The Empty Tomb and the Missing Cross: A Critical Look at Evidentialism

• The Resurrection of Jesus [00:02:39 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the resurrection with 'Chuck Norris facts' to address skepticism, establishing it as the primary reason to potentially reject the faith if untrue.
• Skepticism and 'Jesus Curious' [00:03:14 ▶️ 📄]
  > Addresses the modern cultural phenomenon of being 'Jesus curious' but not committed, aiming to provide a safe space for exploration without judgment.
• Historical Evidence for Christianity [00:09:29 ▶️ 📄]
  > Outlines the agreed-upon historical facts: Jesus' existence, his crucifixion, the empty tomb, and the subsequent explosion of the Christian movement.
• The Swoon Theory [00:11:32 ▶️ 📄]
  > Introduces and begins to debunk the theory that Jesus merely swooned or passed out on the cross rather than dying, citing medical and physical evidence of crucifixion.
• Medical Evidence of Death [00:12:27 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor details the physical trauma of the flogging, crown of thorns, and crucifixion, using medical terms like pericardial effusion and respiratory acidosis to argue that Jesus was biologically dead before burial.
• Refutation of the Swoon Theory [00:12:20 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues against the idea that Jesus merely fainted, citing the severity of the Roman punishment and the spear wound that released blood and water as proof of death.
• Refutation of the Stolen Body Theory [00:19:55 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor debunks the theory that disciples stole the body by highlighting the impossibility of bypassing a 16-man Roman guard, the penalty of execution for sleeping on duty, and the illogical choice of women as primary witnesses in a misogynistic society.
• Historical Context of Women's Testimony [00:22:38 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor emphasizes that women's testimony was legally invalid in first-century Jewish courts, making it highly improbable that followers would invent a resurrection story relying on female witnesses for credibility.
• The Empty Tomb and Cultural Context [00:23:53 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that in first-century Jewish culture, women were not credible witnesses, so if the resurrection story were fabricated, it would not have been authenticated by women.
• Alternative Theories (Stolen Body, Wrong Tomb, Legend) [00:24:30 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor systematically debunks the theories that authorities stole the body, the disciples went to the wrong tomb, or the story is a later legend, citing lack of motive, historical proximity, and the ability of authorities to disprove the claim.
• Eyewitness Testimony and Corroboration [00:28:07 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor cites Paul's letter to Corinth, noting that hundreds of eyewitnesses, including Peter, the twelve, and 500 others, saw the risen Jesus, and many were still alive to corroborate the claim.
• Martyrdom of the Disciples [00:32:45 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor lists the martyrdoms of the disciples, arguing that while people may die for what they believe to be true, they do not die for what they know to be a lie, thus validating their sincerity.
• Resurrection Evidence [00:35:19 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor outlines three areas of exploration regarding the resurrection: whether Jesus was dead, if the tomb was empty, and the existence of eyewitnesses.
• Apologetics and Skepticism [00:35:34 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts the scenario of no evidence (leading to suspicion) with the scenario of historical evidence (leading to curiosity).
• Series Continuation [00:36:02 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor encourages the congregation to continue with the series to explore other reasons for not believing, specifically mentioning the conflict between faith and science.

• Sermon Illustration [00:00:24 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses the 'Chuck Norris Facts' meme phenomenon as an analogy. He lists several absurd facts (e.g., 'Chuck Norris doesn't read books, he stares them down') to illustrate how the resurrection sounds like a joke or an impossible myth to modern ears, before pivoting to argue that it is a serious historical claim.
• Sermon Illustration [00:12:36 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the physical brutality of Roman flogging, specifically the 'cat of nine tails' with weighted pellets and razor-sharp hooks, to provide medical context for why the 'swoon theory' (that Jesus survived the cross) is physically implausible.
• Sermon Illustration [00:12:36 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor describes the specific mechanics of the Roman 'cat of nine tails' whip, noting the weighted pellets embedded with bone and metal designed to tear flesh off the body.
• Sermon Illustration [00:17:10 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains the medical phenomenon of pericardial and pleural effusion, linking the 'blood and water' from John's Gospel to the physical reality of Jesus' death.
• Sermon Illustration [00:24:00 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts a modern anecdote about a bank robber in Fairfield, Connecticut, who called the bank in advance to have the money ready, only to be arrested by the police waiting outside.
• Sermon Illustration [00:24:00 ▶️ 📄]
  > A true story about a man in Fairfield, Connecticut, who robbed a bank by calling ahead to have the money ready, only to be arrested by the police waiting for him.
• Sermon Illustration [00:31:15 ▶️ 📄]
  > A hypothetical scenario where the pastor claims he is speaking as senior pastor for an online campus, inviting viewers to corroborate or deny the claim in real-time.
• Sermon Illustration [00:30:23 ▶️ 📄]
  > A calculation that cross-examining all known eyewitnesses for 15 minutes each would take 129 hours of continuous testimony.
