Easter Day – He Rose Again From The Dead
Sermon Preached by Reverend Stuart Langshaw on Sunday, 31 March 2024.
Today is just amazingly fantastic! Christ is risen!! He is risen indeed! Around the world today Christians of all shapes and sizes and colours and languages and nationalities and denominations will say and sing “Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! “ “Christos anesti!! Alethis anesti!!” Χρισtος ανεστη! Αληθως ανεστη!!!῾In our creed today, as on every Sunday, we say together “We believe … on the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.” Every Sunday is a sort of Easter revisited. The drab purple of Lent has become the glistening white of Easter. We have flowers in church again. We sing the Gloria again after all the serious weeks of Lent. We sing “alleluia” like it’s going out of style. If we Christians appear slightly bonkers today it’s because it’s Easter – and we are bursting our buttons with gladness. Jesus’ grave is empty, Christ is risen, death is defeated.
But out there are many people who say, “Hang on! It can’t be true. That’s not possible. People just don’t resurrect after death. You’re mistaken.” And people out there suggest various alternative explanations for what happened on Easter Day.
Some say – of course the women saw an empty tomb. But what actually happened was that they went to the wrong tomb – an unused one. After all it was early morning … half-light … and they were highly emotional because their Lord and master was dead. In the semi-gloom and in their emotional state, they went to the wrong tomb – an empty one.
But it wasn’t as though they were going to West Terrace cemetery where there were thousands upon thousands of grave sites. They weren’t going to catacombs of tombs. They were going to a newly excavated-into-a-hillside tomb in a garden – their destination was the new tomb of the rich Joseph of Arimathea. And when Mary stood outside the tomb she had a conversation with a man she thought was the staff gardener – who would have to have been working a very early shift that day. It’s a chauvinistic alternative explanation. Women don’t make this sort of mistake. They had seen where Jesus was entombed, they had been there when Jesus as entombed, and just 36 hours later they returned to that spot. The wrong tomb? Not very satisfactory.
Others say – yes the tomb was empty. But Jesus had not resurrected, He had merely revived. On the cross he had not died, but rather went into a sort of coma. Then in the quietness and coolness of the tomb he revived, and made his way out of the tomb. So when the women and disciples came, of course the tomb was empty, for Jesus had walked free.
The gospels are quite clear that Jesus had died on the cross. The Roman soldiers had crucified enough people to know when they were dead. If Jesus was not dead already, the coup de grace would have been the spear that was thrust into his heart. The so-called blood and water from that spear-thrust was evidence of a haemothorax. Or of pleural effusion. Look it up! It’s medical evidence that Jesus had died. Jesus was taken down from the cross, wrapped in fifteen kilos of linen and spices, and placed in a tomb. Yet somehow he revived. After three days without food or water, Jesus unwrapped himself (even though his arms had been wrapped against his body and the spice-soaked linens were probably somewhat dried and hardened by this point), moved the one-to-two-tonne stone from the grave entrance and walked some distance on mutilated feet to find his disciples so that he could falsely proclaim himself to be the resurrected Messiah and conqueror of death. And, the disciples believed him! The swoon or coma theory? Not very satisfactory.
Yet others say – yes, the tomb was empty. But Jesus had not resurrected. The disciples had come and stolen his body to make it appear that Jesus had been resurrected.
But, you see, the Roman soldiers were guarding the tomb, so the disciples would have had to overcome them, disarm them and hobble them, so that the disciples could steal the body. Jesus’ tomb had been sealed by Pontius Pilate with the seal of Rome across the stone. That tomb was now Roman property. If the soldiers allowed anyone to interfere with the seal, let alone the tomb, their lives would have been forfeited, as would the lives of their wives and families. The soldiers weren’t going to let anyone touch that tomb. And the disciples – they were in hiding in fear of their lives – hardly likely to come out and take on a patrol of armed Roman soldiers.
Would the Jewish authorities have stolen Jesus body? They had no reason to do so. And even if they had, they could have produced Jesus’ corpse when the disciple claimed that Jesus had risen from the dead. The stolen body theory? I don’t think so.
And there’s another group of people who say, well, the disciples saw Jesus alive and well again after Easter Day, but it wasn’t the physical Jesus they saw. It was a hallucination. You see, the disciples wanted so much to see Jesus alive again, that they saw a mental image of him alive. It wasn’t real – it was a deep wish and yearning that took over their minds and fooled them into thinking they saw Jesus, but they didn’t. It was merely a wish fulfilment.
But all the factors were wrong for a hallucination. The disciples did not expect to see Jesus alive again. They were completely resigned to coping with a faith movement that would fizzle out because their Lord was dead. In the Upper Room, did ten disciples all have an identical, simultaneous hallucination … and a few days later, joined by Thomas, did eleven disciples all have an identical, simultaneous hallucination ? Is there such a thing as a mass hallucination? St Paul tells us that on one occasion over 500 people saw Jesus at the same time. Mass hallucination? On the road to Emmaus … on the beach eating a seafood breakfast in the open air and in daylight – mass simultaneous hallucination? Does a hallucination cook and eat fish, and have conversations with several people? Does a hallucination conduct a lengthy, detailed conversation answering questions? The hallucination theory? We can see through that!
Wrong tomb theory … deep swoon or coma theory … stolen body theory … hallucination theory. None of them has any power. There are other silly theories such as the one that Jesus had an identical twin brother who was crucified, not Jesus. So what are we left with?
We are left with the fact that today is just amazingly fantastic! Christ is risen!! He is risen indeed! Around the world today Christians of all shapes and sizes and colours and languages and nationalities and denominations will say and sing “Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! “ “Christos anesti!! Alethis anesti!!” Χριστος ανεστη! Αληθως ανεστη!! In our creed today, as on every Sunday, we say together “We believe … on the third day he rose again …”. Put away your drab purple of Lent. Put on the glistening white of Easter. We have flowers in church again. Let’s sing “alleluia” like it’s going out of style. We’re going to sing it 49 times in our service today – I counted them! If we Christians appear slightly bonkers today it’s because it’s Easter – and we are bursting our buttons with gladness. Christ is risen, Jesus’ grave is empty, death is defeated.
I would like to lead you in a liturgical shout … please don’t be shy or restrained …
Christ is risen. Alleluia!!!!
He is risen indeed. Alleluia!!!