They are two of the most outrageous claims ever made, in all history. "Outrageous" because they seem to defy human reason--the very limits of anything we'd expect. The first claim is that God has raised Jesus from the grave. Regardless of whether you believe, do you agree that anyone being raised from the dead would be a spectacular occurrence?
One of the most traumatic moments for me as a child, was when my Grandpa Wolfe died. That was the first time the sheer physicality and finality of death really struck me. How could my grandpa, who was so full of life and love, suddenly be gone? I also remember taps being played, the hail of shots being fired to commemorate his service, the flag being folded by his comrades and given to our family, and his body being lowered in a grave. I've never seen a person raised from the dead, have you? I know quite a few doctors, medical people, and morticians who deal regularly with death and they haven't either.
Yet, in Matthew 17:22, Jesus told his disciples that "he must be killed and after three days rise again." He publicly made the same claim to his enemies. In fact, after Jesus died, the chief priests and Pharisees remembered, and demanded Pilate make Jesus' tomb secure. They said, "Sir, we remember that while Jesus was still alive that deceiver [Jesus] said, ‘After three days I will rise again.'"
So Pilate gave the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day, "otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first." (Matthew 27:62-66) Pilate's exact order was, "Take a guard. . . go. . . make the tomb as secure as you know how." And they did. They sealed the tomb and posted a Roman guard--and by guard we mean a squad of soldiers.
Nobody saw the resurrection as even remotely plausible. The disciples fled at first sight of Jesus' shed blood. Jesus' own mother wept. Peter went back to fishing. Joseph, a follower of Jesus, wrapped Jesus' body in linen cloth. The guards sealed and secured the tomb "as good as they knew how." They weren't guarding against the improbability Jesus would actually--literally--physically, be raised from the grave. They were guarding against the more likely probability that a conspiracy might spread.
Now, the second "most outrageous" claim made in all of history was made by the same person. In John 11:25-26 Jesus told Mary and Martha (at a funeral!!), "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
You can judge which is the more outrageous claim: The promise of Jesus resurrection, or the promise of ours. We're not talking about a fairy tale, or metaphor.
The Bible describes Jesus as the "firstborn." The firstborn is the first one out, right? Jesus is the first one to be raised from the grave! Listen to Colossians 1:15-18, "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth visible or invisible whether thrones or power or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body the church; he is beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy."
If you don't like the idea of "firstborn" think PREVIEW. Jesus is a PREVIEW of what's to come for all who believe. Romans 8:11, "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you."
Even our baptism is a preview! Romans 6:3-5 says, "Don't you know that all of us who were baptized in Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like this, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his."
Lest you have doubt what's being claimed here. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:51-57, "Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ"
It's a one-two punch. The firstborn Jesus, then us. Paul says if we reject either claim... whether Christ's resurrection, or the future hope of our own, then all of this Christianity stuff will have been in vain (1 Corinthians 15:13-14).
But as it stands, we've been FREED [UNSTUCK] FROM THE POWER OF DEATH... Christ Jesus being the firstborn, the preview, of what God has in store for all who believe. Our baptism being a picture of God's power to raise us from death to life.
Let me tell you about three actions God has taken in the face of death that are totally for your benefit, should you believe on Jesus. I have three stories, two are true, and one that seems too good to be true!
(1) God Seeks to Save Us
Pastor Wayne Cordeiro tells the story about a church member named Bully, a gentle man, who got his nickname from his days of barking orders at construction sites. After Cordeiro noticed the scars on Bully's hands, he asked him, "Bully, how'd you get so many cuts?" Bully told about a tsunami that hit the Hawaiian Island in the 1960s:
"I was working above the bay that our home overlooks. One morning, the tide receded so much that the children ran out to catch fish in the tide pools left behind. We'd never witnessed the tide so low before, and it gave the kids an unprecedented opportunity to play and romp through the reefs. But what we didn't know was that the ocean was preparing to unleash the largest tsunami our sleepy little town had ever experienced.