• Sermon Illustration [00:33:21 ▶️ 📄]
  > A detailed list of the specific martyrdoms of the disciples (James beheaded, Matthew slain with axe/spear, Philip whipped/crucified, etc.) to illustrate their willingness to die for their testimony.
• Sermon Illustration [00:35:04 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor recounts the historical narrative of the disciples' martyrdom, stating that they did not steal the body but went to their deaths testifying that Jesus rose, claiming they were eyewitnesses who knew who they saw.

• Pastoral Charge [00:36:11 ▶️ 📄]
  > Attend the next week's sermon to discuss whether the Bible conflicts with science.
• Pastoral Charge [00:36:11 ▶️ 📄]
  > Attend next week's service to discuss the conflict between Christian faith and science.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] The world is full of reasons not to believe in God. But what if they don't tell the whole story? What if those questions deserve a second look? You might find that belief makes more sense than you expected.
[00:00:12] Well, welcome to MEXT's online campus and happy Easter. Okay, how many know who this guy was?
[00:00:24] Yeah, just about everybody. Chuck Norris died a couple of weeks ago at the age of 86.
[00:00:29] If you're a baby boomer, you knew him as a legit martial artist who went head-to-head against none other than Bruce Lee.
[00:00:37] If you're a Gen X, you remember him as Colonel Braddock from Missing in Action or as Walker from Walker, Texas Ranger.
[00:00:45] If you're a millennial or Gen Z, even though he was long past his peak movie and TV years by the time you came around, you still knew him.
[00:00:53] Except for you, he's the man who created the Grand Canyon when he went skydiving, or as the person the boogeyman looks for under his bed.
[00:01:02] In other words, you know him through the famous Chuck Norris fax meme.
[00:01:07] Norris is remembered in Hollywood as this ultra manly action star whose whole brand and persona was built on this tough kind of image like Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger.
[00:01:19] But that brand took on a life of its own in the pop culture zeitgeist, becoming the defining meme of the 2000s.
[00:01:27] So even if you have never seen an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, or seen one of his round kicks take out a bad guy, you know some of the following Chuck Norris facts.
[00:01:40] Chuck Norris, for example, doesn't read books.
[00:01:43] He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
[00:01:47] The flu gets a Chuck Norris shot every year.
[00:01:51] If Chuck Norris were to travel to an alternate dimension in which there was another Chuck Norris and they both thought they would both win.
[00:01:59] The dinosaurs looked at Chuck Norris the wrong way once.
[00:02:03] You know what happened to them.
[00:02:05] Chuck Norris, his tears cure cancer.
[00:02:08] Too bad he's never cried.
[00:02:11] Chuck Norris' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd because no one fools.
[00:02:17] Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris counted to infinity. Twice. The only time Chuck Norris was ever wrong was when he thought he had made a mistake. Chuck Norris doesn't wear a watch. He decides what time it is. Now, those facts are fun, but what about this one? Jesus said that after he was killed,
[00:02:39] he would come back to life in three days. He was killed, and on the third day, he rose again.
[00:02:46] Is that a joke, like a Chuck Norris fact?
[00:02:49] Because it sounds like one.
[00:02:52] If you've never heard it before, I mean, it ranks up there, right?
[00:02:55] Or is it an absolutely serious statement that marks the world's largest spiritual community?
[00:02:59] Well, the latter.
[00:03:02] But does it belong in the Chuck Norris facts camp?
[00:03:06] If you're like a lot of people, you're not sure.
[00:03:08] But you're curious.
[00:03:10] Maybe more curious now than you've ever been before in your life.
[00:03:14] In fact, the phrase Jesus Curious has become a thing.
[00:03:18] It's all over TikTok and Instagram, and it just stands for someone who's open to learn about Jesus.
[00:03:25] They may not be ready to commit to a traditional faith, but Jesus, he's interesting.
[00:03:30] It comes from the way you sense that when you strip everything away, the traditions, the religious layers, you have somebody who is different, who is radical, who is authentic, someone who's life and teaching, resting and penetrating and at the same time welcoming.
[00:03:45] There's just this sense of truth and grace, power and approachability, transcendence and eminence, not of this world, but also down to this earth.
[00:03:59] You consider yourself a spiritual person, not religious, but spiritual.
[00:04:04] And Jesus piques your spiritual interests and your spiritual sensibilities.
[00:04:09] So you're here.
[00:04:10] Listening. Open. Well, you came to a good place in a good time. Over 70% of Mac is probably people just like you. Mac is made up of people of over 70% of our growth has come from people who are
[00:04:25] previously unchurched. Many were invited by a friend because that friend knew they were a little Jesus curious. They needed a safe place to explore, to ask questions without judgment or stigma.
[00:04:36] They found it here, so maybe they invited you to attend or to watch online, just like, because they knew you were like them, like so many others are here at Mac.
[00:04:45] But you also came to this place at a good time.
[00:04:47] I'll tell you why.
[00:04:48] Not just because it's Easter weekend, but because today we're starting a series to help in anyone and everyone with their curiosity in the most direct way possible.
