The Reality of Death

We believe that late one Friday almost 2,000 years ago, a largely unremarkable corpse of a crucified Jew was laid in a cold, hard tomb. He had said, “It is finished.” He had breathed his last. His heart stopped beating. Without blood flow, all the cells in his body began to die. His body cooled hour by hour to ambient temperature. His skin paled. His body stiffened. The bacteria in his body began to break down cells, and so on. He was dead.

We do not often dwell long upon death, but man is appointed to die once. Not to be morbid, but sometimes life is a little bit like skydiving without a parachute. There are a lot of ways to fall—you can fall this way or that way, you can twirl around and twist—but in the end, every time you land, it happens the same way: with a thud.

As if providence proved the point, even the late great Chuck Norris—who could famously make ice cubes in a hot oven, and who once (in a story I don’t know if it’s true) got bit by a rattlesnake, after which the rattlesnake died three days later—even he died just last week. Yet Jesus was laid dead and stiff in the grave He temporarily borrowed from Joseph of Arimathea.

The Miracle of Resurrection

Then somehow, on Easter morning, His heart beat again. His cells knit themselves back together. His lungs took a breath, and He walked out of the tomb that He had been carried into. Hallelujah!

Now, if this is true—if Jesus really did die and rise from the grave—it changes the equation. If somehow someone went through this skydiving exercise of life and lived to tell about it, it matters. Not only because someone beat death (after all, you might raise an eyebrow at such stories; there are lots of them), but because this person said things like this:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”

This person said, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?”

If the person who talked like this—if the person who said, “In this skydiving exercise of life where nobody gets out alive, I have a way out. I have a rescue. I have a place where you can live forever”—if that person dies and comes back to life, then that really is something.

I already mentioned Chuck Norris jokes, but Jesus Christ is the real deal. We want to believe in heroes larger than life, but if Jesus is the real deal—if the rattlesnake of death bit Him and three days later death died—then there is something to think about.

Why We Want to Believe

I want us to see that we want to believe. As fun as life can be, I know I’m not getting out of this world alive. No matter how well I eat or how much I exercise, there is a thud coming to me at the end of this freefall—just like Chuck Norris. And I hope today that you just want to believe.

And if you want to believe, I have even better news than some faint hope in the future. Because as I read the Gospels, I can see there are good reasons to believe this isn’t just some fanciful, made-up fairy tale to entertain people, but that it is actually true—all of it.

Three Reasons to Believe

I see three things.

1. The Gospel Writers Were Not Idiots

First, you should recognize that when you read the Gospel stories, the people living back then were not idiots. It is not dumb to believe in the good news of Jesus Christ. It is not dumb to think that He died for your sins so that when you believe in Him, you are made right with God and you can have eternal life by hoping in Him and believing in Him.

This is an incredible story. It’s an amazing story, but it is also a very credible story.

Think about this: In John 20, who is the first person who meets Jesus? It’s Mary Magdalene. If you were making up a story to fool people, you wouldn’t put a woman there first, because in that culture people were very unlikely to believe the testimony of women. If you’re fabricating a tale, you put someone everyone would believe—like Peter—right there.

And then we have details of the story that are so remarkably human, like the foot race to the tomb: “Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.” It’s so human—like someone telling a story and saying, “Yeah, I kind of ran faster there.” It doesn’t read like a fairy tale made up to prove a point. It reads like a real story from someone sitting and talking about that amazing day.

It’s like remembering 9/11. I can say exactly where I was: playing Nintendo in my dorm room. Somebody came in and said, “They blew up the Twin Towers.” I was like, “Oh,” and then got more news. This sounds like people recounting, “Where were you when we got the news?” and all the stories coming together.

2. Honest Doubt Turned to Faith

And then we have Thomas—we know him as Doubting Thomas. He got the name because he doubted. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

Now, if this is just a made-up story, you don’t include doubting people. You make it a clean, neat narrative where everybody saw and everybody believed. You leave out the darker parts. But they are all too willing to tell you all the darker parts because it’s a true story. They talk about Thomas and all the times they ran away and fled.

