Sarah Ross who has just returned from Germany where she has served for the last five years teaching at Black Forest Academy gave a Missions Report during the service today. Sarah shared her experiences serving the LORD in a foreign country and teaching missionary children in a school near the Swiss/French German border.
She is an inspiring example of the Great Commission from Matthew 28:16-20 that clearly highlights the direction to each of us to go and make disciples of all nations, and to teach them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us to do, even in this 21st century.
Each of us is directed to find an appropriate way to invite those in our circle of family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, and acquaintances to get to know Jesus through the Bible, to inspire them by our example and to nourish them with our support.
The challenges in Europe and the Middle East highlight the contrast with the blessings we share in Canada where we are free and able to practice our Faith and to engage new disciples.
Malcolm Ross
Introduction
Apart from Jesus’ work and teaching, there are three events in the life of our Lord which invite either disbelief or worship. Realistically, there is no intermediate option:
1. The Virgin Birth
2. Resurrection following death on the Cross
All of these are well-documented events by credible witnesses and credible accounts within the biblical records and acknowledged by extra-biblical historic sources.
However, there are many who deny each of these events because they maintain that miracles are not possible.
Here’s how that works: we all interpret what happens in life with certain filters in place. These filters either reject or accept certain events as fake or real. If your filters tell you that only material and physical laws (as we know them) are valid, you will reject God, Jesus and all that implies. On the other hand, if your filters acknowledge that this universe had an all-powerful Creator and the unbelievable wonderful complexity that is revealed to our eyes and to science is the result of that Creator, we will acknowledge that an almighty God such as ours can overrule his own creation because he established it all in the first place.
It is ironical that Science, believes, but cannot measure or prove the existence of dark energy and dark matter. We do know that this universe operates in ways that normal science cannot explain. Theoretical physics seriously entertains the notion of hyperspace, multiverses, string theory, worm holes, time warps, electron entanglement. These are ideas that demand dimensions beyond any that we can understand or experience. And yet, people have little difficulty taking these notions seriously, even if they cannot be proved. Then, how about the resurrection which has more proof?
John Polkinghorne is an English thinker who devoted the first half of his life as a quantum physicist and the second half of his life as an Anglican theologian and priest. He sees no conflict between the most complex and mysterious science that exists (quantum physics) and his belief in God and Jesus Christ as resurrected Lord.
In fact, it is at the level of quantum physics that the plausibility of miracles is accentuated. and endorsed!
1. Was the Resurrection of Jesus a real event?
There are four Gospels, written by four different authors who record the fact of resurrection in very straight-forward accounts. Let’s consider some of the biblical account: Ten scenarios…..
1. Jesus refers to his death and resurrection on the third day four times in the record of Matthew. The record states that the disciples really didn’t understand what he was talking about at the time because the notion of resurrection was mostly a foreign concept to the ancients. Neither the death Jesus anticipated nor a reference to resurrection made any sense to the disciples at that time. Sense was made of all this only as the subsequent reality unfolded!
2. Many skeptics have claimed that Jesus just swooned or fainted and never really died. Crucifixion was one of the most brutal of executions known to man. Not only did the spikes go through flesh and bone but in Jesus’ case a spear was thrust through his side producing an immediate flow of blood and clear liquid. You cannot live through that, let alone walk three days later with a couple of disciples on the road to Emmaus.
3. The location of the burial tomb was not a secret.
Joseph of Arimathea was a prominent ruler. He is the one who was allowed by Pilate to take the body of Jesus off the Cross after the soldiers confirmed that he was dead. There were women who stood by and watched and later went to the tomb bringing burial spices.
It was the Jewish authorities who went to Pilate to ask for the tomb to be guarded and sealed. Anyone would therefore have known where the tomb was located and verify it to be empty when the time came. The skeptics themselves arranged for the tomb to be sealed and guarded. “Police Line—Do Not Cross”!
4. Appearances after his crucifixion:
When the tomb was first found empty, there was a conundrum for everyone. The women who found it empty were puzzled; the disciples did not believe them. The disciples hid behind closed doors in fear and some left the city. Peter and others went back to fishing for a while! 1 Cor.15 records other appearances of the risen Christ:
—Mary Magdalene
—The two Emmaus Road disciples, one being named Cleopas
—All the disciples twice: once without Thomas and once with ‘doubting Thomas’
—Jesus just appears through closed doors attesting to a difference in his resurrected body (but Jesus was not an apparition/ghost — he ate with the disciples!)
—Breakfast with his disciples on the shore of the Galilee Sea
—A crowd of 500 people, many still alive, when Paul wrote
—The Apostle James
The nature of the resurrection narrative in the Four Gospels is brief, succinct and presented with considerable reserve. It does not give any impression of elaborating the details, trying to persuade or convince. Just….here is what happened. Here are the facts!
