Apr. 16/62 T. Hogerwaard The Lie About The Resurrection

Easter is the highest expression of everything we have received in Christ: His resurrection from the dead, His victory over all powers of hell and death. The shout of joy: "The Lord has risen indeed" determines the whole of the Christian life. To be a Christian is only possible if we keep in mind the words which Paul wrote to Timothy: "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead". However, not everyone who hears the Message about the Resurrection accepts it in faith: right from the beginning there have been many who reject it with all their might. Apart from Mary Magdalene who let the disciples know that she had met the risen Lord, there were other messengers of the resurrection; what was reported was the same; the reaction was totally different. The Roman soldiers who kept guard at Jesus' grave went to Jerusalem too in order to report the fact of the resurrection. Mary Magdalene went to the disciples: the soldiers went to the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court, the official representatives of the Jewish people. God recognizes the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court as the true representatives of Israel still. Every time anew the Sanhedrin was officially informed about God's great deeds. That is most clearly to be seen in the Gospel of Matthew, the tax-collector who became a Christian and who wrote his Gospel to convince the Jews that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah. No less than three times we find in this Gospel that God sends a message to the Sanhedrin concerning Jesus, clothed in a form that was most acceptable to them. The first time was when the members of the Sanhedrin received word that Christ was born in Bethlehem out of the mouth of the wise men. Many members of the priestly group belonged to the party of the Sadducees, who accepted only the first five books of the Bible as trustworthy; men who had an open mind - as we would say now - for the cultural achievements of the pagans. God 'takes the state of mind of those priests into consideration; they do not believe in angels, well, God does not send an angel to them, but sends word to them that the Christ is born by the wise men from the east; that what is strange, which comes from afar bears in their eyes much more the stamp of reliability than the simple Word of God. Upon Herod's question where the Christ will be born they answer immediately that Bethlehem will be the place, for so it is written in the Scriptures, but to believe God's message, that is a different story. The study of the Old Testament did not help them to believe; study was for them an end in itself, not a way to be prepared upon God's gifts and deeds. Everything remains as it was; God's message does not receive any further attention or faith. About thirty years later the representatives of the Sanhedrin were sent to John the Baptist, to ask him who he was ' in whose name he was acting. Could it be that he was the Christ? John the Baptist too gave testimony about Jesus, that He was the Christ, the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. But the message of John too failed to convince them. They had their own plans and those plans included that Jesus must be put to death. They were even able to use one of the disciples as traitor. After their plans had been carried out successfully and Jesus is safely in their hands, Judas in his misery, just before his awful death by his own hand acts as Gods messenger to the Jewish authorities. They hear from him: "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood". Was more moving testimony possible - out of this mouth - that they were on the wrong road and that again God, granted them a chance to turn away from the road of destruction? But again it was of no avail. Jesus must be put out of the way: that is their sole aim and purpose. And when Jesus had died and been buried security, they breathe freely again and think that now He and His words are finished forever, The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection and they thought -that reality was determined by their thinking. But early in the morning of the third day the members of the Sanhedrin receive the frightening news. The messengers of the resurrection the strangest witnesses of Christ one can imagine. Roman soldiers testify to the Jewish Supreme Court God's- deed, as Officially as can be. An official report can be made out, mentioning time and place and persons present. The Easter message, conveyed in a style worthy of the Supreme Court of the Jews. The birth of Christ was reported to them by wise men from the east; the resurrection is reported to them by Roman soldiers from the West. The Sanhedrin convenes at once to discuss this point of utmost importance. The soldiers' message is neither denied nor contradicted. The disciples, who heard the news from Mary Magdalene had more difficulty to believe it than the priests who heard it I from the Roman soldiers. With the clarity f mind which hell provides to those who are in its service they have perceived immediately that this was true. Therefore they refrain from any endeavour to contradict the soldiers or to rebut their evidence. They know it is as the soldiers told them. The only question is for them now: What can we and what must we do about it? They apply a well known method: bribery. They gave a large sum of money to the soldiers to keep them from talking. Jesus is going to be expensive for the Jewish authorities. They thought that 30 pieces of silver would do to capture and to kill Him This now turns out to be a bitter disappointment. Much more money is needed to keep the soldiers' mouth shut and an even bigger sum will be required to satisfy the greedy governor Pontius Pilate. Lots of money must be spent to prevent that the fact of Jesus' resurrection will be heard by the people to transform their lives. Much money: their goal in life and therefore at the same time the means to reach it. The message of the resurrection, the. joyful news of, God's deed has been brought officially to the Sanhedrin. They believed the message too, but the only reaction of the fathers in Israel was: Away with it. Jesus had foretold that already in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if Some One should rise from the dead". God has acted; they know that the report about it is true, but they refuse to listen, to repent. Confronted with this most serious state of affairs they have to do something. How can they find and spread a reasonable explanation for the fact of the resurrection? What must be the content of the campaign of whispered lies to suppress the truth in ungodliness and wickedness? Those who fight. in God's service have only a limited choice of weapons: truth and righteousness, but for those who fight against God the choice of weapons is limited too. God's weapons they cannot use, that would damage their cause, they can only draw from the devil's arsenal. Their only weapons are the lie and the darkness; only those are for them useful and effective. When the angel came down and opened up the grace, everything was illuminated by heavenly light, but that is not their sphere, that they hate; they feel at home in the darkness and in deeds of darkness, that is their congenial atmosphere. Their explanation is that something has happened in the dark, at night, that excellent time for crimes. While the soldiers were Creeping, the disciples came and took Jesus' body away. The transparency of this falsehood does riot prevent them to spread it brazenly; they gave nothing else but lies to spread. How could the Roman soldiers in the dark perceive that the disciples came to take Jesus' body? How could they see while they were sleeping? By second sight perhaps or in their dreams? And since when is a platoon of Roman soldiers afraid of a couple of Galilean fishermen? How could the disciples disappear so quickly carrying the body? But the transparency of lies, especially of propaganda-lies has never prevented people from swallowing them. Especially is this not the case when the lies are backed up by power and money; power and money have always been able to suppress truth in wickedness till the moment comes that God reveals the truth. This I falsehood has been written down in the Jewish books. It is up till now the official explanation about Christ's resurrection. And strange to say - wry irony as it is - in scientific circles where people solemnly declare that they want to bow only for truth, the absolute truth, this falsehood has been accepted too as a justified, scientific explanation of the resurrection. What a glorious camouflage of the lie to present itself as the unbiased love, of truth. Satan parading as an angel of light. Matthew adds: "This story has been spread among the Jews to this day". Indeed, among the Jews according to race -and among the Jews according to spirit. This story has been spread among all men of self-righteousness and self-justification, the men of the works of the law, all those who reject the offer of God's grace. For only the Spirit of God, Who is the Spirit of Truth can open the eyes to see clearly the truth of God's message. The congregation has heard the message of the resurrection, and accepted it in faith; the Sanhedrin too received the same message; they were convinced that it was true and yet they rejected it and replaced God's truth by their lies. These two possibilities still exist in our days. Faith is indeed God's gift; it is not our knowledge, virtue or piety that leads us to Christ, but only God's Spirit. For it is by grace that you have been saved, as you had faith; it is not your own doing, but the gift of God.