Thomas’s witness is so important for me. There are people who tell me stories and I sort of raise an eyebrow: “Oh yeah, nice to hear.” But if someone who is really credible—someone who is skeptical—believes, that’s the story I want to listen to.

Thomas wasn’t jumping to believe any tale. He thought maybe they saw something else—maybe a ghost. But this glimpse into him lets us see that these were not foolish people jumping at anything. They were skeptical people whose skepticism was removed by proof.

Jesus showed up and said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

Ultimately, Thomas only needed to see that it really was Jesus—He really was bodily resurrected—and he simply said, “My Lord and my God.” He believed. He had salvation. He had come to know who Jesus is and found life in His name.

So much so that he was transformed from Doubting Thomas into an apostle who would go the furthest of any apostle—all the way to India to found a church that is still going today.

3. Jesus Is Worth Believing In

If you’re a skeptic, you might not have Jesus show up for you (although I pray that He would). But we have something just as good: the witness of His Scriptures. “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Simply put, when we open the Scriptures, we can see who Jesus is and we can have life in Him.

We could go into far more here—the trustworthiness of the Bible manuscripts (I can talk about textual criticism for hours if you ever want a long conversation), the empty grave, how a bunch of cowardly disciples were transformed from fearing fishermen to fearless fishers of men.

But more than that, maybe today we want to see that Jesus is not just credible to believe—He is worth believing in.

I think of Jesus in His resurrection. One of the first things He does is ask a question: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Then Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to Him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).

Jesus knows Mary’s distress, and He is moved. Jesus is tender and compassionate. Yes, He is good. Yes, He is the second person of the Godhead—fully God and fully man. “My Lord and my God!” But His compassion is everywhere evident. He always has compassion on the crowds. When everyone else overlooks someone, He looks in and cares for them. When everyone else runs away from the lepers, He touches them.

Jesus speaks comfort even to His disciples. You might expect Him to come with chastisement: “Hey, where were you guys when I was literally getting crucified?” No. Again and again He comes to His disciples to give what we are all looking for in this world: peace.

“Peace be with you.” Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

In a world of panic, Jesus gives us peace. In a world of judgment, Jesus is an ocean of compassion.

There are so many promises in Him if you only take the time to get to know Him. There are four Gospels in the Bible for a reason—so that we would know who Jesus is.

To believe, look to Jesus. Read the Gospels. Look at His life and person, and you will see not only that He died for your sins, defeated death, and gives the promise of eternal life—but that He is so worth loving because He is good, gracious, and compassionate.

I pray today that like Mary, you can hear Him calling your name, and that if you’re doubting like Thomas, He would reveal Himself to you and drive your doubts away, inviting you to touch His hands and His side.

The Beauty of the Story in Our Hearts

Doubt is a hard thing. I’ve known quite a few people who doubted in their lives—mostly starting with myself. This week I was thinking about one of my good friends, Len, an elder in my old church—one of the dearest men I’ve ever known. His daughter walked away from the faith in high school. She went to university, took a religion class, and they told her that Jesus’ resurrection was just a copy of four different resurrection myths (Horus really ruined Easter for her).

My friend Len said, “You know, say there’s like four resurrection myths—I’d say there’s more like forty.” And because this argument cuts both ways, you can see, “Oh yeah, there are other death-and-resurrection stories.” By the way, it’s all overstated and nothing to fear if you look into it. But the argument cuts both ways: you can look at the world and say death-and-resurrection themes are common, or you can see that if God really did create us, if He really did have a plan of redemption, if He really did send His Son into the world to die on the cross and rise again—maybe that truth is embedded in us so deeply that you see it everywhere, even in places you’re not looking for it.

And if the Bible story doesn’t get you interested (which it should), there is something of the beauty of the Easter story that rings true in our hearts. I can see it in movies and literature.

Think of Gandalf the Grey—he dies fighting the Balrog and comes back as Gandalf the White. Or Aslan, who gives his life for the traitor. (You might say these stories were written by Christians, obviously retelling Jesus’ death and resurrection in a new way.)

