Sermon Tone Analysis

If you were to say to me one-on-one.

"Michael, I don’t really have any doubt about my faith (wink-wink) but I know someone who does.

Could you help me talk to them?”

Maybe you would tell me your friend is religious and goes to church or synagogue to to make their husband or wife happy, give their kids good morals or just get free baby sitting but they don’t buy into this whole faith in Yeshua thing.

First, I wouldn't try to defend the history of the church because the church has done some really goofy things and there's some really embarrassing not just weekends of church history, but seasons of church history.

Second, I would not try to magnify messianic Judaism as some noble new institution doing everything better that what everybody else has done.

Third, I would not try to wax eloquent on religious superior moral values and ethics based on the Bible.

Let’s face it, the world is small enough that we know other religions around the world also have strong moral codes.

Last, I wouldn't try to convince you with the Bible says so, so it must be so.

I would put all my chips on the event: the Resurrection.

Not the Passover but the Resurrection.

It was the Resurrection not the last Passover that made people stand up and go “Wow” “are you kidding me.”

Christians get the formula wrong all the time.

The emphasize Passover, death, before or ahead of the resurrection.

The Resurrection is what makes the Passover so incredible.

Rabbi Paul put all his chips on the Resurrection:

1 Cor 15:17

The Resurrection is everything not an additional thing.

Before there was “the church” or “messianic Judaism” or “Christian Ethics” or a “New Testament” there was the Resurrection..

In fact, when Yeshua rose from the dead, this is important, when Yeshua rose from the dead, the people in the vicinity of Jerusalem in Judea, they did exactly what you would have done if you had seen someone die knew where they were buried and then had breakfast with him on the beach a few days later.

They started to talk about it everywhere.

This was there social media, the 1st century social media which was they began talking about it and they began to write about it, they begin to talk about it and they began to write about it.

Then as rumors spread people wanted to know “Who really saw this Resurrection.”

The eyewitness stepped forward: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Jacob.

Before there was ever a New Testament there were these guys testifying about that Guy Yeshua risen from the dead.

That’s why I can say this, we believe Yeshua rose from the dead not because the New Testament says so, because so many people believed Yeshua rose from the dead long before there was a Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

There eyewitness testimony could be denied but not falsified.

There were too many witnesses.

This is what changed everything.

There was this guy, that if we were having a conversation across the table, about the validity of faith in Yeshua, that I would tell you to consider whether your friend is Jewish or not.

His name is Shmu’el HaKatan, or Samuel the Small.

Sometimes around 80-90 AD, a leading rabbinic figure named Rabbi Gamaleil called for a special prayer to be formed.

Samuel the Small stood before for the Sanhedrin that’d been reconstituted after the devastating fall of Jerusalem in ad 70.

He would form one of the most devastating curses ever against Jewish followers of Yeshua.

All pious Jews at this point in history recited the prayer called the Amidah “standing prayer” three times a day.

These prayers are presumed to pre-date the life of Yeshua by a 100+ years.

He knew of these prayers, see my older sermon series.

They contain blessings and prayers for prosperity, salvation, release from captivity, the restoration of Jerusalem and a davidic king.

As a whole the prayer called the Amidah is a good prayer.

But, sometime around 80-90 AD they added the famous 19th benediction.

The Talmud records the event:

Rabban Gamaliel asked the sages: Is there anyone who knows how to word the benediction relating to the Nazarenes?

Samuel the small stood up and worded it.…

And what does this benediction say:

For the renegades let there be no hope, and may the arrogant kingdom soon be rooted out in our days, and the Nazarenes [i.e.

followers of Yeshua] and the heretics perish as in a moment and be rooted out from the book of life and with the righteous may they not be inscribed.

Blessed art thou, O Lord, who humblest the arrogant.

The Talmud goes on to say about this curse:

Rab Judah has said in the name of Rab: If a reader made a mistake in any of the other benedictions, they do not expel him from the community, but if in the benediction of the Nazarene, he is expelled, because we suspect him of being a heretic, a Nazarene.

(TB Berakhot 28b–29a)

Oskar Skarsaune, In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 197–198.

Now, all of you've heard and know about blessings.

This is hardly a blessing, it is a curse of the highest degree.

Timeline: Here is the really interesting thing.

The curse on the Nazarenes was framed sometime in 80 AD.

There was no such thing as a New Testament for another 100 years.

Remember, a Jewish believer named Melito of Sardis coined that term in 180 AD.