5. Later, there was an astounding appearance and manifestation of Jesus in some sort of glorified form to Saul who became Paul the Apostle. Why astounding? He was a passionate persecutor of Christians and brought many to the religious courts and to death. He was highly educated, highly influential and a Pharisee of note. What a remarkable transformation! It was not an intellectual conversion but the miracle of encountering the glorified Jesus. The rest is history. Why would a persecutor of the Church become transformed if the resurrection were a lie?
6. Bishop Clement of Rome in 95 AD as well as St. Ignatius 107-115 AD speak of the resurrection and the power that it gave the early church. Atheist authors and speakers claim that the resurrection was a late fiction incorporated into belief. Not so! Paul wrote of the resurrection in 50-60 AD which would have been within 20-30 years of Jesus life and death. Many were still living who would have witnessed the remarkable events of Jesus’ last days and the explosion of the Christian Church. They would have corroborated the truth of the resurrection as Paul wrote the record.
7. The Christian Sabbath was changed to the first day of the week from the seventh, celebrating the resurrection. This would have been a big thing for the early Christians who were in fact Jews who had met Jesus. Probably the first day of the week, Sunday, became the Christian Sabbath within the first century.
8. Baptism, as John the Baptist and Jesus’ disciples practiced in the Jordan River, became an ordinance which symbolically celebrates the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. And for those who follow the path of baptism, they bear testimony the forgiveness of sins and renewal of life that they find in Jesus.
9. There was a transformation of the Passover into the Eucharist/Communion/The Lord’s Supper. The Passover, involving the blood of a lamb smeared on the lintel and side of a door, as instituted during the sojourn of God’s people in Egypt, recalled the preservation of the Israel children when the angel of death passed through the city destroying all the firstborn of the Egyptians who had not submitted to God. During the Last Supper, Passover at the time, Jesus identifies himself as the Lamb of God. “Take, eat, this is my body broken for you…..my blood shed for you.” This is an important connection for Christians…our passover lamb!
10. TRANSFORMATION OF LIVES! ……
Earlier was mentioned dark matter and dark energy: totally theoretical and non-measurable but all scientists believe in them. Proof? Just necessary and implied by the reality of what is happening in our cosmos. We now know that galaxies operate in such a way that the four known cosmic forces are not enough to explain what is going on. (Gravity, Weak Nuclear Force, Strong Nuclear Force, Electromagnetic Energy). Science is saying, there are things going on in the universe that we simply cannot explain—there is something more and we shall call it Dark Energy and Dark Matter.
Well, how about spiritual reality in Christ? People healed of demons, bodies healed, minds renewed, addictions driven away, hope renewed, endurance sustained, joy unleashed. Lives have been changed when people have submitted their lives to their Creator in humility, repentance and obedience and have been renewed wonderfully. John Newton is an example as is Lou Zamperini. But millions have been transformed!
The transformative effects on people’s lives points to “something remarkable” happening in their lives. No, it cannot be explained but it is real. I”m not talking about religious conversion but the changes that occur in the lives of people who wholeheartedly give their lives to the living Christ and establish a relationship with him.
Until Jesus appeared to the disciples, the biblical record clearly points out that they were defeated men. Their Lord was dead. They had no hope. Then, they see the risen Christ and by the promised Holy Spirit they are transformed into bold, courageous disciples willing to die for their faith. It would be stupid to die for a falsehood that they themselves are accused by skeptics of propagating!
2. Why does Resurrection Matter?
Authenticates and Validates the deity of Jesus, God Incarnate.
If Jesus were just a “good man” who did good and taught rightly, he would be little different than a lot of ‘good men’ that we find in history. The three sine qua nons are: the virgin birth, the resurrection after death and the ascension. Without these, we are left with only a good moral code. Jesus was the perfect God-Man. Only he, as divine, had the authority to take away the sin of the world
Redemptive Power of Christianity collapses if the resurrection did not really happen.
1 Co. 15:13-19 “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. …..And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”
You can practice good religion but true redemption only comes through the substitutionary death of Jesus on the Cross for us and validating his power through the resurrection.
Jesus is our ever-living High Priest
He is not a dead historic figure. Having ascended into heaven, he is our ever-living intercessor on our behalf before our Heavenly Father! We have real-time access to God!
Hebrews 2:17 “For this reason Jesus had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.”
Hebrews 4:14-16 “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
3. What does Resurrection Mean for Us?
Vital faith that has a foundation in a relationship.
Christianity as a religion can continue but the power will not be there if Christ is not risen. Jesus said that if we obey him, he will love us and he and the Father will make their home with us. Imagine! The living Christ resident in us through the Holy Spirit. A relationship
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