Robert Jeffress - The Three Most Important Questions About Easter
Hi, I am Robert Jeffress, and the happy Easter! And welcome again to «Pathway to Victory». The empty tomb stands at the very heart of Christianity. Without the resurrection, our faith would be meaningless and our hope misplaced. Yet, for many people, this miraculous event raises legitimate questions. Is there actual evidence that Jesus rose from the dead? Why is this historical event so important, and what practical difference does it make in my life today? My message is titled «The three most important questions about Easter» on today’s special edition of Pathway to Victory.
The three most frequently attended church services in the year are, can you guess them? In third place, mother’s day. Now, moms, don’t feel badly, you’re still ahead of father’s day. Number two most frequently attended service, Christmas. Number one, you guessed it, Easter Sunday. I’ve always thought it was a little bit ironic that the most frequently attended service of the church year is the Sunday we celebrate the event in Jesus' life that most people have trouble believing really happened. I mean, everybody believes Jesus existed, there’s historical evidence for that outside of the Bible. They can see he was a great teacher who taught some really nice things we ought to do. They will even admit that he died on a Roman cross, though most people can’t explain exactly why. But the resurrection? Raised from the dead? Most people will treat that like the legend of Santa Claus. Oh, sure, one day a year it’s fun to pretend it really happened, but nobody takes it seriously.
But I want you to look around you today. There are thousands of people here who take it seriously. They believe that the resurrection actually happened, that it is a part of the great accomplishment of what God did for each one of us. And the death and resurrection of Christ, well, you can’t separate one from the other, both are essential to our Christian faith. Now, I realize today we have a lot of CEOs with us in church, Christmas and Easter Onlys, and if that’s true of you, I’m not here to berate you. I want to welcome you. I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad in this increasingly secular society, you thought it important enough to be here on Easter Sunday morning. But I also realize you may have some legitimate questions about this resurrection business. And so, today, not only to the convinced, but those who are yet to be convinced, I want to talk about three essential questions, ask and answer three essential questions about the resurrection.
Number one, why is the resurrection important? Secondly, how do we know that it really happened? And thirdly, what does the resurrection mean to me? First of all, question number one, why is the resurrection so important? One professing Christian scholar said, «I’d have no problem whatsoever with archeologists finding the corpse of Jesus. For me, that would not discredit the Christian faith or the Christian tradition,» to which the apostle Paul says, «I beg to differ». Paul wrote 1 Corinthians chapter 15 to combat the teaching of the Sadducees. Just what if the corpse of Jesus is discovered one day? 1 verse 13, Paul says, «If there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ who’s been raised».
Now, that makes sense. If there’s no such thing as a resurrection, then Christ will not have been raised from the dead. You may say, «Well, if I learned that, I’d be disappointed». But then, I was disappointed when I heard the truth about Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and the tooth fairy, but I got over it eventually. No, it doesn’t just stop there. He says in verse 14, «For if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain». Every sermon you ever listened to, every sermon I ever preached was a waste of time. It has no more authority than an Aesop fable. And not only that, he says, «If there’s no resurrection, your faith is in vain».
That so-called faith that led you to Christ when you were a youngster perhaps, that was just emotion. That faith that sustained you through a difficult time in your life, that was just your imagination. That faith that gave you hope and assurance when a loved one passed away, that was a sham. It never really happened. Do you believe that? Do you believe your faith has been worthless? It is if there is no resurrection. In verse 15, he said, «Moreover, we are even found to be false witnesses of God because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised». He’s saying every Christian who has ever testified of the resurrection and the new life they have in Christ, every one of them is a liar. Now, think about that. For 2,000 years, every Christian is a liar. The great church leaders, saint Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, liars every one of them.
And that leads to the second logical question, how do we know that the resurrection really happened? Let me quickly share with you five of the strongest pieces of evidence for the resurrection. First of all, the transformation, the immediate transformation of the disciples. People forget this, that by Good Friday when Christ was nailed to the cross, most all of his disciples had left him. They had abandoned him. They were scared to death of being identified with him. They were not expecting a resurrection. They departed from Christ quicker than rats off a sinking ship. They didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Think about Peter who was going to be the leader of the church. He denied Jesus three times within a couple of hours on that Thursday evening. He was afraid of a little slave girl who said, «Aren’t you a follower of Jesus of Nazareth»?