[00:04:58] What we're going to do is going to look at the six biggest reasons that a curious person, when looking at the Christian faith, would have the right to reject it.
[00:05:08] If any of the six reasons that we're going to explore are true, you should not believe in the Christian faith.
[00:05:15] You shouldn't be drawn to Jesus.
[00:05:17] Ready for the six? Here they are.
[00:05:20] If it conflicts with science, if the Bible is filled with errors, if there isn't an adequate explanation for the presence of evil and suffering, if judgmental, hypocritical Christians legitimately undermine its validity, if Jesus was not who he said he was, and then the one we're going to start off with today,
[00:05:41] if Jesus did not rise from the dead. If any of those are true, if any of those things stick, if there's Velcro to any of those, you can end your curiosity with Jesus and get curious about
[00:05:52] something else. But if you find that none of those six have traction, then your curiosity he just got a green light to go higher up and deeper in with this Jesus person.
[00:06:05] So let's get started, beginning with the first reason you shouldn't believe, which is that what Christians are celebrating this weekend around the world didn't happen.
[00:06:15] Well, first, let's set up what supposedly did happen.
[00:06:19] Jesus made it clear before he died that he would be resurrected.
[00:06:22] He told his followers over and over again, that is what would happen.
[00:06:27] Let me give you a taste of that from one of the four biographies of his life that's recorded for us in the Bible.
[00:06:32] This is Luke's.
[00:06:33] Taking the 12 disciples aside, Jesus said, Listen, we're going up to Jerusalem where all the predictions of the prophets concerning the Son of Man will come true.
[00:06:43] He'll be handed over to the Romans.
[00:06:45] He'll be mocked, treated shamefully, and spit upon.
[00:06:48] They will flog him with a whip and kill him.
[00:06:51] But on the third day, he will rise again.
[00:06:55] Now, before we go further, there's something worth noting here.
[00:06:59] By the way, Jesus often referred to himself as Son of Man, one of the biggest phrases in the Old Testament for the coming Messiah.
[00:07:05] It was a way of identifying how God could connect with human beings by becoming a human being.
[00:07:11] It was a way of him saying, I'm identifying with you even as God in human form.
[00:07:15] But there's something else radical about what he just said.
[00:07:19] N.T. Wright, who taught at both Cambridge and Oxford in his massive 800-page-plus academic work on the history surrounding the resurrection event of Jesus, writes that no one would have ever thought up the resurrection because nobody believed such a thing possible.
[00:07:36] Nowhere in paganism, nowhere in Judaism, nowhere in any worldview or philosophy did anybody ever conceive, posit, contemplate, or even suggest that such a thing could or ever had taken place. Which is why on that very first Easter, the Bible records that the
[00:07:52] angels had to remind them of Jesus' words again. Let me read that. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
[00:08:03] They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright, the women
[00:08:16] bowed down with their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, why do you look for the living among the dead? He's not here. He's risen. Remember how he told you while he was still with
[00:08:28] you in Galilee, that the son of man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners and be crucified. And on the third day, he'd be raised again. Then they remembered his words. So is that
[00:08:40] what happened though or not? Because if it didn't, you have a reason not to believe. As one of the leaders of the early church, Paul later wrote, this is really authentic and transparent. He said,
[00:08:54] if there's no resurrection for Christ, everything we've told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you've staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you, verifying that
[00:09:09] God raised up Christ, sheer fabrication, if there's no resurrection. All you're doing is wandering about in the dark as lost as ever. But then he added, the truth is, Christ has been raised up. But is that the truth? Did it happen? Well, here's what we know and what we have to
[00:09:29] work with. First, that the man Jesus, the one the Bible talks about, actually existed. No one denies that. Not a lot of time needs to be spent on that. You find him listed in the writings of Thallus,
[00:09:41] who was a first century Greek writer, Pliny the Younger, a lawyer and author of ancient Rome, the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius both take note of him, as well as the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.
[00:09:53] Of course, the most detailed account is found in the Bible, which gives not one but four independent biographical accounts named after the men who wrote them, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
[00:10:03] More than a few historians have noted that his is the most documented life in all of ancient history.
[00:10:09] So we know Jesus existed.
[00:10:11] We also know that he was sentenced to death through a Jewish and then Roman legal process, resulting in a crucifixion.
[00:10:18] We also know that on the third day, there was an empty tomb, that the body of the crucified Jesus was gone.
[00:10:25] But then following that empty tomb, we know that his followers went running around the landscape saying that Jesus had risen from the dead and that they had, in fact, seen him and talked with him and engaged him.
[00:10:37] And we know that then the Christian movement burst onto the scene.
[00:10:40] By A.D. 100, there were around 7,500 followers.
[00:10:43] By the mid-300s, there were more than 30 million.
[00:10:47] Today, there are billions.
[00:10:49] It is the world's largest religious faith.
[00:10:52] Those are the basic facts upon which everybody agrees.
