Welcome/Introduction

Opening Story

• A post-truth world, what’s true for your isn’t true for me.
• We only claim there is no truth, when the truth is inconveniencing us.
• [[[ Mythbusters — I reject your reality and substitute my own ]]]
• But at the same time when the truth is useful, we demand that it be protected!
• STORY: “I don’t like blue pens”
• Deep inside we know that the truth matters, and if truth does indeed matter, the question becomes:
  • With so many different religions claiming that they have the corner on the truth market, how can we know which one, if any, is true?

Richard E Simmons III (Economist) makes this suggestion:

Jesus and Christianity is where a person should start in his search for spiritual truth. Christianity is the only falsifiable religion in the world. In other words there is a way to prove that it is false. The reason I say this is because Christianity depends on certain historical facts to be true. Prove they never happened and Christianity is fraudulent.

In fact the Apostle Paul says something very similar in 1 Corinthians 15:12–14:

12 But tell me this—since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead? 13 For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless.

• Give Christianity’s proposition.

Christians are called to be lovers of truth. And in that pursuit I am (and have been) fully willing to lay down anything and examine the evidence as objectively as I am able. Yes, that includes Jesus, the cross, and Christianity in general. I have no interest in wasting my life on lies. I am very much a practicalist…. is that a word? Anyway! Let’s take a look at the historical evidence and see what shakes out.

And I should say from the outset, that when I reference the Bible during our examination of the evidence, I am not regarding it as the holy and inspired Word of God. I believe it to be both of those things, but for our purposes this morning, I am treating these only as historical documents, like any other historical document from the distant past.

Prayer

Execution (Jesus was dead)

To first set the scene: Octavian, the son of the assassinated dictator Julius Caesar, rose from the chaos and civil upheaval that Julius Caesar’s death caused to become the first Roman Emperor. And this was not done with political maneuvering and treaties, Octavian ruthlessly killed anyone who stood in his way. The longstanding peace of the Roman Empire was secured and swordpoint and mercilessly defended. And the brutally effective military stabilization of the Roman Empire earned Octavian the title of Caesar August. Yes, the same Caesar Augustus we read about at the start of Luke’s Gospel.

All that to say that the Romans were not rookies. They were extremely efficient killers. They were good at it. I suspect many or most Roman soliders took great joy and pride in their work. In fact, we only have a single example of anyone surviving a crucifixion. This account is recorded by Jewish-Roman Historian Flavius Josephus in his autobiography some 60 years after Jesus’ death.

Josephus writes that he saw 3 friends of his among an array of crucified people. He spoke to the the Emperor Titus, who was there with him, and Titus immediately had the 3 friends of Josephus taken down and attended to by the best doctors Rome had to offer. 1 did recover, but the other two died despite the best efforts of the physicians present.

The death of Jesus on the cross is a historical certainty, and several non-Christian scholars agree:

Gerd Lüdeman (Doctorate of Theology, Athiest):

Jesus’ death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable.

Bert Ehrman (Doctorate of Philosophy, Athiest)

The crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans is one of the most secure facts we have about his life.

Journal of the American Medical Association (March 21, 1986): 

The major pathophysiologic effect of crucifixion was an interference with normal respirations. Accordingly, death resulted primarily from hypovolemic shock (incredible loss of blood) and exhaustion asphyxia. Jesus’ death was ensured by the thrust of a soldier’s spear into his side. Modern medical interpretation of the historical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead when taken down from the cross.

So when Jesus is horrifically beaten and hung on the cross to die, He died. He was dead. D-E-A-D. Dead.

[[[ Muppet Christmas Carol – Dead Meme ]]]

Early (Accounts of the goings-on)

So then, using the historical evidence available to us, let’s build a timeline of events. Because if the accounts of the resurrection are substantially later than they are supposed to have happened, they cannot be trustworthy. If the accounts of what happened are late, then they are probably just legends, myths, 

[[[ Community – Unicorn Dreams ]]]

But! If the accounts are early, that changes the whole thing. Now, we know that Jesus was crucified & buried in A.D. 30–33. We just talked about that, so then let’s take a look at one of the letters of Paul…

That letter is labelled First Corinthians in our Bibles today because it is the first of two letters Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, Greece which we have in our modern Bibles. In this letter Paul writes the following, which Tricia read at the top of our service this morning.

