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Sermon
4 May 2014

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen

Luke 24: 38-39 And [Jesus] said to them, Why are
you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your
hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself;
handle me and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones
as you see that I have.

This is the time in the Christian Year when much
is said and, we should hope, much is thought about the
Resurrection. Andrews Easter Day service was centred
on the Resurrection and so was Davids last week.
Well, its my turn, now!
First, a quick resum of the post-Resurrection
appearances. All four Gospels record such appearances.
That is quite significant. Until fairly recently, it was
thought that three of the Gospels all derived from a
common source, but that is now being seriously
questioned and that is a good thing. The more
independent the accounts are, then the more reliable
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they should be. Four fairly independent accounts is
very good going for something that happened two
thousand years ago. It is far, far better evidence than
we have for the Battle of Mons Graupius and is even
better than we have for the Battle of Bannockburn!
Three Gospels tell of Mary Magdalene meeting
Jesus in the garden. Two tell of Jesus meeting disciples
walking outside Jerusalem the one Ian read for us this
morning gives more detail than the other. Two Gospels
tell of the appearances to the disciples meeting in
Jerusalem and two of meetings with the disciples in
Galilee including one with the account of the
miraculous catch of fish.
In the present day, a Christian community like
ours which wants to reach out to people and welcome
them into the joy of knowing Jesus is presented with a
number of problems by the Resurrection. Whilst people
may be ready to accept that the teaching of Jesus of
Nazareth is the way to a better life kinder, more
loving, more humane, more moral, and so on and we
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can help each other to live according to his teaching,
the challenge of the Resurrection can present
considerable barriers to belief. First did Jesus die at
all? Second if he did, how did he come back to life?
There are those who try to answer the second question
by sliding past the first. We wont.
I am firmly convinced that Jesus died. No-one
who went through what Jesus went through could have
lived. He was scourged, which is a dreadful business.
In the army and navy in former times, men tough
soldiers and sailors died under the lash. The scourge
was much more terrible than the cat o nine tails. There
was the business of the crown of thorns which was
almost certainly a part of a general beating up.
Remember that the last thing the executioners wanted
was a strong healthy victim for the awkward business
of crucifixion and Jesus was in such a weakened state
that he could not carry his cross to the place of
execution. There was, of course the crucifixion itself,
during which Jesus was stabbed in the side with a
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spear. When the Roman executed someone, he was
dead.
David Whyte told me recently that it was quite
popular some 40 years ago to explain what happened
by saying that Jesus had swooned from the pain and
anguish and appeared to be dead and that he was
resuscitated by the cool of the tomb. Neither of us
found that explanation plausible. The execution was
overseen by a centurion and such men did the job
properly. In any case, Jesus was seen walking round
the garden within 40 hours of the scourging, the
beating up and the crucifixion. No-one who had gone
through what Jesus went through would have been
walking around so quickly.
So, in our witness, we have to say that Jesus
indeed died on the cross. Returning from the dead,
however, is the really tricky bit.
We can, of course, shrug our shoulders and
simply say, Well, that is what I believe take it or
leave it. However, I do not think that is very helpful to
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someone who is trying to come to accept Jesus as a
living force in his or her life. And that must be our
message that Jesus is a living force in our lives. He is
not a long-dead philosopher and teacher whose outline
for living well is still relevant. He was not just a
prophet who pointed the way to Gods will and our
faults. He was not just the promise of the fulfilment of
Gods kingdom. He is so much more than that. He is
alive and with us every moment of the day. He is the
fulfilment of Gods Kingdom. With Christs
Resurrection, the Kingdom has come. It is, therefore,
very important that we accept that and that we can help
others to accept that.
The Resurrection meant that a dead man came
back to life. But all our experience tells us that dead
people really dead people do not come back to life
and start walking around and sitting down to a meal
with us. But Jesus did. And as far as I am concerned, it
is a fact.
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Now, how can I say that? Have I actually seen
the living Jesus? No. I have seen him working in other
people but that is not quite the same thing. I believe
he has been working in my life, but that is subjective
it is very difficult to prove that working to someone
else.
Over the last 200-300 years we have, in our
society, become increasingly exposed to scientific
reasoning. This has been very important for our lives
and the lives of millions of others. Through that
scientific reasoning our understanding of the universe
and how it works has grown immeasurably and has
shown us the beauties of Gods Creation and its
incredible potential. However, it has also meant that
scientific method has, in a way, taken over our lives,
especially since about the 1950s when Science became
a hugely popular subject. How many of you remember
the IGY the International Geophysical Year of
1957/57. I remember great excitement the launching of
Sputnik 1 and other artificial space satellites. The Van
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Allan radiation belt was discovered, and so were the
mid ocean ridges which went a long way to prove the
idea of the plate tectonics. All right go and ask your
children and your grand-children.
Science seemed to have all the answers and
sciences insistence that something is proved only
when it can be repeated under laboratory conditions has
become normal to our thinking. Such an approach,
however, does not help understand the Resurrection. In
fact, it can seriously undermine it. And that is what has
happened. I think it is no coincidence that church
attendance and probably Christian belief has fallen
drastically in Scotland since the 1950s when science
came out of the universities and the laboratories and
into our living rooms. It has now reached the stage
where distinguished scientists like Richard Dawkins
are describing religion as dangerous and demanding
that we stop exposing our children to it.
Fortunately there are many scientists who far
more level-headed. They recognise, as many of us do,
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that there is far more to life than science and scientific
method. Remember, in science, an event must be able
to be replicated under laboratory conditions to make it
true. That, however, seriously limits events which are
true.
Take, for example, last Sunday afternoon. Then
an event took place which is impossible to replicate
under laboratory or any other conditions. You can have
similar events, and I look forward to them, but it will
never be the same event. Does that mean that last
weeks Afternoon Tea was a fiction? Of course not.
Jesus of Nazareth was a historical figure and the
Resurrection was a historical event. As such, they are
no different from millions of other people and events
we take for granted and accept as fact. As for
understanding exactly what they did and how the
events happened is another matter. Some are straight-
forward, whilst others are very complex or we lack
sufficient information. I mentioned the Battle of
Bannockburn earlier. No-one doubts that Bannockburn
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took place, but historians and archaeologists are still
trying to unravel what went on.
It is much the same with Jesus and the
Resurrection. Jesus is a historical figure. We have
evidence. The Resurrection took place. We have
evidence. The evidence that we do have, however,
makes something else clear. The Jesus who spoke to
the disciples on the road to Emmaus or appeared to the
disciples back in Jerusalem was not the same as the
Jesus who died on the cross. Something had happened
to him. He could make himself unrecognisable; he
could bypass locked doors; he could detect hidden
shoals of fish. These are not party tricks but are the
evidence that he has moved on to a new nature he is
now the Risen Lord. He is Gods promise to us fulfilled
that all things will be made new.
If you found all this a bit Ho hum, MacKenzie
rabitting on about history again, then all you need to
take away with you is this: Jesus was real and the Risen
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Lord is real, and the Resurrection was an event which
changed everything. Amen

All praise be to God, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, world without end. Amen