[00:10:56] So how do you go at that to see whether there are reasons to believe or reasons not to believe?
[00:11:04] Well, there are three critical questions that get to the heart of what, if anything, happened.
[00:11:09] First, did he really die?
[00:11:13] Second, was the tomb really empty?
[00:11:17] And third, were there really eyewitnesses?
[00:11:21] Okay, let's look at all three, beginning with whether he really died.
[00:11:25] If he didn't, then obviously there was never a resurrection, and that explains why people saw him afterwards.
[00:11:30] It's called the swoon theory.
[00:11:32] The idea is that he was mistakenly reported to be dead, when in reality, he just swooned or passed out on the cross from exhaustion, pain, loss of blood.
[00:11:43] So is Jesus just mostly dead and as a result, slightly alive?
[00:11:48] And from that slightly alive position, present himself as resurrected?
[00:11:53] Or was he all dead?
[00:11:55] Well, for the swoon theory to be true, you have to buy into a lot of things that are honestly kind of hard to buy into.
[00:12:02] First, it makes Jesus out to be the most manipulative, false, lying, deceitful religious figure in all of human history.
[00:12:09] Not many people feel that way about Jesus, nor is there any evidence that he was that kind of person.
[00:12:15] But the big argument against the swoon theory isn't about Jesus' character.
[00:12:20] It's about his body.
[00:12:21] It's the raw physical and medical evidence surrounding his crucifixion.
[00:12:27] First, think about what Jesus went through just leading up to his crucifixion.
[00:12:31] One of the first things he endured was this savage flogging from the Roman guards.
[00:12:36] He received, the record says, 39 lashes with a form of what, I guess it would look like a cat of nine tails.
[00:12:43] Have you ever seen those?
[00:12:45] Don't rush past that.
[00:12:48] There would be weighted pellets at the end of the whip that were embedded with bone and metal to add weight to it.
[00:12:57] And then at the end, these razor sharp hooks.
[00:13:00] It was designed so that when you threw it at a back, all of it would dig into the flesh of the back.
[00:13:06] And then when you jerked it back, it would yank the flesh off of the body, literally tearing the body apart.
[00:13:13] There are records of floggings in the Roman era that say that it would often expose the internal intestines of a person.
[00:13:20] It tore off so much flesh.
[00:13:21] Jesus received 39 of these lashes.
[00:13:24] 40 by Roman law was considered sentencing them to death.
[00:13:29] Then he was pierced in the head with multiple wooden stakes.
[00:13:34] We say crown of thrones, I mean, crown of thorns, but that was kind of a romanticizing of it.
[00:13:41] What was used would have been a date palm, and the thorns would have been three, four inches long, and it wasn't placed on his head as much as it was nailed to his head.
[00:13:52] Think of a series of three or four inch nails being driven into your skull, beaten with equivalent of a baseball bat to drive the wood as deep into his head as possible. That alone could
[00:14:02] have killed somebody. And then he was made to drag the cross beam, a part of the cross, to where he was going to be crucified. Record says he couldn't make it. He collapsed. He couldn't carry it any
[00:14:14] further, which tells you how physically depleted he was. He wasn't even able to walk or stand.
[00:14:19] And then he was laid down on this and he was nailed to its arms. And when we talk about being nailed. These were huge spikes that would have been driven most likely right about there into
[00:14:28] his wrist. I know medieval art shows it's always the palm of his hands, but when the Bible says that the nails went through his hands, the word they're using, the original Greek language, could have referred to any aspect of this part of his body, of his hands. So it could have easily
[00:14:44] been his wrists and the Bible, of course, being completely accurate with its description.
[00:14:49] And from corpses that we have since found, we know that people who were crucified by Romans during that time, that's exactly where the nail went through, right about there.
[00:14:57] Which makes sense because if it had been in the palm, there's really nothing there to hold up the weight of the body.
[00:15:03] You'd have just ripped right through the flesh of the hands.
[00:15:06] There's nothing for the nail to grip onto in terms of the weight hanging on the cross.
[00:15:11] And then they also had nails driven through the ankles.
[00:15:14] It would have been those painful nerve that these would have been driven through.
[00:15:18] In fact, the sheer pain of all of this that I'm describing had no equivalent in the world, which is why a word had to be invented for the unique pain that came from a crucifixion,
[00:15:30] a word still used to this day.
[00:15:32] It's the word excruciating, crucifixion, cruciatus, excruciating, literally means from the cross, pain so bad it can only come from this manner of death.
[00:15:44] and then he hung there on the cross until he began to suffocate, which is something most people don't realize. It's actually how most people would have died when crucified. The reason is that the stresses being crucified and hanging there put on the muscles of the diaphragm,
[00:16:03] put the chest into the inhaled position. You would inhale the pressure of it to release the tension on the muscles for a moment in order to exhale, you'd have to push up on your feet,
[00:16:18] the ones that were nailed into the base of the cross. And every time you made the push, the nail would tear through the foot, eventually, you know, breaking up, locking up against the tarsal bones. This would go on and on in the midst of all that pain and loss of blood and trauma
[00:16:32] until complete exhaustion kicked in and the person wouldn't be able to push up and breathe anymore.
