Resurrection? Big Deal

Every Easter growing up, I remember people with wide smiles at church greeting each other, “He is risen!” And the inevitable reply would come, “He is risen, indeed!”

But I didn’t get it. What’s the big deal about the resurrection? I wondered.

Again, over a decade ago, I had finished seminary and still could not give a clear and satisfying answer to the question. After all, I thought, if the work of salvation had been accomplished on the Cross, why was it necessary for Jesus to rise from the dead? Having saved us, couldn’t he have just stayed dead?

I believed in the resurrection, but I could not explain its importance nor what it had to do with me. But I knew it had to be a big deal, because Paul says things like, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain and you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17). In Paul’s theology, the resurrection is the linchpin of the entire Christian faith.

How would you answer the question - “Why did Jesus have to resurrect? And what does that have to do with you and me?” If you can answer that easily, praise God, you are dismissed. If not, please keep reading.

Although Scripture is full of answers to this, I’ll keep it to three: (1) faith, (2) hope, (3) and love. Jesus resurrected for our faith, hope and love. Let’s unpack those.

First, the resurrection was necessary for our faith. Why? Because the resurrection authenticates everything that Jesus said and did and validates his identity as the Son of God.

One of the things Jesus had to deal with over and over in his ministry was people asking for proof and signs. “Why should we believe you?” they’d say. “Prove it!” they would say. “Give us a sign, then we’ll trust that you are who you say you are.” Now, I can’t blame them. If someone comes along claiming to be the Son of God with a kingdom in tow, I hope you wouldn’t just take them at their word. You’d want some kind of proof. The problem is this - Jesus would perform a miracle and they’d say, “That’s not enough, give us another!” Eventually, he gets tired of giving them signs, and in Matthew 12:39-40 he says, “No sign will be given to [you] except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

At first that sounds a little confusing. The sign of Jonah? Let’s think back to the story of Jonah, the runaway prophet who got eaten by a giant fish in the Mediterranean Sea. But instead of dying, as everyone else who has ever been eaten by a fish, Jonah survives. And three days later, the fish vomits him out onto the beach at Nineveh. The folks in Nineveh see it all happen and think, ‘Who is that? Is that some kind of god of the sea? A messenger from Poseidon? Whoever it is, I’m listening to what that guy has to say.’ And sure enough, because of the “sign of Jonah” - his survival in the fish - the whole pagan city believed his message.

So, back to Jesus. The people are demanding proof from him. And he says, “You want proof? I’ll give you the sign of Jonah.” In other words, just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and came out alive, so Jesus will be dead in a tomb and come out alive on the third day. That’s how they’ll know whether he’s the real deal, whether he can do what nobody has ever done and defeat death.

Now, imagine the disciples sitting together on Saturday, after watching his brutal crucifixion, after watching him embalmed and buried. In their devastation, what would they have been thinking? “Well, I guess he was just another man after all. Another prophet that our people have put to death. So much for the kingdom of God.” In fact, after all the astounding things he had said about being the almighty Son of God, they might have begun to wonder whether they had been following a crazy person or a pathological liar. But consider how their thoughts changed when he showed up at their door on Sunday alive and well after being dead in the belly of the earth. I imagine their eyes growing wide and round, their hearts in their throats, breathless while the good news sinks in. “He really is the One,” they would have thought. “The King we’ve been waiting for. The Son of God. It’s not a fairy tale after all. Holy smokes, it’s all true.” Thus, having seen the ‘sign of Jonah,’ they believed. What better way to prove your divinity than defeating death?

Just as it was for the disciples, the same is true for us - Jesus’ resurrection authenticates everything that he said and did and validates his identity as the Son of God.

We ask again, why the resurrection? This time we answer - for our hope. Jesus had to come back from the dead because he is the representative of redeemed humanity, the visible promise of all who place their hope in him.

The apostle Paul explains it this way, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep…For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ” (1 Cor 15:20-23).

I’ll only point out one word of Paul’s - that word “firstfruits.” It’s a fascinating word - a farming term. Firstfruits are the very first batch of a crop, and they serve as a sample for what the crop will be like for the rest of the season. In the last few weeks the three fig trees in my yard have put out the first figs of the season, the firstfruits. Now, the trees will be producing figs for the next six months - until October possibly, but the firstfruits that we’ll eat in the coming weeks, they’re like a sample of what the figs will be like the rest of the season. If they’re gross now, they’ll be gross in August. If they’re delicious now, they’ll be delicious in October.  The firstfruits are indicators of the taste, size, and color of the whole harvest.

Likewise, Paul is saying that Jesus is the firstfruit of redeemed humanity. And whatever he’s like, that’s what will become of all who hope in him. If he had never resurrected, then sin, suffering, and death would also be the end of our stories. But since Jesus was healed of his wounds, he is the living promise that one day our wounds will be healed, both the ones we carry on the outside and on the inside. Since Jesus did not remain under judgment for sin but passed through it, neither shall we remain under judgment, but pass through it. And just as death was not the last word for him, neither shall it be for us, but life everlasting. I John puts it in the simplest of terms: all who hope in him shall be like him (1 John 3:2-3). In sum, Jesus had to come back from the dead because he is the representative of redeemed humanity, the firstfruit, the visible promise of all who place their hope in him.

So third and last, why was the resurrection necessary? For our love. The night before he was crucified, Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful…but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (John 16:20, 22).

If you had asked one of the disciples our question - “Hey Peter, why does it even matter that Jesus rose from the dead?” You probably would have been punched in the nose or, given Peter’s record, lost an ear. Because if you think about it, to his disciples, Jesus’ death was first and foremost not a theological puzzle to solve, but a loss of the most personal kind. Peter had lost his best friend. Mary Magdalene had lost the kindest man she’d ever known. John had a gaping hole in his heart where his Beloved used to be. Mother Mary spent six helpless hours watching her firstborn son struggling to catch his breath on the Cross. To all of them, the question is ridiculous. “What do you mean why does it matter!?” they would have said. “We loved him more than anything in all the world! Of course it matters whether he came back from the dead!” I imagine those of you who have lost a loved one would also find it ridiculous if asked whether you’d like to have them back from the dead.

If you love Jesus, it makes all the difference in the world whether he came out of the grave or not. And because he did resurrect, we can know him and be known by him. This is in the Spirit now, but in the future, it will be in the fullness of the resurrected body. Because he is alive, like Peter, we can eat and drink with him as friends. Like Mary, we can hear his voice calling our names. Like John, we can know our Beloved face to face, putting joy back into our busted hearts that even the powers of Hell cannot take away.

So why is the resurrection necessary? And what does it have to do with me and you? Simply put, it gives us Jesus, the only One worthy of our faith, hope, and love.

Happy Easter,

David