Jesus is Alive!

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?
He is not here; he has risen! ” Luke 24:5-6

Whose Bones Are Those?

I promised to address the question of whose bones are in that box unearthed in Jerusalem a few years back, that James Cameron has turned into a documentary. He claims it might be the body of Jesus who was married to Mary Magdalene. Apparently it was a family plot owned by a middle class family in Jerusalem. Not too coincidentally it has almost the same theme as Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. I should have talked about the article when it first came out because it seems to have disappeared from the media in a big hurry. You know about yesterday's news.

But a promise is a promise and its Easter Sunday so I will say just a few words about it. Enough to give you something to use when you are accosted by your friends in the coffee shop.

Whose bones are they?
Of course I have no idea.
But they are not the bones of Jesus of Nazareth.
Why can I say that with assurance?
Here is one reason:

The people who knew Jesus and were there, and his followers who would have first and second hand access to the life of Jesus, all believed he was crucified and resurrected.
In fact they staked their lives on it.

OK, a skeptic might say, but there have been many many accounts of people willing to believe the improbable and follow a myth or fable.
True, but how many people do you know are willing to lay down their life for something they know is false?
History is filled with misguided fanatics who lay down their life for something we know or believe is false.
Well educated young adults are willing to take fatal overdoses because they believe they will be caught up in a space ship hidden in the tail of a visiting comet. Suicide bombers sacrifice their lives for their brand of religion.

But in none of those cases do the people know beyond a shadow of a doubt that their cause is false. In fact the opposite is true. They are convinced they are right.

Here is the hypothesis:
Peter, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew and the rest, maybe with the exception of John all died violent martyr's deaths. So did Stephen and later Paul along with many many others.
Now what are the chances that they would willingly go to their deaths if they knew at that very moment Jesus and Mary Magdalene had settle down to a comfortable suburban life in the suburbs of Jerusalem?

Immediately after Pentecost Peter James and John are arrested for preaching about Jesus' resurrection and given a cease and desist order by the Sanhedrin. They say “we must obey God rather than men. God raised Jesus from the dead, who you killed...”

Saul of Tarsus has made a personal crusade out of persecuting followers of Jesus right to the death. This has become his main life's passion. He is there at the stoning of Stephen and is fanatically anti-Jesus. Knowing what he knows about the fate of believers, what are the chances he is going to make an immediate about turn claiming to have met the resurrected Jesus on the road to Damascus if he knew for a fact that Jesus was either still dead, or living in a Jerusalem bungalow?

Ok, point made I think.

Whether or not you believe Jesus was resurrected, the people who knew him certainly believed it and were willing to lay down their lives on what they were certain of. Had Jesus either not been resurrected or still living somewhere, would they submit to such awful deaths? One or two crazy people might, but would the lot of them? And from what you read they do not sound crazy. A bit thick at times, but not crazy.

The People Who Believed, or Did They?

One feature of the gospels that always stands out to me, every time I read them, is how like us they are.
I think there is a temptation to think that because they lived two thousand years ago they were maybe naïve and gullible, and certainly as pre-scientific, more likely to believe things that we would not.
And yet you read the accounts of the first witnesses to the resurrection. Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, Salome...when they rushed back to tell the others what they had seen were simply not believed.

We read in Luke's account that after Peter goes and checks it out for himself, he leaves, not convinced of a resurrection, but simply went away wondering what had happened.
These were not people predisposed to accept the notion, but were apparently unwilling to believe until they had first had evidence for themselves. Even then that was not always enough. Thomas epitomizes it when he says, “no way. I won't believe it until I see and touch Him for myself.”

That is enough to get me pointed in the right direction.
But it is not enough, in itself, to keep me there.
I need to know first hand that Jesus is alive.
Now if the gospel didn't really matter all that much, then just reading about it might be enough.

But I have staked my life on it too, in a different way.
So too have most of you, I believe.
I am not going to base my life's journey on something I just hope might be true.
It is certainly not enough to inform me when I come to important choices that I should turn to God and ask for direction.

Meeting the Resurrected Jesus.

So I need to know that if Jesus is alive he is alive to me too, or else I will just live out my life making choices for myself based on what I think is in my own best interests. I will not follow a Jesus I am not sure about.
And through life, there have been many times and occasions when Jesus has met me on the road too.
He intersects my life in ways that I know only the living God could do, and removes all doubt that He is here and alive.

And I believe that is the most eloquent proof anyone can have.
You can have it too.
Jesus is alive!, is not just a good slogan.
It is also a promise.

The gospel says, seek and you will find. Jesus says, “behold I stand at the door and knock.”
It is not a mystery.
But you have to be willing to take God on his terms, not yours.
If you want to hear from the living Jesus you have to come on his terms, which is to remember its about his will for you, not your own agenda.
You have to be willing to come admitting that you need his forgiveness and acknowledging his death as the price for your sin.

And you have to be willing to listen to what God has to say to you and then be willing to follow through on what you are told.
Most often that comes in the pages of scripture. Every day you read a bit and with an open heart listen to what God is saying to you and then doing what you hear and read.

And God will make his presence known to you in the way that only God can do.
Jesus is alive.
Peter, James, John and the rest knew it.
Millions since then have known it.
You can know it too, if you don't already.
You don't have to suspend your credulity. God will communicate in ways that make sense.
You do have to suspend your ego, however, and the need to control your own agenda.

And then we all can say on Easter Sunday and as often through the year that you have to remind yourself.
Jesus is alive!

Preached April 8, 2007
Dr. Harold McNabb
West Shore Presbyterian Church
Victoria, British Columbia