But even with people who are not believers, you see the same thing. In The Matrix, Neo is betrayed by his best friend, killed by the agents, dies, and gets resurrected by Trinity’s love in order to restore people to Zion. (Okay, this is just my beef with the Wachowski brothers—the one good movie they made was a straight rip-off of the Bible.)

Even in stories that aren’t specifically Christian, you have tales of people coming from another world to teach us peace, dying, and coming back to life—like E.T., Superman, the Iron Giant, Spock in The Wrath of Khan, Harry Potter, or even Chuck Norris himself in Lone Wolf McQuade, buried in his truck and left for dead before bursting forth as a legend.

All these stories of sacrifice and renewal ring true because our hearts were meant to find this deep truth: of a God who so loved us that He gave His Son to die in our place and be resurrected. These stories hit because they touch something deep in our souls.

So why settle for just stories when you can come to the truest thing—to a hope of resurrection not just as some far-off tale, but a story that involves you? A story where Jesus says, “Come to me and have eternal life. Don’t fear death, because you’re going to have a resurrection just like me.”

A Modern Example of Substitution

This is a story that rings close to our hearts. It reminds me of a story I once heard about a priest.

On May 28th, 1941, a Polish priest named Maximilian Maria Kolbe arrived at the Auschwitz death camp. He had been arrested by the Nazis for sheltering Jews in his friary. He was prisoner 16670.

Auschwitz was one of the worst places you could ever imagine. But Kolbe shared his food, encouraged others in the faith, and earned the nickname “the Saint of Auschwitz.” No one ever recounted him complaining. I can only think that he truly knew the Savior who suffered, and knowing that Savior, he was willing to suffer.

On July 30th, 1941, a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz. The Nazis, instead of merely punishing the escapee, chose ten people at random to be locked in Block 11—the death block, an underground pit where you slowly starved to death.

All the men of the section were lined up, and one by one men were called forward. Each time you could almost hear the gasp of those accepting their fate—and maybe a glimmer of hope from those whose names weren’t called.

Then the man Franciszek Gajowniczek was chosen. His heart sank. He could hardly step forward. He broke down in despair, falling to his knees and crying out, “My wife! My children!”

The other hearts pitied him but were secretly relieved. But one heart that day was made of something else. One heart knew what it meant to have someone take their place in the death pit.

The priest Kolbe stepped forward out of the line. He approached the commander and said simply, “I am a Catholic priest. I wish to die in this man’s place. He has a wife and children.”

The commander deliberated but then allowed Kolbe to take the man’s place.

What followed was two weeks of agonizing starvation. But Kolbe—no stranger to the Savior who suffered—prayed, sang, and gave encouragement. One by one the emaciated prisoners died, but he endured. After two weeks, on August 14th, 1941, the Nazis needed room in the cell, so they entered and gave poison injections (carbolic acid) to the few men left.

Kolbe calmly raised his arm to accept the injection, appearing in a state of peace, his gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the room.

Franciszek Gajowniczek was released from Auschwitz. He lived until 1995, always ready to tell the story of the priest who gave his life in his place.

The Invitation: Receive the Gift

This life can have beauty and grace, but in the end it is a death camp. And one day your name is going to be called. It will be your turn for suffering and death.

But Jesus Christ is the one who stepped forward and said, “I am the Christ. I wish to die in your place.” And He did.

For Christ, it was not the end. That’s why we celebrate the resurrection—death could not hold Him. Just as it was not the end for Kolbe, because death has been defeated.

Today, remember that Jesus stepped forward so that you need not fear death. Jesus stepped forward so you need not fear judgment for your sins. Jesus stepped forward for you.

And today He offers you a way out of this death camp. All that one needs to do is receive the gift—the hope of eternal life.

To receive it, one needs simply to pray: “Lord, I believe in You—my Lord and my God. I leave my sins behind. I trust in Your name.” Amen.

And then follow Him. Get baptized—water’s going to be ready next week. Live as He calls you. Love God and your neighbor. Have your life transformed to be a little more like that priest and a little less like this world of selfishness.

Then you can live in the hope that life will not end just with a thud, but with hope and grace and love eternal—because Jesus Christ said, “I am the Christ. I will die in your place.”

Amen.