[00:16:38] And if they didn't die by suffocation, they would die of a heart attack. As the person's breathing would slow, they would go into what's called respiratory acidosis. The carbon dioxide in the blood is dissolved as carbonic acid, causing
[00:16:53] the acidity of the blood to increase. This leads to an irregular heartbeat and eventually cardiac arrest. And there's something else that's important. Before a a person would die, hypovolemic shock would have caused a sustained rapid heart rate that would
[00:17:10] have contributed to heart failure, resulting in the collection of fluid, clear fluid in the membrane around the heart, called a pericardial effusion, as well as around the lungs, which is a pleural effusion. I know I'm sounding like an episode of Pit. I know, but here's why that matters.
[00:17:28] John, the author of one of the four biographies of Jesus in the Bible, records an interesting detail about the crucifixion of Jesus.
[00:17:36] Let me read it.
[00:17:37] It was a day of preparation, and the Jewish leaders didn't want the bodies hanging there the next day, which was the Sabbath, and a very special Sabbath because it was a Passover week.
[00:17:46] So they asked Pilate to hasten their deaths by ordering that their legs be broken.
[00:17:52] Then their bodies could be taken down.
[00:17:54] So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus.
[00:17:58] By the way, as we talked about, why'd they break their legs to hasten their death?
[00:18:01] Because that way they couldn't push up to breathe anymore.
[00:18:03] They couldn't, even if they could have been pushing themselves up a little bit longer, break their legs, they couldn't have done it.
[00:18:08] Let's keep reading.
[00:18:09] But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead.
[00:18:12] So they didn't break his legs.
[00:18:13] But one of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out.
[00:18:22] Okay, now John would have had no idea why he saw both blood and water come out.
[00:18:28] He just recorded what he saw as an eyewitness.
[00:18:31] And what he saw was that when the soldiers thrust a spear into his side to make sure he was dead, because if somehow, some way, someone escaped from a crucifixion and survived it, the responsible soldiers would be put to death themselves.
[00:18:45] So they weren't taking any chances.
[00:18:47] He saw not only blood, but he recorded water as well.
[00:18:51] We now know why that detail matters.
[00:18:54] The spear apparently went through the right lung into the heart.
[00:18:57] So when the spear pulled out, fluid from the pericardial effusion and the pleural effusion flowed out.
[00:19:03] There was actually an article about this in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the gold standard of medical research, titled, On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ.
[00:19:13] Among the article's points is this very detail, that it is a description of the post-mortem separation of the blood and serum into clot, I'm sorry, the blood into clot and serum, indicating that Jesus was truly dead.
[00:19:27] Well, now let's move on to our second question.
[00:19:31] Was the tomb really empty due to a resurrection?
[00:19:35] Or was there some other explanation?
[00:19:37] What are our options there?
[00:19:39] Let's be clear.
[00:19:40] No one at the time denied the tomb was empty.
[00:19:44] That was never something out on the table.
[00:19:46] And I'm not talking just about the followers of Jesus, but the Jewish authorities, the Roman authorities.
[00:19:51] But was it empty?
[00:19:53] What other options are there?
[00:19:55] Well, one is that the followers of Jesus stole the body.
[00:19:59] Jesus had said he would rise from the dead on the third day.
[00:20:01] So on the third day, they stole the body so that it would look like it really happened.
[00:20:06] That way they wouldn't look stupid for following him or for believing in him.
[00:20:10] Because it became known that Jesus was a fake, that he didn't rise from the dead like he said he would.
[00:20:15] They'd be the laughingstock of the entire Middle East.
[00:20:18] So they stole the body, hid it, and then said he rose from the dead.
[00:20:22] This was actually the primary idea that the enemies of Jesus raised when the news and shock of his empty tomb first hit.
[00:20:31] In the biography of Jesus' life that was written by Matthew, it says, a few of the guards went into the city and told the high priests everything that had happened, meaning the empty tomb.
[00:20:41] They called a meeting of the religious leaders and came up with a plan.
[00:20:44] They took a large sum of money, gave it to the soldiers, bribing them to say, his disciples came in the night and stole the body while we were sleeping.
[00:20:52] They assured them, if the governor hears about your sleeping on duty, we will make sure you don't get blamed.
[00:20:59] The soldiers took the bribe, did as they were told.
[00:21:02] That story, cooked up in the Jewish high council, is still going around.
[00:21:08] Now, that was a cooked up lie, but let's say it wasn't.
[00:21:13] Let's play everything out.
[00:21:15] The problem that story ran into then is the same one it runs into now.
[00:21:18] The tomb was protected by a full guard of Roman soldiers.
[00:21:22] A Roman guard contained up to 16 highly trained, heavily armed, professional fighting men.
[00:21:27] You couldn't have just snuck by them during the night and lived, because that would have taken all 16 guards to be asleep at the time, even the ones posted to keep watch at night.
