Proof

Just in case you didn't know, there are 50 days of Easter, so we're gonna talk about Easter for 50 days. We're not waiting a whole nother year. So we're gonna go back to the beginning of Luke 24 for the resurrection, no.

We're going to move forward. We had, last week, we talked about the resurrection and the women found the tomb. And this week, we are going, and they went back and told the disciples, and the disciples were like, yeah, right.

And then Peter ran to the tomb, and saw that it was empty and he marveled at it. Then, what we are skipping in Luke is where Cleopas and the other disciple were walking on the road to Emmaus. Does anybody know why we're skipping that? Because that was the post-resurrection series last year.

So you guys remember everything we talked about, right? Right. And for those who are new, we'll come up with something else at some point in time. But what happened at the end of the, when Jesus revealed himself, and they realized that it really was the resurrected Jesus, they ran back to Jerusalem, and they told the disciples, we have seen the living Lord.

And they said, yeah, he's already shown himself to Peter, so we're good. Will you stand as you are able? We pick up in verse 36 of Luke 24. As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, peace to you.

But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. A better interpretation of that, even though it's the same Greek word, pneuma, is a ghost. But they were startled and frightened.

And he said to them, why are you troubled? And why do you doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.

And while they were still believing, disbelieving, disbelieved for joy, and were marveling at what he said to them, have you anything to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate it before them. And then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written in the law and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.

And he said to them, thus it is written, and the Lord should suffer in on the third day, rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of the father upon you but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

I read next week's too. Now I just gave it away. We'll just go on after that.

The word of God inspired by God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen, you may be seated.

Have you ever had to prove who you are? Have you ever had to prove that you exist? The first thing I think of when I had to prove I am who I say I am is getting a driver's license. You have to have another form of ID like a birth certificate, social security card. If you get a passport, you have to prove you are who you say you are.

This one's controversial but if you vote, you still have to show them your ID at least in Johnson County as far as I know. Sometimes proving yourself is what we have to do but for some reason Jesus himself had to prove he was who he was. I saw a cartoon this week where Thomas is sitting here exaggerated talking to the disciples and he's going unless I see his hands and his feet and put my finger in his side, I will not.

He's standing behind me now, isn't he? Jesus himself. It says as they were talking about these things, Jesus himself. Luke wants you to be sure it was Jesus.

It wasn't an imposter. It wasn't someone pretending. It wasn't even a ghost.

Jesus himself as they were talking as in he just showed up uninvited and interrupted their conversation and he said these words, peace be to you. Like the angels, when the angels would come and they'd show up, normally they would say, do not be afraid. They wanted them to have that peace and Jesus said, peace be to you.

Which in Hebrew is actually the word shalom. Now the word shalom is bigger. It was a greeting and it's like bonjour, work that way.

I'm just thinking of Hawaii. I can't go beyond myself. Aloha is a greeting and it's a way to say goodbye.

Shalom is a greeting and a way to say goodbye and it means so much more than the English peace. At firmisrael.org, they say it means good health, holiness, complete tranquility, not just the absence of war and they use this verse for an example. In Genesis 43, 27 and 28, it says, then he asked them about their well-being and said, is your father well? The old man of whom you spoke, is he alive? And they answered, your servant, our father, is in good health and he is alive.

In Hebrew, the word translated as well-being, well, in good health is all shalom. Jesus is saying, shalom, I want you to be in good health. Partially because I got a lot of work for you to do down the road.

I want you to be at peace in your hearts. But they weren't at peace in their hearts. After they saw Jesus, they were frightened because they thought it was a spirit.

Pneuma, the same word for the spirit and Holy Spirit. But it's like seeing a ghost. They believed they were seeing a ghost.

It can't be the real Jesus. Now, this is a cool interaction that Luke shows us because he's saying, I'm not a ghost. I'm not just a spirit.

It wasn't just a spiritual resurrection. As some say today, as they taught me in seminary, it was a physical resurrection. And we have Dr. Luke, who is, Luke, who is a physician, is showing us several things that were going on.

It was kind of cool. They were startled and they were surprised, like the women when they saw the angels. And the angels said to them, you should know what's going on.

Jesus told you all this. Remember last week for the sermon, it was all about told you so. Jesus told you this.

Well, Jesus didn't just tell them this. The scriptures told them this. And they didn't understand the scriptures and everything completely.

So they were startled. Now, it wasn't the first time the disciples thought they had seen a ghost. This could have been popping in their minds in Matthew 14, when Jesus came walking across the lake and they saw him coming through the storm, they yelled, there's a ghost coming.

