians say, “Jesus rose from the dead,” they don’t mean that he was a ghost. The offer of Jesus to Thomas made sense only if Jesus was there with a body real enough to bear scars and to be touched. On other occasions He ate and cooked and talked. The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:6 that Jesus appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, an unlikely mass delusion; and if you wanted to check it out, he said, you could go talk to them, most of whom are still living.

Hebrews 7:16 puts the Church’s belief clearly when it says that Jesus has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life. That is what it means when we confess, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead.” There may be ghosts and all kinds of paranormal phenomena in the world. But on Easter Sunday God put a stop to the disorder in His creation. He began to put His creation in proper working order again by reversing death and raising Jesus’ body back to indestructible life. What are you doing with this fact? It changes everything.

Our Distinctive Faith
Finally, you still hear people say Jesus was a great moral teacher and nothing more. Please hear me! The least distinctive feature of Christianity is its moral teaching. We share many of our moral standards with Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists. What sets us apart is what we believe about Jesus, and central to our belief in Jesus is that on the third day he rose again from the dead. If you take that away from our faith, we are left with an empty shell.

Here’s the memorable way the Apostle Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15:16-19. 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 (those who have died) in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

If you don’t believe that, it is because you believe something else. Science has nothing decisive to say about the matter one way or the other. This congregation confesses, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead.” This congregation confesses, “I believe in Jesus Christ . . . who rose again from the dead on the third day.

Communion with the Risen Christ
Believing that is how we participate in the salvation of the world. Paul put it this way in Romans 10:9: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

When you believe that, you join the global community of people, who say that God will someday put a final stop to the disorder in His creation by reversing death and raising all humanity from the dead. You also discover that God is restoring, sometimes very slowly, but restoring order in the way they think and live. A new creation has begun from the inside out.

Communion is meant for all those who have made the decisive turn back to God by believing that God raised Jesus from the dead. If you have made that decisive turn, we want you to share the Lord’s Supper, even if you are not part of this congregation.

If you have not made that decisive turn, why not do it right here, right now? Don’t worry about saying the right words. Just tell God that you believe He raised Jesus from the dead; and if you do that, be sure you say so publicly. Don’t be a secret believer. We actually have a baptism class late this afternoon that will help you do that. I’ll explain that in a minute as well as some other ways you could say so publicly.