[00:21:37] The Roman penalty, by the way, for sleeping on guard duty?
[00:21:41] Immediate execution.
[00:21:43] Staying awake on duty was one of the highest values the Roman army had.
[00:21:47] So this would call for the most sacred vow, highest value of the Roman military to be uniformly discarded by all 16 at the same time.
[00:21:54] But even more important, rolling away what would have been approximately a two-ton stone, mixed noise, lots of noise, the kind of noise that wakes up sleeping guards, as in all 16 of them.
[00:22:08] But even that's not the biggest reason why this would be hard to believe. Let's just say they pulled it off. Let's say they did sneak by, somehow rolled the stone away without waking anybody, somehow stole the body out from under the noses of the guards, and then made up the story
[00:22:20] about the resurrection of Jesus. Here's the problem with that. According to all four independent biographical accounts of Jesus' life and teaching in the Bible, the first people the disciples' story went, who discovered the empty tomb and testified to it and said he had risen,
[00:22:38] were women. This would never have been invented by even the least sophisticated conspirators who wanted to authenticate a failed religious leader because of the role of women in that terribly misogynistic society. You think you've seen sexism? You haven't even begun to even
[00:23:00] know what sexism is until you went back to that era because Jewish courts didn't even accept the testimony of female witnesses. They were so low in the social order of the misogynistic society of the day that you could have 15 women could say they witnessed a crime, and it wouldn't even be
[00:23:16] entertained in a court of law. They weren't allowed to serve as legal witnesses to anything.
[00:23:21] Women were so disregarded that there was even a prayer in which Jewish men thanked God that they weren't a slave, that they weren't a Gentile, and they weren't a woman. So if you're going to steal
[00:23:32] the body, lie about the resurrection, make up a story in that first century male-dominated Jewish culture of the day, you would not say, hey, guys, why don't we have our made-up story of the tomb being empty, be authenticated by, wait for it, women, by someone we know
[00:23:53] that no one will take seriously or believe is credible or could even testify in a Jewish court of law.
[00:23:57] I can't help but think of all those dumb criminal stories.
[00:24:00] There's whole TV series and websites devoted to dumb criminal stuff, like the guy who robbed the bank in Fairfield, Connecticut, who, knowing he'd need a speedy getaway, called the bank in advance, told them he was going to rob them,
[00:24:15] so could they please have the money ready and waiting for him?
[00:24:21] Something was ready and waiting for him.
[00:24:22] It was the police.
[00:24:24] True story.
[00:24:26] A second option is to say that the Jewish or Roman authorities stole the body.
[00:24:30] Now, the dilemma with this one is one that crime detectives ask all the time.
[00:24:33] What in the heck would the motive of that be?
[00:24:36] They were the ones who put guards at the tomb to make sure that he wasn't stolen.
[00:24:39] Their biggest fear was somebody stealing the body.
[00:24:44] This is how it was described in Matthew's biography of Jesus.
[00:24:47] The high priests and Pharisees arranged a meeting with Pilate.
[00:24:50] They said, sir, we just remembered that that liar announced while he was still alive, after three days, I will be raised.
[00:24:57] We've got to get that tomb sealed until the third day.
[00:24:59] There's a good chance his disciples will come and steal the corpse and then go around saying he's risen from the dead.
[00:25:04] Then we'll be worse off than before.
[00:25:07] The final deceit surpassing the first.
[00:25:10] Pilate told them, you'll have a guard.
[00:25:11] Go ahead and secure it the best you can.
[00:25:13] So they went out, secured the tomb, sealing the tomb, posting guards.
[00:25:20] So you see the motive problem.
[00:25:21] They understood Christianity to be an incredible threat against both Jewish authority and Roman rule.
[00:25:26] They had a vested interest in making sure people did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
[00:25:31] The last thing they would do is steal the body to make it look like he rose from the dead, which would make him and the Christian movement more believable than ever.
[00:25:40] These guys wish they did have the body.
[00:25:43] They would have paraded it through the streets of Jerusalem saying, see, he was just a man.
[00:25:47] Here's his beat up, crucified corpse to prove it.
[00:25:50] But they didn't.
[00:25:52] So did the Jewish or Roman authorities steal the body?
[00:25:54] That would fly in the face of everything we know.
[00:25:57] A third option is that they just went to the wrong tomb.
[00:26:00] The thinking would be, hey, these guys were nervous, worried, full of fear early in the morning.
[00:26:06] It would have been relatively easy for them to have simply made a mistake, gone to the wrong tomb, found that tomb empty, and then thought, hey, Jesus was alive.
[00:26:15] Problem with this view is that all the Jewish and Roman authorities had to do was point out the right tomb, where the guards were posted, and the party would have ended.
[00:26:24] A final option is that the empty tomb is just a product of legend, something that just developed over time.
[00:26:30] Here's the thinking.
[00:26:31] The empty tomb was a later legend that by the time it had really developed and taken hold couldn't be disproven because the location of the tomb by that time would have been lost or forgotten.
