1 When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 And they were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” 4 And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back—it was very large. 5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. 6 And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. 9 Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. 11 But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. 12 After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. 13 And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. 14 Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important event in human history. If it occurred, God is real, Jesus is him, the Bible is true, heaven and hell are realities, and Jesus makes the difference on whether you go to one or the other. Additionally, by its own admission, Christianity is a pointless exercise if Christ did not rise. The Apostle Paul said:
1 Corinthians 15:17 (ESV) — 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. So, if it happened, it is God breaking into our world, giving us hope that a glorious and resurrected future in his forever kingdom is possible through the work of Jesus. If it happened, it is God, yet again, answering man’s cry that he "reveal himself if he is there." If it happened, Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, so we must discern and heed his every word. But, if it did not happen, Jesus and the teachings of his church ought to be quickly discarded. Without the resurrection, there is no point to Christianity.
Theories
That said, it’s understandable why many cannot believe Jesus rose from the dead. It is, at face value, illogical. People don't rise from the dead, especially not as Jesus did. He came back to life in the same body he had died, but that body was transformed into a more glorious version. And it would never die again. It had not been merely resuscitated but resurrected, and his resurrection promises resurrection for all who believe in him. But it is insufficient for one to say they don't believe Jesus rose from the dead because people don't normally rise from the dead. That’s the whole point! Christianity is so radical and life-changing that it should not be based on something normal. It should be based on something abnormal, something special, something supernatural. Since Christianity leads to a final and forever resurrection, it is appropriate for it to be based on Jesus' resurrection. In modern times, there is no serious debate about Jesus' existence. His life is one of the most easily validated lives of antiquity. It is also widely believed that Jesus was crucified and that something after Jesus' death propelled a group of people to align themselves with him. That group -- the church -- immediately began to spread throughout the known world. Their spread did not begin lifetimes after Jesus' life but right after he departed from the earth. In other words, the earliest spread of Christianity was not due to a legend about Jesus that developed hundreds of years later but as a response to what a group of people had seen and witnessed with their own eyes. These historical events have led to many odd theories by those who cannot accept the possibility Jesus rose. Some have said Jesus almost died but fainted and revived a few days later. But it's hard to imagine how he wriggled out of the graveclothes, moved the massive stone, departed from the grave, and convinced the disciples to suffer and die for him. Some have said all the early Christians hallucinated Christ's resurrection, but this is a clear demonstration they don't know how hallucinations work (hint: it's not a group experience). Some say it was a legend or myth adopted over time, or that the body was stolen, or that they simply went to the wrong tomb, or that the church lied so they could make money from the story of the resurrection. My favorite is the twin theory: Jesus had an identical twin brother. They were separated at birth. After Jesus died, this twin emerged, stole Jesus' body from the grave, and pretended to be the risen Messiah. But the clearest explanation is the supernatural one: Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Our passage today contains seven clues that support this claim.
1. The Documents
The first clue that Jesus' resurrection is a factual event is not in this text but is the text itself. The New Testament -- writings like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- is the most well-authenticated document of antiquity. We can compare and contrast almost six thousand ancient Greek copies of the New Testament (not to mention another nearly twenty thousand non-Greek ancient manuscripts) to ensure we are reading what the originals said. That's around twenty-five thousand ancient manuscripts. For comparison, the document of antiquity that comes second is Homer's Iliad, which has 643 ancient manuscripts—643 to 25K. The earliest copy of the Iliad is from the thirteenth century, almost two thousand years after Homer died. We are living almost two thousand years after the New Testament was written, and our earliest copies come from the second century. We have a reliable book. It’s what was originally written. And the contents are astounding. Some have said Christianity merely borrowed from myths and mystery religions, that Jesus' resurrection parroted all the resurrection fables in circulation at that time. The problem is there is no definitive evidence for the teaching of a deity resurrection in any of the mystery religions before the second century -- after the events of Jesus' time. No, pagan myths might've focused on the earth’s rebirth every spring, but no one around during Jesus' time was preaching the possibility of resurrected life after death. The New Testament is different from anything before or after it. It's not written like mythology, but history. And that's the thing -- Jesus' resurrection is either an elaborate hoax, mythology, or history. But it isn't written like mythology, and there are reasons it could not have been a hoax. It is history.
2. The Stone
The second clue that Jesus' resurrection is a factual event is the stone that covered the tomb. In our passage, the women went to the tomb early in the morning to finish anointing Jesus' dead body with burial spices (1-2). They worried, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" (3). They were concerned because the stone was heavy, perhaps thousands of pounds, and they knew they couldn't move it with their bare hands. But they didn't know the full story. The other gospels tell us the Romans put a seal on the stone so the tomb would be tamper-proof and set a guard outside the tomb to protect the body. No one could tamper with Jesus' body. In other words, there were tight security measures surrounding Jesus' grave. These women could not even temporarily roll away the stone, so the early disciples had no chance of stealing the body of Jesus. Next week, we’ll uncover the remaining five clues that point to the fact that Jesus rose from the dead.