Jesus died about mid-afternoon on Good Friday (see Mark 15:34, 37). His body was wrapped in linen and transported to a rock-hewn tomb located in a garden (see Luke 23:53, John 19:41). There wasn’t enough time before sunset (when the Sabbath began) to prepare Jesus’ body for a proper burial, so the women who planned to do that had to postpone their work. As it turned out, they never got to do it.
Saturday
Luke writes of those women, “On the Sabbath day they rested according to the commandment” (Luke 23:56). But not all Jews rested on that Sabbath. Some of the Jewish leaders went to Pilate and persuaded him to send soldiers to seal the stone door at the mouth of the cave so that Jesus’ disciples could not steal His body (see Matt. 27:62–66). It was an exercise in futility. Nothing they could have done would have kept Jesus in the tomb.
Sunday
On Sunday morning God raised Jesus from the dead.
We will consider three questions about the first Easter Sunday: What did the disciples see? Did the resurrection really happen? What does the resurrection mean?
What did the disciples see? The Gospels treat the resurrection of Jesus as a mystery. None of them says that anyone was present to see the resurrection. What the disciples saw was the effects of the resurrection — a living Jesus and an empty cave.
The church historian Hans von Campenhausen called these two sets of narratives the appearances tradition and the empty cave tradition. The New Testament epistles, which probably were written before the Gospels, record only the appearances tradition. The Gospels record both traditions.
The risen Jesus appeared only to His followers. Some critics have asked why He didn’t appear to unbelievers, but the Gospels make it clear that when Jesus appeared to His followers they were not yet believers in His resurrection. They became believers only when they saw Him.
It isn’t clear what the sequence of Jesus’ appearances was. Luke records three appearances. He writes that “two men in dazzling clothes” told the women who came to prepare Jesus’ body for burial that Jesus was alive, but he doesn’t say that the women saw Jesus. The women told Peter who went to see for himself. On the road to Emmaus Jesus appeared to two disciples who finally recognized Him when they dined with Him. They went to Jerusalem and told the 11 and some others who then responded that Jesus had already appeared to Peter. While they were talking Jesus appeared to all of them at once and dined with them. They walked together over to Bethany where Jesus blessed them and then ascended to heaven (Luke 24).
Some of the ancient manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark do not record any appearances of Jesus, but others record that “He appeared first to Mary Magdalene” and then to two disciples who “were walking into the country.” Finally He appeared to the 11, commissioned them to preach the good news, and was taken up into heaven (Mark 16).
Matthew records that Jesus appeared to the women as they were leaving the tomb and then to the disciples in Galilee (Matt. 28).
John records that Mary Magdalene went to the garden and saw that the stone had been moved from Jesus’ tomb. She reported this to Peter and the beloved disciple, presumably John, and they ran to the tomb and found it empty. After they left, Jesus appeared to Mary, and she went and told the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” That evening Jesus appeared to the disciples who were in a locked room hiding from the authorities. Thomas was not there, but he was present a week later when Jesus appeared to them again.
Later Jesus appeared to seven of them in Galilee and cooked breakfast for them. John concluded his Gospel by saying that Jesus did so many other things that if they were all written down “the world itself could not contain the books” (John 20).
The sequence of the various appearances may be unclear, but two things are quite clear. One is that Jesus appeared to numerous people on numerous occasions. Another is that Jesus’ appearances were so real that everyone who saw Him came to believe that “The Lord has risen indeed!” (Luke 24:34).
This leads to our second question, one which comes naturally to people in our critical age: Did the resurrection really happen?
If you begin with the assumption that resurrection cannot happen, neither the Gospel narratives nor modern arguments for the historicity of the resurrection are likely to persuade you otherwise. The question to ask yourself is, why should I be making this assumption? If you begin to doubt your assumption and to accept that at least in principle God might raise the dead, then you will be ready to consider the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.
That evidence is strong. For example, Jesus appeared to many people, not just one or two. He appeared often, not just once or twice. He appeared to groups, not just to individuals. The fact that the sequence of the appearances is unclear suggests that the Gospel writers did not put their heads together and collude on a single sequence. Rather, they had access to multiple witnesses, and they narrated their stories as they received them.
Then there is the effect of Jesus’ appearances on the disciples. They were transformed. They had been disillusioned individuals, and they became an intentional faith community. Peter, who once had cravenly denied that he even knew Jesus, became a courageous preacher of the gospel of Jesus. How can these transformations be explained? The biblical explanation is that Jesus appeared to His disciples, they became convinced that He had been resurrected and it changed their lives.
And so we come to our third and final question: What is the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection?
First the resurrection means that Jesus was completely vindicated. On Easter, God put a divine stamp of approval on everything Jesus had said and done.
Second the resurrection means God brought the old age to an end and inaugurated a new era in the relationship between God and human beings. In his sermon at Pentecost, Peter associated the close of the old age with Jesus’ resurrection — the resurrection comes at the end of the world — and he associated the inauguration of the new era with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit (see Acts 2:17, 32–33).
Third the resurrection means that Jesus is alive. The church is not a community that remembers a dead founder. It is a community that shares in the life of a risen Lord.
Finally the resurrection means we know Jesus’ identity. Paul probably was quoting an early Christian saying when he wrote that Jesus “was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). The first disciples learned from Jesus’ resurrection who He is. The same is true of us. If we don’t take Jesus’ resurrection seriously, we don’t understand Him.
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