John 20:1-31
In the opening scene of the movie Flatliners a doctor, played by a very young Julia Roberts, is interviewing patients who have had Near Death Experiences. She notes the classic symptoms: a patient who watched herself being recussitated from the vantage point of the hospital ceiling; the girl who flew down a long tunnel towards a beautiful light; hearing a voice or seeing a vision of heaven or (occasionally) hell. Many people have had tantalising glimpses of a possible afterlife during a medical emergency, but the jury is still out on what might be happening, a genuine taste of heaven or the ‘sights’ and ‘sounds’ made by an anoxic brain in its death throes? Nobody knows; the point is that you canot rely on this kind of thing for hope in the face of death.
What can you rely on?
In the spring of the year 29 AD (or therabouts) a young man was executed just outside Jerusalem and his friends burried him in the family tomb of a wealthy individual called Joseph of Arimathea. They planned to return a couple of days later to perform the proper rituals on the body. The tomb was a cave, carved into a hillside and closed with an enormous rolling stone. The grave was closed and sealed.
That was Friday – day one. Jesus, the young man in question, was dead and gone. On Saturday, day two, everyone in Jerusalem observed the Sabbath. On Sunday, day three, some of the man’s friends returned to the grave. One of those friends took the trouble to record what happened through the eyes of three witnesses and one other person who was not an eye witness but is in this room today.
Mary Magdalene [once had episodes of psychotic behaviour]
John 20:1-10
Maybe the first thing that strikes you about this is the carefully observed detail in the story (who did what, where the linnen was lying). This is powerful narrative and it only makes sense if this is a real person writing down what he actually saw: we are in the presence of an eye witness here.
You sense the confusion felt by these people: they really have no idea what is happening – Peter rushes into the cave, sees that Jesus is gone and ‘believes’. This does not mean that he believed Jesus, it means that he believed Mary (2), someone has ‘taken the Lord’s body out of the tomb’. For all their years with Jesus they are still spiritually unconscious (9). Then everyone leaves and Mary is left alone by the graveside.
Mary had been in recovery for several years, prior to that she was known for her bizzarre behaviour – it used to be that she was posessed by seven demons. You never know with people like Mary, do you? One day she is fine and the next she’s a mess.
So the disciples did not believe her when she turned up shouting “I have seen the Lord!” (18). This time no-one bothered to go and see for themselves.
John tells us her story (11-18) and you can imagine her friends gently reassuring her while they exchanged glances behind her back: she must be so desperate to see Jesus again her brain is making things up. But there was one fact she could not invent, one powerful fact you can check out for yourself the next time you are in Jerusalem: the tomb is empty.
You cannot visit the grave of Jesus because there isn’t one... where did he go?
Simon-Peter [fisherman – businessman – natural leader]
Peter was first into the empty tomb, best placed to know what had happened, and he was sure that the body had been removed by a person or persons unknown. John tells us what changed this:
John 20:19-23
Now Peter had to believe Mary’s impossible story. He had now seen Jesus face to face, but it didn’t stop there. In the next chapter you see Jesus fishing and eating with his disciples, then you see Peter in intimate conversation with him, they are doing serious spiritual business in the aftermath of Peter’s denial. In fact, Peter and his friends met with Jesus many times over a 40 day period. On one occasion he was seen by more than 500 people at once.
Lots of people are inclined to accept that Jesus did do some amazing miracles, but stop short of believing the ‘super-miracle’ of the resurrection. But Jesus made sure that a huge number of people saw and recorded their evidence so that you and I could know for ourselves. In the end, Simon-Peter and his friends would have found it ludicrous to deny that Jesus had come back to life.
Thomas Didymus [the ‘punter from Hell’ – not easily persuaded]
I was talking to a car-salesman friend of mine recently and I asked him about the phrases he and his colleagues use to describe different kinds of customers. “What about the one who wants to buy a car but is very suspicious of car salesmen?” I asked, “Oh, that would be the punter from Hell”, Peter replied. Thomas Didymus, one of Jesus closest friends was the punter from Hell – he probably wanted to believe his friends but he just couldn’t:
John 20:24-28
This is a significant moment because it tells us that Jesus body was real. This was not a ghost or some spirit that had taken up residence in another host body. Thomas was confronted with the man who was crucified!
This meeting had dramatic consequences (28) because Thomas would go on to do something quite extreme. After those fourty days with Jesus he packed his bags and headed east, through Syria and Persia announcing the resurrection of Jesus as he went. Eventually he arrived in the south of India where (according to tradition) he founded a church that survives there to this day. The punter from Hell became the messenger from Heaven!
Thomas took the message to south India where he was killed and later Simon-Peter took it to Rome where he was crucified. Why do you think they did this?
Simple, they were killed because they insisted that they had seen Christ die and that they had witnessed the fact that he had come back to life. All but one of the original apostles died because refused to back down from this assertion: that Jesus had risen from the grave.
Dave Burke [atheist – scientist – selfish and opinionated]
The fourth person we are going to look at in John’s resurrection narrative is me, Dave Burke. You will find me mentioned towards the end of the chapter (29-30) because I too am a witness to the resurrection of Jesus.
People often tell me that if they could have a vivid experience like Thomas they would believe. Well I have never seen Jesus, but I believe it with all my heart – because the evidence is so good:
Jesus died on day one... On day three the grave was empty...Over a period of fourty days Jesus gave proof after convincing proof that he as alive... People like Thomas and Peter went to their own deaths confident in what they had seen