Sermon Tone Analysis

What difference does Easter make?

It’s a well known fact that from the beginning there were those who doubted.

On that first Easter Sunday when the chief priests heard that the tomb was empty, they called the men who had been guarding the tomb and offered them money to say that the disciples of Jesus had stolen his body during the night

We can call it the original Resurrection conspiracy.

It was the first but not the last.

The years pass, decades and generations and centuries came and went, and every time across the centuries, the ultimate point of attack has always right here, at the empty tomb, the resurrection, the truth behind Easter Sunday.

Good Friday doesn’t pose this sort of problem because the world understands death.

Read the newspaper, turn on the TV.

Death is forever with us.

The funeral homes never go out of business because we are a death-sentenced generation.

Read the obituaries.

They change every day because people keep dying.

No one can claim an exemption.

The world does not struggle with the notion that 2000 years ago, in a remote province at the edge of the Roman Empire, a man named Jesus died.

Death happens to all of us eventually.

That Jesus died is no problem for most people.

But the world has enormous problems with rising from the dead because the world knows nothing about resurrection.

We have a category for death.

If we see a hearse with cars following behind it, we know what that’s all about.

We have no category for rising from the dead.

Let me ask the question again.

What difference does Easter make?

Suppose we ask the question a little differently.

What difference would it make if Jesus had not risen from the dead?

What would be different in our world today if we found out conclusively that Jesus was still dead?

Or how about this?

What if someone conclusively proved they had discovered the bones of Jesus?

(Some people made that claim several years back with the so-called “lost tomb of Jesus.”

Thomas Madden reviews the evidence and explains why it was just a “sensationalist fantasy.”)

What difference would that make?

The question may sound shocking and even blasphemous, but I still want to ask it.

What if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead?

That’s not a new question.

The question “What if” has been asked for nearly 2,000 years.

It’s a biblical question, one that you can find in 1 Corinthians 15:12-20.

Seven times in these verses Paul uses the little word “if.”

He is raising the question in order to show us how much hangs on the bodily resurrection of our Lord.

Paul plays devil’s advocate in order to teach us what matters most.

He is not playing a parlor game or trying to waste our time debating trivial matters.

We need to be reminded that an astounding miracle lies at the heart of our faith.

We believe something absolutely incredible–that a man who was dead came back to life on the third day.

We believe that God raised him from the dead.

That’s a stupendous thing to say.

Sometimes we Christians forget how amazing this sounds.

After all, if you go to the cemetery and stay there waiting for a resurrection, you’ll wait a long time.

There are lots of people going in and no one coming out.

You will see plenty of funerals and no resurrections.

What are the chances that a man who had been tortured and then crucified and then buried in a tomb would be raised from the dead?

The odds would seem to be against it.

So when we come to this passage we need to be calm and clearheaded as we read it.

It’s as if, just for a moment, Paul says, “Let me leave the church and let me stand on the outside looking in and let me as ask the question ’What if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead?’”

What if? What if Easter isn’t really true?

Paul answers that question by showing us four disastrous consequences if Christ did not rise from the dead.

Each one deserves our careful attention because these things are true if the resurrection is false.

I.

If there is no resurrection, our preaching is without purpose.

“And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.

But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised” (1 Corinthians 15:14-15).

Focus on just one word—"useless.”

Some translations say “vain, or empty.”

The word means “without content.”

It means that all that we have learned has come to nothing.

As I thought about it, it came to me like this.

PERSONAL ILLUSTRATION ABOUT 20 YRS OF STUDY AND PREACHING.

If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then all the education in the world can’t overcome that one fact.

And all the Christian scholars and all the Christian colleges and seminaries and all the books of all the learned Christians across all the years, it all amounts to nothing.

Nada.

Zip.

Zero.

That’s what Paul means.

Preach until you pass out.

Build the biggest church in the world.

Fill huge stadiums with great numbers in attendance.

If the tomb is not empty, you are wasting your time.

II.

If there is no resurrection, our faith is without forgiveness.

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).

The word for “futile” is different from the word for “useless.”

The word “futile” means that which produces no results.

It’s a promise with no fulfillment.

It’s a trip with no destination.

It’s a story with no end.

It’s a seed that produces no crop.

It’s a dream that never comes true.

It’s a game with no winners.

It’s a company with no product.

Think of it this way.

We like to say that Christ died for our sins.

But how do we know that his death actually accomplished anything?

If Christ had remained in the tomb, we could never be sure that God had accepted his sacrifice.

This is the greatest misery of all—not to know if our sins have been forgiven.

During that long weekend in Jerusalem, no one in all the world could be certain that the death of Christ had truly been sufficient.

As long as he was in the tomb, it looked as if the devil had won and Jesus had lost the great battle.

Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

What was finished?

If he doesn’t rise from the dead, then Jesus is finished, the story is over, and we are still in our sins.

That’s why the resurrection is all-important.

Easter is God’s great “Amen!” to Good Friday.

Jesus cried out, “It is finished.”God