Paul of Tarsus (1 Corinthians 15:3–8)

I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him.

Embedded within this is a “Creed” or a doctrinal statement. The statement that was “most important”, that was given to Paul and which he already passed on to the Corinthian church before this letter was written. And here I will highlight the portions that make up the Creed:

Early Christian Creed (circa A.D. 30–33)

Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He was buried, and He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles

There is near universal agreement that Paul letter was written about 22 years after Jesus’ death. But Paul says he passed on what is most important and what was given to him also. So the question becomes, when was it given to Paul?

Well, we know that Paul of Tarsus is also called Saul of Tarsus (it’s a Hebrew-Latin name thing, fairly common at the time). Saul of Tarsus was a persecutor of Christians. Saul approved the death of the Apostle Stephen. The first recorded Christian martyr. In fact, in Luke’s letter called “the Acts of the Apostles” we read that the people who beat Stephen to death with rocks took off their clothes so they wouldn’t get covered in blood, and Saul watched over the clothes while observing the execution!

Well, later in the Acts of the Apostles we read that Paul had a powerful experience on his way to the city of Demascus where Paul claimed he was spoken to by God and rendered temporarily blind. This experience happened 1–3 years after the death of Jesus.

Now Paul, blinded, was led to Demascus by his travelling companions who were with Paul when this happened. When Paul got there he was found by a Christian named Ananias who claimed that God had sent him to intercept Paul.

This — in all likelihood — would have been when Paul received this Creed. This means that within 1–3 years we had this doctrinal statement in circulation. And in fact, a great number of scholars support this position.

Robert W. Funk (Doctorate of Philosophy, non-Christian)

The conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead had already taken root by the time Paul was converted about 33 C.E. On the assumption that Jesus died about 30 C.E., the time for development was thus two or three years at most.

Alexander J. M. Wedderburn (Doctorate of Philosophy)

One is right to speak of ‘earliest times’ here, … most probably in the first half of the 30s.

James D G Dunn (Doctorate of Philosophy, Doctorate of Divinity)

This tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’ death.

Remember the fire at the Notre Dame cathedral? Yes.

And remember how the morning after the fire the world awoke to find that the cathedral had been completely restored to its former glory by a miracle of the almighty? No. Because it didn’t happen. That was just 3 years ago. Still well within the world’s living memory.

Even if we assume that the first time the Creed every appeared is when Paul wrote about it. That’s still just 20 years. Remember the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002? How the Russian men’s and women’s teams rallied back from huge deficits to upset the Americans in both Gold Medal matches? No! Every Canadian who is old enough to remember those games remembers that is was not the Russians who swept the Americans in those Gold Medal matches! It was the…? (Canadians!)

There simply is not enough time for a legend to develop. These accounts are very close to the events they are recording. But Jesus’ death and early accounts of the events that followed don’t matter unless we can show that the things which are reported to have happened actually did happen.

The Christian tradition holds that Jesus did not have a spiritual resurrection, but a BODILY resurrection. And that leads us to our third “E”.

Empty (The tomb was empty)

The Empty tomb.

There are 3 factors that support the historical fact of the empty tomb.

The Jerusalem Factor

Jesus is well-known to have been buried in a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea. The tomb would have been cut into bedrock slopes in the area around Jerusalem. This was a labour-intensive and costly process, so it was really only accessible to the wealthy. So, this well-known tomb belonged to a well-known, and very wealthy man.

William Lane Craig (Doctorate of Philosophy, Doctorate of Theology)

The site of Jesus tomb was known to Christians and non-christians alike. If it were not empty it would have been highly unlikely for a movement based on the resurrection to have exploded into existence in the very same city where Jesus had been crucified just a few weeks before!

The Embarrassment Factor

If you were going to make up a story to convince people to follow you, you are probably going to make the strongest case you can. You are going to make yourself look like a hero. Through the Gospels we routinely see the men who would come to be known as the Apostles fail to understand what Jesus was saying. When He was killed they hid away and denied they ever knew Him. At one point Jesus literally calls Peter ‘Satan’! These do not sound like the wild embellishments of con-artists. These sound like the humble historical accounting of the events as they transpired.