They watched too many scary movies that weekend, so it was really freaking them out. And Jesus came and he said something similar to them when they thought they had the ghost on the water. He said, take heart, it is I, do not be afraid.

Luke says, it was Jesus himself. Jesus said, it is I. It is still Jesus of Nazareth. It's the same guy.

I'm the same guy. Now, what's really cool about this text, and every time you see Jesus walking on the water, and in English it says, it is I, it really says in the Greek, egoimi, which means, do not be afraid, I am. From Exodus 3.14, when Moses asked God, who should I say is sending me? He said, I am.

The great I am is sending you. So Jesus, by comforting the disciples and saying, I am, is saying, God is with you. Wow.

This is the time of the coming of your God, and you realize it. So the first thing Jesus wants to do is calm them down. And then he starts talking to them.

He knows. This is something they would come to find out really quickly. Why are you troubled? And why are doubts arise in their hearts? He didn't have to, they didn't have to ask him, are you a ghost? He knew what was going on in their heads.

He knew they were going, it is impossible. My science class said, once you die, you die, you don't come back to life. After three days, it just doesn't happen.

And Jesus said, it's me. Why are you troubled? Remember, I told you this was gonna happen. And he said to them, see my hands and my feet, that is, I myself touch and see.

For a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have. Now, if you think about the resurrected body, what are we learning about what resurrection is? Resurrection means, as Paul said, that we have new bodies, heavenly bodies. But Jesus' heavenly body appeared in the room.

Other texts tell us, other gospels tell us that the doors were locked. And he just appeared in the room. And yet, and he could be gone, likely back to heaven, I don't know, in between state.

But yet he was physical, he was going, look at my hands and feet, it is real, it is me. It is the same Jesus that you have come to know. As I was studying this this week, I was thinking about Lee Strobel's books on the, well, this is not the case for Christ, this is the case for the real Jesus.

And if you have a case for the real Jesus, it's kind of cool because it's Jesus saying, it is I myself. And what is Jesus saying us today, so that we know that it is I myself, and we know that the resurrection is supported. Professor J.P. Moreland says, the disciples were in a unique position to know whether the resurrection happened, and they went to their deaths proclaiming it was true.

How many of the disciples probably would have given their lives for something they knew was not true? How would that have happened? Second, apart from the resurrection, there's no good reason why skeptics such as Paul and James would have been converted, and would have died for their faith. Skeptics like Paul and James, remember James being one of the brothers of Jesus, and remember before Jesus went to Jerusalem, he said, why aren't you going to Jerusalem? If you're such a prophet, go show them you're a prophet. That's what prophets do.

And there were other times where they tried to just get him to come home, and it just didn't work, but he changed, and that was the resurrection. It wasn't because he traveled with the disciples. Third, within weeks of the crucifixion, thousands of Jews became convinced that Jesus was the Son of God, and had been following him, abandoning key social practices.

And fifth, the miraculous emergence of the church in the face of the brutal Roman persecution rips a great hole in history, a hole the size of the shape of resurrection. When I was in college, and I first started getting this urge to go, and I felt God calling me into the ministry. I obviously waited for a while, but I thought, you know, here at this wonderful public university, I'm going to go through the whole catalog, which I was looking at in a catalog, and I'm going to find the best class for a pastor, and the only thing I found was a class called Philosophy of Religion, and the whole class was then about the professor saying, mocking Christianity, kind of like the movie, what was the movie, where the professor, God's Not Dead, and he mocked Christianity, and he mocked, and he couldn't believe that we weren't arguing with him.

And so we had to write a final paper on if we could prove by logic that God exists or doesn't exist. And I, in my paper, was pretty happy with myself because I wrote, I know God exists because of the Holy Spirit, and I went on, and what that proved logically to someone who didn't have the Holy Spirit was what? Nothing. Now, I thought for a long time, and seminary didn't help this any, that we couldn't logically come to the conclusion that Jesus is who he says he is, that it just was by faith.

But there are so many things that tell us logically, not just with our heart, that Jesus lived and was an actual historic character, that he was actually resurrected, and that, well, he actually died on the cross, because it's not like he could have survived anyway, especially after they drove a spear in his side, and that he actually lived coming out of the tomb. Logic tells you there are no other explanations for those things, that it's real, that we, too, can provide some of this proof. Jesus said, see my hands and feet, that is, I myself, again, touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

And when he said this, he showed them his hands and feet. Now, he showed them touch. They could see.

They could see the wounds. They could see that it was actual flesh. They didn't reach out to Jesus, and their hand went through him, like in some movie or something.