Now, here's a really important question if we were sitting across the table from each other and I was trying to get you to consider Yeshua, I would ask you this question.

I would say, Q:”Why were Jewish leaders 50 years after the death of Yeshua put in a defense posture if the resurrection was not real?"

Because this prayer against the Nazarenes (messianic jews) was framed some 50 years after the events of the life of Yeshua.

Timeline: Before I answer the question, interestingly enough, Samuel the Small, the man who framed the curse on the Nazarenes within about 5-6 years is accused of being a Nazarene and disappears from Jewish writings.

Something stopped him from uttering those words, voluntarily he went against his own curse and faced expulsion.

Not just him, the record in the Talmud itself shows several leading Rabbis who were expelled from the synagogue.

Good Graphic Slide Here: This is why this is important.

Two scholars, Sherwin-White, conducted studies on “myth” development.

They said the it takes at least two generations or 80 years for something to turn into a myth.

And the reason it takes so long for something to become a myth is because all the people who were eyewitnesses of the original event have to be what?

They have to be dead.

The interesting thing is this, this is just history, this isn't Bible study.

This is just history.

Timeline: Interestingly, history tells us that there was widespread belief in Israel and in the Roman provinces about a virgin birth, sinless life, death on a cross and resurrection of Yeshua far too early for these things to have been a myth.

There were far too many people in Jerusalem alone who said “yes” that happened or “no” that did not happen for this to be a myth.

History tells us that the ancient synagogue targeted Jewish followers of the Messiah most of whom were from Israel who believed Yeshua rose from the dead.

They tried to censor them from talking about their eyewitness account of the Resurrection.

Censor because it was Fact not Fiction.

The answer to the question is simply this.

A: There were thousands of messianic Jews in Israel and scattered all over the Roman provinces in synagogues within 50-60 years of the life of Yeshua who talked to someone who was an eyewitness to the resurrection of Yeshua.

And here's why I would start the conversation here.

Because in college and in higher education and in culture, people are quick to say, "Well, that whole Yeshua thing, it was all fabricated, it was all made up, people copied things and they mis-copied things.

It was all just a myth.

Like the Roman myths.”

And as time went on, the legend got bigger, and bigger, and bigger and then they decided Yeshua rose from the dead, but Yeshua didn't rise from the dead and I don't believe in a resurrection, I don't believe it was possible.

The problem is simply this, those who had the most to loose, the early Jewish leaders and Romans, believed Yeshua rose from the dead way before there was a New Testament and way too soon for Yeshua’s life to have been mythologized.

These Jewish leaders like Samuel the Small and Roman citizens and many others faxed expulsion from Jewish life and the threat of being part of an illegal religion by Roman standards.

And if there were thousands of people in Jerusalem and in Babylon and in Jerusalem 50 years after the resurrection saying there was a resurrection, that meant there were thousands of people there 20 years after the resurrection.

There were hundreds of people there 10 years after the resurrection.

That when you do the math and you look at the timeline, it's virtually impossible.

In fact, it is impossible to conclude that there had been enough time for this myth to have grown to the point where people would believe in a resurrection, especially, so close to Jerusalem where it would have been easiest to disapprove it’s accuracy.

Then I would want to look at one of eye-witness accounts of Yeshua’s resurrection with you.

What makes this specific eye-witness account so important is the date and name of this witness.

If anyone had reason to bust the myth, expose the great lie, to set the record straight, it is this guy.

Make Timeline Graphic: The person I am referring to is none other than John the son of Zebedee.

He was part of Yeshua’s inner circle and first followers.

Not a religious person by trade but a fisherman (Matt 4:21-22).

He and his brother Jacob both followed Yeshua and it appears through the gospels that Jacob is more important than John because Jacob’s name is always listed before John.

Maybe he was the little brother.

This is the John who was so upset that their were other people driving out demons in Yeshua’s name that he wanted permission to call down fire upon them (Luke 9:49-54) and Yeshua has to calm his fire.

This is the same disciple who his mother came and asked Yeshua to make him and his brother president and vice-president of the new Yeshua kingdom (Mark 10:35-39).

This also was the disciple that was tasked with preparing the Seder for Yeshua along with Peter (Luke 22:8), the one who sat closest to Yeshua at the last Passover meal (John 13:23), the only one of this male disciples who did not abandon him at the cross (John 19:25-27).

He also was the longest living original follower of Yeshua.