Then we see women discover the empty tomb. Not men. Women. This was significant at the time because women’s testimony was not considered to be reliable. There was some debate as to whether they could even testify in court, and those who argue that they were allowed, that was only the case if there were no men available to serve as witnesses. So their case would have been much stronger if they had claimed male witnesses, but they still chose to report it as it happened. This only serves to lend additional credibility.

The Opposition Factor

What about the people who hated Jesus? What about the Jewish leaders of the day? Or the Romans who had built their reputation on their ability to kill? What did they say?

When word started to get out that Jesus had risen from the dead, what do we NOT see anywhere? A refutation from the Jews or the Romans! If fact, if Jesus were still dead, they could simply pull his body out of the tomb and parade it around the city streets. Why not do that? Why not crush this budding flower of Christianity before it could ever bloom?

Because they couldn’t! The body wasn’t there to show off!

Instead what they did, according to Matthew’s Gospel account, was to claim that the disciples stole the body, but more than that Matthew’s account claims that there were guards at the tomb. Very likely highly-trained Temple Guards who understood that the followers of this Jesus character might try to cause trouble after His death. And all of the Gospel accounts record that the tomb was sealed — like Tricia sang this morning — by a heavy stone. This stone would very likely have been a round, disc-shaped stone weighing between 400–2000 lbs that would have rested in a channel starting atop a small slope and ending at the opening of the tomb. The tomb could have been sealed by a single individual, but would have required several strong men to open it again.

So then, the Gospel claim that the tomb was sealed, guarded, and found empty and the Jewish and Roman leaders make no attempt whatsoever to dispute these facts, despite the face that Matthew was written around A.D. 60, just 30 years after the events they reported.

Remember when George Bush Sr. & Dan Quayle won a second term during the 1992 American Presidential election? Or when Kim Campbell’s Tories walloped Jean Chretien in 1993? If the conservatives on either side of the border tried to make such a claim today, do you think the Democrats and Liberals around today might call them on the bald-faced lie?

[[[ Phineas & Ferb — Yes, Yes I Do ]]]

Me too! So in the face of all that, it’s easy to see why Gary Habermas’ survey of non-Christian scholars led him to make the following statement:

Gary Habermas (Doctorate of Philosophy)

Of these scholars, approximately 75% favor one or more of [the] arguments for the empty tomb… [t]hus, while far from being unanimously held by critical scholars… those who embrace the empty tomb as a historical fact still comprise a fairly strong majority.

And what I find interesting is that Mark’s letter, the first Gospel, doesn’t even include the post-resurrection appearances, it’s almost as those these events were common knowledge and Mark is filling in the story with background data. Like a predecessor to Paul Harvey.

[[[ And Now You Know the Rest of the Story ]]]

Eyewitnesses (Saw Him alive after his death)

Which leads up to our final “E”. The eyewitnesses.

Jesus is recorded as appearing physically no less than 12 times in the ancient documents that we have collected into what we call the New Testament.

1. Mary Magdalene: John 20:11–18
2. Women leaving the tomb: Matthew 28:8–10
3. Emmaus disciples: Luke 24:13–35 (S,H)
4. Simon Peter: Luke 24:34 (see also 1 Corinthians 15:5)
5. Disciples without Thomas: Luke 24:36–43 (Ate food)
6. Disciples with Thomas: John 20:24–29
7. Disciples at the Sea of Galilee (Tiberias): John 21:1, 2 (ate food)
8. Disciples on a mountain in Galilee: Matthew 28:16, 17
9. Disciples: Luke 24:50–52
10. 500 believers: 1 Corinthians 15:6
11. James (Jesus’ half-brother): 1 Corinthians 15:7a
12. Paul (an enemy of the church): Acts 9:3–6

Jesus was seen and heard in each of these appearances. He was physically touched in several of them. He ate food in several of them. These were absolutely real, physical, bodily appearances.

Oh, but those documents are all in the Bible! You can’t trust that! It’s written by Christians! I don’t have time to dig too deeply into this very common objection, but can I just say that discounting the testimony of an eyewitness simply because they actually believe the things they’re saying… is crazy.