[00:26:41] The problem with that is that we have the historical record of the events surrounding the death of Jesus and they didn't surface hundreds of years later.
[00:26:51] You know, time for legend to kick in.
[00:26:53] Take Mark's biography of the life of Jesus and his account of the empty tomb.
[00:26:57] The evidence points to that being written before A.D. 37.
[00:27:02] Jesus died around A.D. 33.
[00:27:04] That's not exactly time for legend to kick in, particularly when the site of Jesus' tomb was known to Christians, Jews, Romans alike, and almost everyone involved at the time would have been very much alive.
[00:27:15] So it would have been virtually impossible for a movement founded on an empty tomb and a belief in a resurrection to have taken root in the same city where he'd been publicly executed and buried.
[00:27:27] Too many people would have been able to point out the very un-empty tomb.
[00:27:33] Legend can tell you how a story got big.
[00:27:35] The problem is this story didn't start small.
[00:27:39] It was an empty tomb resurrection story from the very beginning.
[00:27:44] So let's keep up with our questions.
[00:27:46] Did Jesus really die?
[00:27:48] Evidence from the historical account itself, along with what we know from modern medicine, makes that kind of clear.
[00:27:54] He died.
[00:27:55] Was the tomb really empty?
[00:27:57] Nobody at the time denies that.
[00:27:59] That was never in question.
[00:28:01] And there's no reasonable alternative to it being anything but empty.
[00:28:04] So what about our third and final question?
[00:28:07] Were there really eyewitnesses to Jesus being alive after his death?
[00:28:13] The Bible says that there were.
[00:28:15] For example, let me read you something written by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Corinth.
[00:28:19] I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me.
[00:28:24] Christ died for our sins, just as the scripture said.
[00:28:27] He was buried.
[00:28:28] He was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the scripture said.
[00:28:32] He was seen by Peter and then by the twelve.
[00:28:36] After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time.
[00:28:40] Most of them are still alive, though some have died.
[00:28:44] Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.
[00:28:48] Last of all, I also saw him.
[00:28:53] In today's court system, all it takes is one or two eyewitnesses to begin to determine what happened at a particular point in place in time.
[00:29:00] Here is the claim that there were hundreds of firsthand witnesses to Jesus being alive after his crucifixion.
[00:29:06] Even Paul's saying, and I was a firsthand witness.
[00:29:08] I saw him.
[00:29:10] So we're there.
[00:29:11] Well, there are four things to think about when it comes to the supposed eyewitnesses to Jesus being alive and well and thoroughly resurrected after his death.
[00:29:20] The first is that there was no chance at it being a series of hallucinations due to people's grief or emotional stress.
[00:29:29] Hallucinations don't work that way.
[00:29:31] Because it wasn't just random people saying that they saw Jesus, but person after person all seeing the same thing, even in crowds of the hundreds.
[00:29:40] Hallucinations are, by definition, an individual occurrence.
[00:29:44] Only one person is experiencing it or seeing it at a time.
[00:29:48] They aren't experienced simultaneously in a group, much less over a period of time in a series of different places.
[00:29:55] There's just too many who said they saw him.
[00:29:57] And all saying they saw the same thing to have been just write it all off as people hallucinating.
[00:30:02] And that's why you can't say it was an imposter, somebody running around impersonating Jesus.
[00:30:07] The people who went public that they had seen him were not just random people, but included his most intimate friends and family, even his mother, and she kind of would have known whether it was Jesus or not.
[00:30:16] But the number and quality of witnesses, it really is.
[00:30:19] It's just staggering.
[00:30:20] Here's how one person added it up.
[00:30:23] If you were to call each one of the witnesses to a court of law to be cross-examined for just 15 minutes, and you went around the clock 24-7 without a break, It would take you from breakfast on Monday until dinner on Friday to hear them all.
[00:30:40] And you would have listened to 129 straight hours of eyewitness testimony.
[00:30:47] And that's just for the ones we know about.
[00:30:50] And don't forget, not only would a hallucination or a misciting have to account for every single eyewitness account, but the simple production of a dead body by the Jewish or Roman authorities would have brought everybody back to reality
[00:31:02] and ended it right there with a huge, colossal thud.
[00:31:05] And believe me, if they had that body, they would have gladly produced it.
[00:31:08] But there's still more to think about.
[00:31:11] And it's that dynamic of corroboration or denial.
[00:31:15] Let's say that 20 years from now, I were to make the claim that I was speaking, you know, as senior pastor of Mac through our online campus for this Easter service, giving this talk.
[00:31:29] Every single one of you watching me right now, if still alive, could either corroborate that or deny it.
[00:31:35] Why?
[00:31:36] Well, it's kind of happening in real time for us, isn't it?
[00:31:39] You're here now, you know.
[00:31:41] We just read Paul's account of the eyewitnesses, saying that he too was an eyewitness.
[00:31:47] He named names and he gave specifics.
[00:31:50] Let me just read it again.