Now, how do you explain the difference three days after the crucifixion, when they were boldly willing to witness and stand up and testify, even if it cost them their life? How do you explain Peter seven weeks later, standing on the steps of Jerusalem of the temple, preaching to the crowd that had just earlier crucified Jesus? Said, «You evil men, you nailed him to the cross, but it was all according to the predetermined plan of God, and God raised him up just as he said he would». How did Peter get the courage to do that? How did the disciples have the courage to do it? They had seen the resurrected Christ. That’s what made the difference. The transformation of the disciples. Secondly, the conversion of the skeptics.
Think about people who were not just unbelievers, but they were enemies of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I mentioned two of them to you. First of all, James. Remember James, the half brother of Jesus? Now, you may be wondering, wait a minute, half brother, how did James get to be a half brother of Jesus? Listen, Jesus had many brothers and sisters, but they were born the old fashioned way with Mary and Joseph. Jesus was virgin born. They all shared the same mother, but had a different father. The rest of his siblings had Joseph. Jesus had God the Father. But remember what happened during Jesus' life, his family, they were so concerned about Jesus claiming to be the Messiah that they had a family intervention. They called Jesus in and said, «Jesus, you got to quit doing this Messiah stuff».
And James led the way. Now, what happened to James after the resurrection? He became the leader of the church of Jerusalem. He was stoned to death because of his faith. What made the difference? Remember, Paul said Jesus appeared to whom? James, James, his half brother, to say, «James, it is real». People say, «Well, just because they died for their faith doesn’t mean it’s real. I mean, a lot of followers of false religions die for their faith. Hindus, Muslims, others, they die for a lie».
The point is they think it’s the truth. Nobody willingly dies for a lie that they know is a lie. You had the conversion of James. Think about the apostle Paul, another skeptic. He was an enemy of the cross. He was on his way to Damascus as a zealot Jew to stamp out this new heresy called Christianity. But acts 9 tells us that on the way to Damascus, he was confronted by the living Christ who said, «Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me»? And that appearance of the risen Christ is what changed Paul forever and turned him, transformed him from being a violent aggressor against the church to being the greatest apologist ever for the veracity of the Christian faith. Thirdly, consider the radical changes in Judaism. That is an evidence for the truth of the resurrection.
What do I mean the changes in Judaism? Like for example, the sacrificial system. They quit immediately offering sacrifices for their sins. They changed their perspective of the mosaic law. They had been depending on the mosaic law for their salvation, and now they called it the old covenant. They not only did that, they changed their day of worship overnight from Saturdays, the sabbath, to Sunday, the resurrection day. How do you explain that radical transformation of so many devout Jews? One scholar says it this way, «These changes to Jewish social structures were not just minor adjustments, they were social earthquakes, and earthquakes don’t happen without a cause».
There was an earthquake, it’s called the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That’s the only way you explain those radical changes. Fourth, the ordinances of the Lord’s supper and baptism. I bet you’ve never thought about this before, but the quick institution of these religious rituals argues for the resurrection. You say, «Well, how so? Every religion has its own rituals». None like this one. Think about what the Lord’s supper and baptism represent. They represent the death and the resurrection of Jesus. When you eat this bread and drink the cup, you show what? The Lord’s death until he comes. Has it ever struck you as odd that we sit around and celebrate the death, the torture, the execution of the founder of our faith, Jesus Christ?
Lee Strobel puts it this way. He says, «Imagine admirers of John f. Kennedy said, 'we want to get together once a week to pay tribute to president Kennedy, but we’re not going to celebrate his courageous confrontation with Cuba, or his push for civil rights. Instead, we want to meet together once a week to celebrate that date, November 22nd, 1963, when Kennedy had his head nearly blown off right here on the streets of Dallas. We’re going to celebrate that and sing hymns about that'».