Within minutes, a sixty-foot wave charged our unsuspecting town with a force we'd never seen before. The hungry waters rushed inland. Like bony fingers, the waters scratched and pulled homes, cars, possessions, and people back into a watery grave. The devastating power of that wave left in its wake twisted buildings, shattered windows, splintered homes, and broken dreams. I ran as fast as I could to our home, where I found my wife sobbing uncontrollably. "Robby is missing," she shouted. "I can't find Robby!"
Robby was our six-month-old child who was asleep in the house when the ocean raged against our helpless village. I was frantic as I looked over the shore strewn with the remains of the frail stick houses that were now piled in heaps along the sands. Realizing that another wave may soon be following, I began running on top of the wooden structures, tearing up pieces of twisted corrugated roofs that were ripped like discarded remains of a demolition project. I tore up one piece after another running over boards and broken beams until I heard the whimpering of a child under one of the mattresses that had gotten lodged beneath an overturned car.
I reached under and pulled up my little son, Robby. I tucked him under my arm like a football player running for the end zone, then I sprinted back over the debris until I reached my wife. We ran for higher ground, hugging our child and one another, thanking God for his mercy.
Just then, my wife said, "Bully, your feet and your hands. You're covered in blood!" I had been wearing tennis shoes, and I didn't realize that as I ran over the wreckage, I was stepping on protruding nails and screws that had been exposed in the rubble. And as I pulled back the torn corrugated roofing looking for Robby, the sharp edges tore into my hand .... I was so intent on finding my boy that nothing else mattered.
In the face of death, God spared no measured to seek and to save the lost. He pursed us even to shedding his own blood, even to suffering a crown of thorns, a brutal beating, the nails of a cross, and humiliation of Roman crucifixion. God's love compelled Him to pursue us even unto death.
(2) God Sacrifices His Life for Ours
Now, you know how Internet stories have a way of growing. This is an awesome story, but it fits into the "Internet Legend" category! It is completely UNVERIFIED. It fails the SNOPES truth test for many reasons! But still, it speaks of the kind of love mother's have for those they love in the face of death.
In Japan, a team of rescuers reached the ruins of house, only to notice the body of a young mother, through the cracks. Her pose was rather odd. As her house collapsed, she'd knelt on her knees like a person who was worshiping; her body was leaning forward, her two hands supported by an object. The collapsed house had crushed her back and her head.
With great difficulty, the leader of the rescue team reached through a narrow gap, to touch the woman, hoping she might still be alive. However, the cold and stiff body told him that she had passed away for sure. As they prepared to go to the next house, something compelled the rescue leader to go back to the house. Again, he knelt down and put his hand through the narrow cracks, only this time to search the little space under her body. Suddenly, he screamed w/excitement, "A child! There is a child!"
The whole team worked together; carefully they removed the piles of ruined objects around the dead woman. There they found a 3 months-old little boy wrapped in a flowery blanket under his mother's dead body. The woman had made an ultimate sacrifice to save her son. When her house was falling, she used her body to make a cover to protect her son. The little boy was still sleeping peacefully when the team leader picked him up.
A medical doctor came quickly to exam the little boy. As he opened the blanket, he found a cell phone. There was a text message on the screen! It said, "If you can survive, you must remember that I love you." Stunned, the rescuers passed the cell phone, one person to the next, weeping at the profound act of love they'd just witnessed. "If you can survive, you must remember that I love you." http://community.babycenter.com/post/a29512633/a_mothers_unconditional_love
Jesus didn't just pursue us to the extent of shedding his blood... on that cross Jesus laid down his life. He was crushed for our iniquities. His life, to spare ours. He died, the righteous for the unrighteous, that we might have life.
Romans 5:6, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly." Romans 8:32, "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?"
There's more.
(3) God Snatches Us from Grip of Death
In the delivery room, first-time parents Kate and David Ogg were heartbroken when they were told one of their twins (born two minutes apart, at just 26 weeks) had stopped breathing and had just moments to live. For twenty minutes, a room full of doctors and nurses worked feverishly, to revive their baby boy. Despite his occasional gasps for air, his heartbeat was weakening, and the doctors gave up all hope. He'd been deprived of oxygen too long to have a viable life.