[00:31:52] He said he was seen by Peter and then by the 12.
[00:31:55] And after that, he was seen by more than 500 of the followers at one time, most of whom were still alive.
[00:31:59] Then he was seen by James, later by the apostles, Later also, I also saw him.
[00:32:06] Now, Paul wrote that letter between AD 55 and 57.
[00:32:10] He's very clear that at the time of his writing, most of the eyewitnesses he referenced were still alive.
[00:32:15] You see what he's doing?
[00:32:17] He is saying, as a leader of the early Christian movement, hey, you want to check this out?
[00:32:21] Go talk to all these people.
[00:32:23] Go talk to any of them you want.
[00:32:24] I just laid out a laundry list of people who either corroborate or deny everything.
[00:32:31] There's no record of a single denial.
[00:32:33] But there was the greatest level of corroboration imaginable, which brings us to the final consideration about the witnesses. They died for this, willingly. They died for their testimony.
[00:32:45] Did you know that 11 of the 12 disciples died martyr deaths? Meaning they willingly, purposefully died for their story. They were killed for claiming to be eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus.
[00:32:56] I say 11 of the 12 because of John. He certainly maintained that he was an eyewitness. They tried to kill him, but they just weren't unsuccessful. So he ended up just being exiled to the island
[00:33:04] of Patmos until he died for it. But think about this. Each of the disciples was faced with a decisive moment. Deny what you say about Jesus and his resurrection and live or cling to your
[00:33:15] pathetic story and die the most cruel, painful, vicious death we can bring to bear. Your call.
[00:33:21] Every single disciple faced this test of torture and martyrdom for the sake of the truth of the resurrection of Jesus and themselves as personal eyewitnesses to that resurrection and stood their ground, and it cost them everything. Tradition has it James was beheaded for it. Matthew was slain
[00:33:39] with a combination battle axe and spear. Philip was whipped. He was thrown into prison and then crucified. Mark died after he'd been dragged through the streets of Alexandria. Peter was crucified in Rome. James was thrown from the top of the pinnacle in the temple of Jerusalem and
[00:33:55] then was beaten to death with a fuller's club. Bartholomew beaten and then crucified. Andrew bound to a cross from which he preached to his persecutors until his death. Thomas run through the body with a lance. Jude shot with arrows and then crucified. And Matthias who replaced Judas
[00:34:12] Iscariot was stoned and then beheaded. Okay, think about that. People will die for what they believe to be true, what they think is true, even though it may be false.
[00:34:25] We see that all the time.
[00:34:27] But people don't have a tendency to die for what they know is a lie.
[00:34:32] And don't forget, these men had been so timid, so scared, so fragile in their faith that they denied even knowing Jesus after his arrest and went into hiding after his execution.
[00:34:44] They scattered.
[00:34:45] They hid behind closed, locked doors.
[00:34:47] Yet after their claim of witnessing the resurrection, each went willingly to a martyr's death that could have been avoided.
[00:34:55] All they had to do was say, you know, you're right.
[00:34:57] I'm wrong.
[00:34:57] Never happened.
[00:34:58] Never saw anything.
[00:34:59] Truth is, we stole the body and we'll take you to it right now.
[00:35:03] But they didn't.
[00:35:04] They each went to their death saying, Jesus is risen.
[00:35:07] It's not something I just believe.
[00:35:09] It's something I saw.
[00:35:10] I'm a witness.
[00:35:11] Kill me if you must, but it happened.
[00:35:13] I know what I saw.
[00:35:14] More importantly, I know who I saw.
[00:35:19] So let's add this up. When you look at the supposed resurrection of Jesus, there are three big areas to explore. Was he really dead? Was the tomb really empty? And were there really eyewitnesses? If he wasn't dead, the tomb wasn't empty, there were no eyewitnesses, you have every
[00:35:34] reason to be suspect. But if he was dead, the tomb was empty, and there were hundreds of eyewitnesses, I would suggest you stay Jesus-curious, maybe even more curious than before.
[00:35:51] You have additional incentive not only to stay Jesus-curious, but maybe to keep hanging with this series because, as I mentioned, we've got other reasons for not believing to explore.
[00:36:02] And next week, it's whether the Christian faith, and specifically the Bible, conflicts with science in a way that cannot be resolved.
[00:36:11] I hope you'll join us as we explore that one.
[00:36:15] Until then, let me pray for you.
[00:36:18] Father, those of us who are followers of Jesus and believe in his resurrection from the dead are here this weekend, along with billions of others around the planet, to celebrate their resurrection.
[00:36:32] Our faith without the resurrection is not simply a faith without a final chapter.
[00:36:36] It is no faith at all.
[00:36:38] But we do have faith, and it's because of the resurrection.
[00:36:42] I pray for those who are still searching, still wondering.
[00:36:45] I pray that today, in some way, their journey has been served.
[00:36:50] And they'll continue to chase after faith in Jesus.
[00:36:55] And I pray that in the name of the one they are trying to chase, in the name of Jesus.