Another highly respected scholar throws his weight behind the reliability of the New Testament documents in this way:

Craig A. Evans (Doctorate of Philosophy)

There’s every reason to conclude that the Gospels have fairly and accurately reported the essential elements of Jesus teachings, life, death, and resurrection. They’re early enough. They’re rooted into the right streams that go back to Jesus and the original people. There’s continuity. There’s proximity. There’s verification of certain distinct points with archaeology and other documents, and then there’s the inner logic.

But even if we — for a moment — assume they were lying. We need to ask ourselves. Why do people lie? Sex, money, and power. That’s it. That’s the motive for every wrong action that was ever taken on purpose.

Yet nowhere in history do we read about the disciples being surrounded by swaths of women. In fact we’re not sure how many of them were ever even married or had a girlfriend.

Nowhere in history do we read about the disciples swimming through their Scrooge McDuck-style money bins. In fact, we have a great many sources both inside and outside the Bible which talk about how they lived lives of poverty.

And also have many sources inside and outside the New Testament which tell us that the disciples were willing to die, and indeed many of them did. Famous Roman historian Tacitus tells us as much in his work “Annals”:

Publius Cornelius Tacitus (Roman Politician, Historian [A.D. 56—A.D. 120]) 

Nero fastened the guilt … on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of … Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome….

But we see specifics from many other ancient sources such as Clement, Ignatius, Dionysuis, Tertullian, Polycarp, Irenaeus, and Josephus among others. If we had a weekend conference, perhaps we could take the time to go through each of these. But we don’t, can we just agree that no one would be willing to die for something they know is a lie.

But the natural question always comes up… okay, so the disciples were willing to die for their faith… that doesn’t mean anything! Speaking of world-changing events that stick in the memory, here’s an event from 20-odd years ago that some of you might recall.

[[[ September 11, 2001 ]]]

Often referred to as the day the world stopped turning. The terrorists who did this horrifying thing truly believed their cause. They genuinely believed they were doing the will of god. The honestly thought that Allah would welcome them into paradise for their sacrifice. Just because someone believes something to the point of death does not mean it is true.

Yes. Truth is not decided by personal beliefs. That’s what we talked about at the beginning. But the men who committed this atrocity got their information in the same way you and I did. And our sincere belief has no bearing on the truth value of that belief.

But the Apostles… these men sat under Jesus’ teaching. They ate with Him. They spoke with Him. They spent time with Him… and they did it all AFTER HE WAS KILLED. They were first-hand eyewitnesses, which is why THEIR sincerely held beliefs, ones for which they could — and DID — die DO have bearing on the truth value of those beliefs.

Conclusion

So the final question for today is “why”?

Why would the disciples go through all of this, this persecution, prosecution, poverty, and peril? What was the motivation? Love.

They had the truth. And they had hope. And they had life. And they wanted everyone else to have it too.

It’s the same reason I’m sharing this with you right now. I want you to have hope and life and to experience the everlasting love of the Father. And now, after looking at the evidence, you have two choices. And I’ll let Lawrence Fishburn take it from here.

[[[ The Matrix — Red Pill, Blue Pill ]]]

The truth is that we have all sinned and are doomed to an eternity of separation from everything that is good. But Jesus died. Was buried. And was raised again on the third day. And in so doing he has made a way for us to escape the terrible fate that awaits us all. But only if we will humble ourselves, submit to his authority, and put our faith in his good work on the cross.

If you would like to do that today, I invite you to pray with me. And I would ask every professing Christian in the room to join me in this prayer as well. Everyone please rise and repeat after me.

Jesus Christ — I understand that I am a sinner — I understand that I have no way to save myself — I believe that you were crucified, died, and buried — I believe that you conquered death — I believe that you defeated the grave — I believe that you ascended into heaven — I believe you will come again to judge the living and the dead — I believe that you are Lord — I invite you into my heart and into my life — I submit myself to you — I ask that you forgive me — I ask that you continue Your work in me — I ask that you grant me your life everlasting — I thank you for your grace by which I am saved.

Amen.