Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead? Lessons from Unbelief
Luke 24:1-49
Did Jesus really rise from the dead? That’s a big question, and one that’s admittedly hard to believe. Jesus’ resurrection is the biggest and most audacious claim of Christianity.
We want to look at Luke 24 and notice that this question of Jesus’ resurrection is the driving theme. We have 3 smaller stories all on the 3rd day after Jesus’ crucifixion, all in/around Jerusalem, with people wondering what happened to Jesus.
Vv. 1-12, Some women go to the tomb to put spices on Jesus’ body, obviously expecting the body to be there in the tomb. They meet two angels who tell them that Jesus is not here. They remind the women that Jesus said he would be crucified and on the third day he would rise. They go back to tell the disciples. V. 11, “but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.”
Vv. 13-35, Two men were going from Jerusalem to Emmaus when they meet another traveler who asked what they were talking about. They say, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who doesn’t know? Jesus was a mighty prophet, but our religious leaders delivered him to be crucified. We had hoped he would redeem Israel, but its now the third day since he died.”
The traveler says, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” He then explained how the OT Scriptures spoke about the Christ and how he would suffer. Later the two recognize that the other traveler is in fact the risen Jesus.
Vv. 36-49, The disciples were gathered and Jesus appears. They are freaked out, thinking they’re seeing a ghost. Jesus says, “Why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet . . . Touch me, and see.” We read, “They still disbelieved for joy and were marveling.”
All three stories have people struggling to believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
Today I want to look at why we sometimes don’t believe and draw some lessons.
Next week I’d like to see how Jesus addresses the unbelief of his friends.
Why is this hard to believe? Ways we miss the resurrection.
1. “You can’t always believe what you hear”
When the women return from seeing the empty tomb and hearing the angels say Jesus had risen, v. 11 says “these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” NIV, “seemed like nonsense.”
We don’t always believe what people say. It’s not that people are intentionally deceptive, though sometimes they are. Rather, sometimes people get things wrong. Our powers of observation or analysis aren’t always reliable.
Once my wife asked me to get something from the pantry (perhaps a can of soup). I looked and looked and said it wasn’t there. She said, “Yes it is, on the second shelf.” “No, I don’t see it.” She walks over and grabs it. “It’s right here.”
Sometimes our powers of observation and analysis aren’t reliable. You can’t always believe what you hear.
2. “You’re not meeting my expectations.”
The two guys on the road to Emmaus thought that Jesus would “redeem Israel.” At the time, the Jews were conquered subjects of the Roman Empire. These two guys (and almost all the other Jesus followers) thought that Jesus was going to free them from the Romans. They saw him perform miracles, a man of God; he was the promised Messiah that the OT prophets had spoken of. The only problem was that in their minds, the Messiah was a political/military deliverer.
It certainly made sense. If you’re conquered by a foreign power and ruled by the sword, what other kind of rescue would you think of?
But they had misunderstood Jesus. Jesus never intended to deliver them from the Romans. There were times when he knew the people wanted to make him a king, and he hide and withdrew. He came to deliver, not from the Romans, but from sin, condemnation and death. His was a spiritual and ultimately a cosmic rescue. He came to bring not a political state for Jews but the Kingdom of God.
They thought Jesus would overturn the Romans, but then he “failed,” and all their hopes were dashed to the ground. They couldn’t believe the resurrection because they had misunderstood Jesus. They had their own expectations of who he was and what he should do, and, in their minds, Jesus failed.
Let me suggest that we might do something similar.
We don’t think Jesus is going to overthrow the Romans, but maybe we do think he should help us get married, get a job, heal our sick family member. We earnestly pray, maybe we even go to church, promise to turn over a new life, but nothing happens.
Or we think Jesus should fill our loneliness, comfort our sorrow, make us happy. Aren’t Christians supposed to be happy?! Again, we pray, read our Bibles, go to church, but quite honestly, we’re pretty much the same.
Or we think Jesus should protect us from thieves or car accidents or marriage conflicts or bad investments or tragedy. Christians aren’t supposed to go through things like that. Isn’t God supposed to bless and protect us?
Jesus, how could you do this to us? And we feel that in some ways Jesus has failed us.
But Jesus doesn’t always make us happy or keep us safe. He may not fulfill all our desires and expectations.
Jesus never promised that you’ll get a job, find a spouse, be cured of some sickness. We ask, we pray for healing (and its good to do so), but sometimes God does not heal as we’d like. Does that mean God has failed?
Maybe we misunderstand His larger purpose. For His children,
God promises you will not be tempted beyond what you can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13).
He does not promise we will never struggle with temptation (trials, marriage troubles, addiction, pain) but assures us that there is grace/strength available, there is a way out.
God promises to use all our circumstances for His good purpose to make us more like Jesus (Romans 8:28).
He does not promise that difficult circumstances will not come (Paul experienced plenty of suffering, persecuting) but He would use those circumstances for our good.
God promises His unchanging love; nothing will ever separate us from His love (Romans 8:38, 39).
He does promise, no matter temptation or circumstance may come, He will never stop loving us. He gives promise after promise, story after story of His unfailing love, and He asks us to believe He does in fact love us, even in the hard times.
3. “I can’t see.”
There’s something interesting in the story of the 2 travelers to Emmaus.
But their eyes were kept from recognizing him (v. 16).
And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him (v. 31).
