He is Risen Indeed
As we move through Holy Week, Christians in the Western Church are preparing to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the grave on Easter Sunday. However, for Easter to mean anything, then the resurrection must be rooted in historical fact. As Christians we believe as a matter of fact that on the Sunday morning following Jesus’ crucifixion, that the earth shook, the stone was rolled away, and the tomb was empty. In fact, the empty tomb is perhaps the most significant piece of evidence for the resurrection. It is a piece of evidence on which nearly all scholars, both critical and conservative, agree. They agree that the body was not there on Sunday morning.
“As Christians we believe as a matter of fact that on the Sunday morning following Jesus’ crucifixion, that the earth shook, the stone was rolled away, and the tomb was empty.”
Over the course of history this has led to several attempts to explain the empty tomb other than God raising Jesus from the grave.
1. Some have suggested that the first witnesses of the resurrection went to the wrong grave. If so, do you really think that subsequent visitors to grave would not have said, “No that’s not where we buried him…this is where we laid his body.” In addition, the authorities who were attempting to squash the rise and rapid spread of Christianity across the Roman world would have said you guys are going to the wrong tomb. The fact that the preaching of the resurrection began in Jerusalem in Acts 2 is evidence that they went to the right tomb and that indeed it was empty. As Paul Althaus writes, the resurrection proclamation "could not have been maintained in Jerusalem for a single day, for a single hour, if the emptiness of the tomb had not been established as a fact for all concerned.”
2. Some have suggested that Jesus didn’t really die. If so, do you really think that a man who had the flesh stripped from his back, a crown of thorns pierce his brow, nails driven through his hands and feet, his side pierced, and his myocardial sac punctured could have rolled away the very large stone at the mouth of His tomb and survived without seeking medical care? If He had, don’t you think someone would have seen him in that state as he made his way through the city or the surrounding villages?
3. Some have suggested that the Roman or Jewish authorities took the body. If so, wouldn’t the easiest way to crush the swell of the early Christian movement have been to produce the body? In addition, the earliest Jewish attempts to oppose Christianity admit the empty tomb. In Matthew 28:11-15, there is a reference made to the Jewish attempts to refute Christianity be arguing that Jesus’ followers took the body. The reason this is important is because it shows that even the Jewish leaders didn’t deny the empty tomb. So even hostile witnesses who didn’t embrace Christianity were admitting to the fact of empty tomb. This leads us to ask why they would admit a fact so decidedly not in their favor unless the evidence was too strong to be denied? Dr. Paul Maier calls this "positive evidence from a hostile source”. In essence, if a source admits a fact that is decidedly not in its favor, the fact is genuine.
“…the simplest explanation for the empty tomb is found in Acts 2:24, God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.”
4. Some have suggested the disciples took the body. If so, do you really think they would have kept the hoax up when they began to face imprisonment and death? If they had taken the body, they would have said, “Ah, we were just playing! Here he is.” Would you really be torn limb from limb, crucified upside down, and exiled to an island prison if you knew you were perpetrating a hoax? Me neither…
5. Some have suggested the account is ancient fiction or legend. However, the source material for the Gospel of Mark is far too early to have been legendary. The account of the empty tomb in Mark’s gospel originated within 7 years of the events it narrates. What is the evidence for this? Let me give you three pieces.
• One German commentator by the name of Rudolf Pesch, observes that the Gospel of Mark never mentions the high priest during the life of Jesus by name. He says, "this implies that Caiaphas, who we know was high priest at that time, was still high priest when the story began circulating." How do we know this? Pesch again, "if it had been written after Caiaphas' term of office, his name would have had to have been used to distinguish him from the next high priest. But since Caiaphas was high priest from A.D. 18 to 37, this story began circulating no later than A.D. 37, within the first seven years after the events,".
• In addition, Pesch argues that “Paul's traditions concerning the Last Supper” written in A.D. 56 in 1st Corinthians 11 “presuppose the account in Mark.” Pesch says “this implies that the source for Mark’s gospel account goes right back to the early years" of Christianity. So, the early source Mark used puts the testimony of the empty tomb too early to be legendary.
• Finally, the foremost literary scholar of the 20th century, CS Lewis, responded to the suggestion that the accounts narrated in the gospels are legendary or fiction. He wrote, “I have been reading poems, romances, vision literature, legends, and myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know none of them are like this (speaking of the gospels). Of this (gospel) text there are only two possible views: Either this is reportage…or else, some unknown (ancient) writer…without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern novelistic, realistic narrative…” Lewis tells us that ancient fiction is very different from modern fiction. Ancient fiction does not read like a Tom Clancy novel. Rather ancient fiction reads like the so called “gospel of Peter”, a forgery from about A.D. 125. This account has all the Jewish leaders, Roman guards, and many people from the countryside gathered to watch the resurrection. Then three men come out of the tomb, with their heads reaching up to the clouds. Then a talking cross comes out of the tomb! This is what legend looks like, and we see none of this in Mark's account of the empty tomb--or anywhere else in the gospels for that matter! Rather we see the kinds of details that would only be included if they were based on eyewitness reports.
In philosophy, the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements is called Occam’s Razor. In other words, Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanations are usually better than complex explanations. The simplest explanations are the ones with the least number of variables no matter how unbelievable they may seem. The simplest explanation for the empty tomb is found in Acts 2:24, God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. This is why Christians across the globe gather in worship every Sunday, and in particular this Sunday.
Christ is risen, He is risen indeed!
Shannon is one of the pastors at Redeemer and has led the church through preaching and vision since its launch in late 2015. He and his wife Karen live in Fate with their two kids. You can connect with Shannon here.