They saw that it was actual flesh. Now, why is this so important to Luke, that Jesus was actual flesh, that our heavenly bodies include a physical resurrection? Why is this so important to Luke, who is a physician? Part of it is just to explain the facts of what happened. The other part of it is that other people, as they argue today, that it was just a spiritual resurrection with Jesus Christ.

And so, it was like seeing someone's spirit as it comes out of their body, or something like that, that God didn't do anything unique in Jesus Christ. And Luke wants us to see that it is unique, it is real. It is something amazing and miraculous that God has done, and that Jesus, raised from the dead, is something that had never been done in history, and it's different than Lazarus.

You may think, well, he raised Lazarus from the dead. But what happened to Lazarus after that? He eventually died, just like every other human. Jesus rose to life for eternity.

And that tells us what the resurrection is gonna be like, what our physical bodies are gonna be like, as we are part of resurrection day with Jesus. 1 Corinthians 15, in the case for the real Jesus, they point a lot to 1 Corinthians 15, that Paul had, he says this, "'For I delivered to you, as of first importance, "'what I also received.'" Now, a lot of scholars believe that he received this when he met with Peter and James in Jerusalem, because he said he received it. He didn't write this, that Christ died for our sins, accordance with the scripture, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day accordance with the scriptures, in accordance with the scriptures.

And that he appeared to Cephas, who's Cephas? Peter, that's the Aramaic. That's really what Jesus named him, wasn't Petros in Greek or Peter in English. It was Cephas, which means a stone or a rock in Aramaic.

Then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles. So according to this, James didn't just believe because others told him about Jesus.

He saw the resurrected Jesus. So that's why they believe Peter and James handed it to him, because he specifically mentions them in this. So how many people witnessed the resurrected Jesus? More than 500 witnessed Jesus.

More than 500 saw it. Now, if you're trying to make up a story, and that story seems to be something that you're trying, how do you get 10 people to tell the exact same story? How do you get 20? How do you get three? 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus. Now, Paul would have gotten this, his first visit with Peter and James was within five years after the resurrection.

Many of those 500 were still alive when he went there, and he's not including himself in this. He said, I am the last one who was untimely. So he's not including himself, but that was within five years, that within five years, if you have 500 people, do you think you'd have a few people who would dispute that? If there weren't 500 people, if there weren't those in that group that could do that, no ghost.

Verse 41 says, goes on to say that once Jesus showed him his hands and feet, they were still disbelieved for joy. What does he need to do to prove it to them? They still disbelieve for joy. It's almost like saying it was too good to be true, and we're marveling.

Now, the marveling gives us hope. Remember, marveling means just in awe. And he said to them, have you anything here to eat? And then he took something to eat, and it just fell to the floor, no.

Now, a couple of things we need to, we just talked about how Jesus knew their thoughts, that we gotta get past thinking that Jesus doesn't know our thoughts, he doesn't know our feelings. That we can hide anything from Jesus, that we can go to prayer and go, pretend like everything is great. Pretend like we don't have something going on that's something like life skills, or something we need help with from God.

And here he asked them about a fish, so we know that he already knows. We know in the encounter, one of the encounters at the Sea of Galilee, when Peter was fishing with the Gospels, and then he restored Peter, he kept going, Peter, do you love me? And Peter kept replying, Lord, you know that I love you. You know, why do I have to tell you? You know, and then the third time he said, you know everything, you know that I love you.

You know, Jesus knew they had fish. They had something to eat. So when he asked for it, why wouldn't Jesus just say, oh, let me prove it to you, here's some fish.

And they'd be going, well, that's fake fish. That's your magic fish. So by taking their fish that they knew that they had caught, and they had cooked, and they were eating, Jesus proved to them that his physically resurrected body could eat.

And it was, it was true that he said it was him. Now, it's all this proof, and all these things going on, leading up to eating the fish that opens their mind to trust in the resurrected Jesus, just like they trusted in Jesus of Nazareth, and just as they would call him now, Lord and Savior. Let's pray.

Almighty God, thank you so much that, there are so many proofs of Jesus, of his resurrection, of his life, and of his death. Thank you that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father. Thank you that you know all our thoughts, and yet you still love us.

Thank you that we can be logical when talking about Jesus with others. Thank you also for the Holy Spirit to lift us up and give us strength. And thank you that we can know, we can know that we know that we know that we know that Jesus is alive, because he'll walk with us, talk with us, go with us.

That he's still here in our hearts. We pray this in Jesus' holy name, amen.