Would that strike you as a little odd? Why do we celebrate the torture and execution of Jesus Christ? Because the story doesn’t stop there. Three days later, there was a resurrection that put the cross into perspective and the fact that the early church started celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus is a strong case for its veracity. I’ve saved the best, the strongest piece of evidence for last, the empty tomb.
Years ago, I was on a program, television program in Canada featuring Dr. Paul Meyer, not our Paul Meyer here in the Metroplex, but a Harvard PhD in archeology. And during one of the commercials, the interviewer asked Dr. Meyer, «What is the strongest piece of evidence for the resurrection»? And without hesitating, he said, «That’s easy. It’s the empty tomb». Think about it. For 2,000 years, nobody’s been able to find the body of Jesus. Now, you know what skeptics say. They say, «Well, somebody stole the body». But then you have to ask the question, who stole the body? «Who moved the stone»? As Frank Morris wrote in his book. The only explanation for the empty tomb is that God himself reached down and rescued his son from the grave, and he promises to do the same for us one day as well. «I will not abandon my holy one to sheol, to the grave,» God said.
And that leads to the third and perhaps the most important question. We’ve talked about why the resurrection is important and how we know it happened. What does the resurrection mean to me? Well, first of all, it authenticates the Bible, especially the teachings of Jesus. Romans 1 says, «Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power by his what? His resurrection from the dead». The resurrection of Jesus proves that he is who he said he was, the Son of God, and it means we must take seriously everything he taught. Secondly, it validates the death of Jesus. If Jesus had remained in that tomb, it would’ve meant when he died, he died for his own sins. But the fact that he was raised from the dead was God’s way of saying, «I accept his payment on your behalf».
Romans 4:25 says, «For Jesus was delivered over to be crucified for our transgressions, he was raised for our justification». The way we know we are justified, declared not guilty when we trust in Christ, is the resurrection from the dead. Somebody once said, «Easter is God’s 'amen' to Jesus' 'it is finished'». It is the exclamation point. It is the proof that Jesus did what he promised he would do. And thirdly, the resurrection means to me that it eliminates the fear of death. The resurrection is important because it eliminates the fear of death. The greatest problem we all face, the greatest question is the one job articulated in job 14:14 when he said, «If a person dies, will he live again»?
Isn’t that the bottom line question of the universe? Is this life all that there is, or is there something better ahead? If a person dies, will he live again? If my father and mother die, will they live again? If my mate dies, will he or she live again? If my child dies, will he or she live again? If I die, when I die, will I live again? The resurrection provides an answer to that question. Jesus is the way to heaven. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, «As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive». And he eliminates not only the power of death, but even the fear of death. Hebrews 2, verses 14 to 15 says that Jesus Christ came to free those who through the fear of death are subject to slavery all of their lives. We no longer have to fear death if we’re a Christian. Because of the resurrection, we know that death is simply a door, it’s a passageway we go through to experience the wonderful unending blessings of heaven.
The late preacher Vance Havner once said, «The hope of dying is the only thing that keeps me alive». That’s true for all of us. The only way to keep living is to know that there’s something better. I think about the story of golf pro Paul Azinger. You may remember this champion golfer was diagnosed with cancer when he was 33 years old. He had just won a PGA tournament and 10 other tournament. When he discovered he had cancer, he wrote this, «A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I’m going to die eventually anyway, whether it’s from cancer or something else, it’s just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was to live». And then he recounts something a friend told him, he said, «Zinger, remember this, we are not in the land of the living headed to the land of the dying. We are in the land of the dying headed to the land of the living».
Paul Azinger recovered from his chemotherapy and he actually returned to the PGA tour, but he said his about with cancer changed his perspective about everything. He said, «I’ve made a lot of money since I’ve been on the tours. I’ve won a lot of tournaments, but that happiness is always temporary. The only way you will have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don’t have problems, but I feel like I found the answer to the six foot hole in the ground». Have you found the answer to the six foot hole? Something we’re all going to experience one day. The only answer is Jesus, the one who said, «I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live again». Aren’t you glad we have a Savior who conquered death once and for all?