It seems that for the 2 guys on the road to Emmaus, they saw Jesus but they were kept from recognizing Him. They didn’t believe Jesus had risen from the dead, though he was right there with them, because they didn’t “see.” Then vs. 31, their “eyes were opened” and they saw, and they believed.
In Jesus’ teaching, he often said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” The crowds are all listening to the same message, but not everyone can hear something more.
This is true also of the Bible.
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures (v. 46).
They had the OT, but they only now could understand.
We see this as a prayer in the Psalms, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18).
The Bible describes a kind of spiritual blindness. We can’t see certain things until/unless our “eyes are opened.”
The questions of unbelief are ultimately not about logic and evidence, about reasoning and proofs. Although faith does have its own logic and is not illogical, faith is ultimately not a cognitive and rational thing we can figure out. We don’t approach Jesus the same way we approach a scientific theory or a legal trial.
Instead, faith is about “the opening of our eyes,” about perceiving something beyond the material. We believe there is a transcendent and holy God, beyond our perception, understanding and intuition. We don’t get to define who He is or how He should be or what He should do. The Bible says He is the Creator, Sustainer, Judge, and King. He is God, and we are not. We shouldn’t expect to fully understand Him anymore than a mouse can understand what it is to be a human.
Because we are finite and because we are sinful, we do not see. We need God to open our eyes so we can see what we humanly cannot see. Faith is the healing of our spiritual blindness. Faith is a miracle.
The good news is God is in the business of opening eyes, healing spiritual blindness, and revealing Himself to people.
4. “It’s too good to be true.”
For the disciples, Jesus’ crucifixion was a deep, personal tragedy. Their beloved teacher and master has been brutally and shamefully executed. They thought he would kick out the Romans, but then they see the Romans crucifying Jesus. It all happened so quickly, and they are in painful shock and grief. Their hearts ache with heavy grief.
Some women are saying Jesus is alive, some guys are now saying he’s alive, and in our third story, Jesus himself appears and says, “Touch and see, its me.”
V. 41, “They still disbelieved for joy and were marveling.” One translator paraphrases this, “They still couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It was too much; it seemed too good to be true” (Message).
It’s just too much. It’s too good to be true. It’s hard to turn all that emotion around.
And it made them emotionally vulnerable. Here’s how I interpret the disciples:
Imagine you had your mom in the intensive care unit. The doctors are saying there’s no hope and that she has a day or two at most to live. You’re struggling to accept the situation, to come to grips with this loss, and you’re beginning to feel the grief and pain.
A few hours later, one of the nurses come and says your mom is up on her feet and has fully recovered. It’s a miracle. Then you see her, and there she is, up on her feet.
There is caution, hesitancy, because you’re protecting yourself. You fear you might get your hopes up only to have them dashed to the ground. You want to believe it so much, which would make it so disappointing if it isn’t true, which is why you’re afraid to believe.
“Don’t play with me. Don’t mess around with my hopes and fears.”
That’s why we sometimes say, “It’s too good to be true.” We don’t want to get disappointed.
I think some people struggle with the Christian faith, the message, because it does sound too good to be true. There must be a catch. It can’t be that simple. Maybe we feel we make ourselves emotionally vulnerable to start believing that this message is true.
Last week I mentioned how some of us may feel uncomfortable coming to church because we feel like everybody has it all together but we’re falling apart. Everyone looks so good and holy, but we have all these skeletons in our closet. It’s a little intimidating, you feel you’re not good enough, you don’t really belong here. But Jesus says no matter what you’ve done, no matter who you are, there is mercy to be found. I’ve come for outcasts and failures. I love sinners, and my church is for weak, broken sinners. Do you believe it? Dare you believe that God actually accepts and cares for broken people full of problems and weakness?
Some of us have made some big mistakes, we have major regrets. We struggle with guilt and shame. Can you believe that God would have mercy and erase all the guilt and condemnation? We feel that would be too easy, we should make it up somehow, do some kind of penance. Do you believe that God would freely and mercifully grant full pardon? Dare you believe that you can be truly and fully forgiven?
Some of us feel lonely, unloved. Perhaps we never experienced our parents’ love nor felt accepted by our peers. Perhaps we struggle even now believing that if people really got to know us, they’d love us as we are. We fear rejection. Can you believe that God knows everything about you, and that He accepts you and deeply loves you? You struggle to believe anyone really loves you. Dare you believe that the most important person of the cosmos actually, deeply, sacrificially loves you?
It sounds too easy. It sounds too good to be true.
Faith is the opening of our eyes to believe the unbelievable. It is to see/experience that all this is not just true, it is more true than we can possibly understand or imagine.
The Challenge of Faith: Don’t expect too little
I think one of the main reasons people miss the resurrection, miss what Christianity is about is not that they expect too much but too little. We sell God short.
Jesus didn’t just come to establish a political state but the very kingdom of God.
He didn’t want to solve our health or emotional or marriage or financial problems, he wants to bring us complete wholeness and eternal joy.
He didn’t come to give you a way to make up for your mistakes, He came to take the punishment of your mistakes and give you God’s complete acceptance and love.
Jesus didn’t just live a good life and die an unfortunately death. He is the Son of God who rose again from the dead and is exalted to the right hand of the Father.
That’s the good news of Jesus. It sounds too good to be true. But if you can believe it, if God would soften our hearts and open our eyes, then our lives and eternities are forever changed.