As the doctors prepared to take the baby away, the mother insisted she be able to hold her son. For years they'd tried to have kids, and she felt so guilty, seeing her child lie there. She badly wanted to cuddle him and keep him warm. Taking her now lifeless son, she wrapped him in a blanket. For added warmth, she insisted her husband take off his shirt, and climb into the bed with them.
Through tears, they told their son the name they'd chosen for him (Jaime), and that more than anything in the world, they wanted him to live. They explained all they'd gone through to have a son, and how they wanted him to live and take care of his twin baby sister.
Suddenly, their son gasped for air, he opened his eyes for the first time, and grabbed his Dad's finger. Bursting into tears, Mom and Dad began hugging and kissing their son, and haven't stopped since. The mother just knew, "If we had let the doctor walk out of the room with him, Jamie would have been dead."
(See the full story and pictures: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2992862/The-miracle-baby-born-three-months-early-written-doctors-brought-life-mother-s-touch-five-years-old-s-never-sick.html)
Not only does God seek hard after us, breaking his body, shedding his blood. . . Not only does God save us, laying down his life, being crushed for our iniquities, dying in our place. . . but with a firm, eternal embrace, God snatches us from death & revives our souls.
We're not talking about a metaphor here, we're talking about something unspeakable amazing, and true. God seeks. God sacrifices. God Snatches us from death. God raised Jesus from the grave, and he will raise us also.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul invites us to consider the seed. He says, "What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And when you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed. But God gives it a body as he has determined." When we die, our body is like a seed that gets planted in the ground. But then God gives us a new, resurrection body. "What's sown perishable, is raised imperishable. What's sown in dishonor is raised in glory. What is sown in weakness is raised in power. What is sown a natural body, is raised a spiritual body!" And All of this is from God!
It was Martin Luther who said, "The Lord has written the promise of the resurrection not in books alone but in every leaf of springtime." Look all around you. You can see well & good how God causes beauty & splendor to emerge out of death!
My favorite resurrection metaphor however, was captured by Richard Bach: "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."
Biologist and futurist, Elisabet Sahtouris writes: "A caterpillar can eat up to three hundred times its own weight in a day, devastating many plants in the process, continuing to eat until it's so bloated that it hangs itself up and goes to sleep, its skin hardening into a chrysalis. Then, within the chrysalis, within the body of the dormant caterpillar, a new and very different kind of creature, the butterfly, starts to form!
This confused biologists for a long time. How could a different genome plan exist within the caterpillar to form a different creature? . . . [YET] tucked inside pockets of the caterpillar's skin all its life, remaining undeveloped until the crisis of overeating, fatigue and breakdown [are the necessary genome/protein configurations that] allows them to develop. (Partly modified quote... see http://www.greattransitionstories.org/wiki/Story:Metamorphosis)
I suspect there is much about life that will continue to confound biologists, doctors, and scientists. But nothing should confound us more than the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection of all who believe. What some might call the end of the world, the Master calls a new beginning.
This morning the invitation is for you to believe on Jesus for eternal life. Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
This isn't merely an academic question, it's something that matters for eternity. What is your answer? If you are a guest this morning, we want to give you a gift that will encourage your faith. At the welcome center we have a limited number of copies of a book called "Extreme Prayer." If you don't learn to trust God in the little things in life, you're not going to be able to trust him in the big things, like matters of life and death. If you're a 1X or 2X guest, take your card to the Welcome Center and get free book!
Next week, we want to invite you back. We're going to talk about what it will be like to stand before God. Just what will happen?
Just now we're going to celebrate communion. The Bible says whenever we take this bread and drink of this cup, we do it in remembrance of Jesus! The cross is God's text message to us. God is saying, "You must remember that I love you!" I did this for you!
But the Bible also says whenever you eat this bread, drink this cup, "you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Communion is a declaration of our outrageous hope--that he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies.