Easter 2024
If you had lived in Europe or America during the 1700’s, you would have been quite familiar with the different wild animals and birds. Every teen knew the differences between a fox and a coyote and a wolf and a dog. You would have clearly recognized the differences, for example, between ducks and geese, and between geese and swans.
And one thing which all people in Europe and America agreed upon was that all swans were white – it was part of who they were. You couldn’t have a black swan, but you could have black or green or blue ducks or even gray or black geese. But black swans simply didn’t exist.
But there were some uncomfortable rumors that flew from time to time. A crazy Dutch ship captain reported seeing black birds as large as swans off Bernier Island just off the western coast of Australia in 1636. And another Dutch ship captain supposedly captured three black swans in the same area sixty years later, and took them to Jakarta in Indonesia, but they conveniently died before they could be brought to Europe. If they ever existed in the first place.
A hundred years later, in 1792 a Frenchman mentioned that he had seen some black swans in Tasmania, the island off the southeast coast of Australia. But there was a war beginning in Europe between the French and everyone else, so who could trust a Frenchman?
But in 1804, another Frenchman brought living black swans to Napoleon’s wife’s zoo outside Paris, and the world of swans was turned upside down. The unknown that had become rumors and myths a hundred years earlier now became reality. Something that simply could not be had happened: Black swans existed.
And so, an unpredictable, unforeseeable event has become known as a “Black Swan” event.
Today, we will speak of the greatest Black Swan event in history. Let’s go back to a Thursday evening in Jerusalem, in the spring, most likely in the year 30 or 33.
Jesus of Nazareth was famous in the area between Galilee and Jerusalem for his ability to work miraculous healing and make predictions that came true. Eyewitnesses saw him help the Deaf to here, the blind to see, and those with shriveled hands to be able to use them again. He had cured people of bad legs and feet, he had even cured people of paralysis, and had brought a handful of people back from the dead – one guy, Lazarus, had been in the tomb four days when Jesus called upon him to walk out of the tomb in front of many witnesses.
Jesus then had come into Jerusalem to great crowds and fanfare. There were people who wanted to make him king – and therefore, there were leaders who thought he was a very dangerous man and needed to be arrested and executed. And they saw an opening when one of his students offered to betray him. They would arrest him for blasphemy, a capital crime then, as it still is in several countries.
On that Thursday evening, Jesus celebrated the traditional Passover meal with his disciples in the upper room of a home in Jerusalem. It was during this meal that he told the disciples that whenever they broke and ate bread, they should remember that this was his body that was broken for them, and whenever they drank the juice or wine from the grapevine, that they should remember that it was his lifeblood that was shed for them for the forgiveness of sins. He taught them much more that evening, which the Apostle John recorded in Chapters 13-17 of his gospel.
After the meal, they sang a hymn and walked to a garden on the Mount of Olives, just outside of town, where Jesus prayed and then was betrayed and arrested, taken to the leaders of Israel and charged with the capital crime of blasphemy – in this case, claiming to be God, or at the very least, God’s Son walking upon the earth. He was severely beaten and lost considerable blood. After conviction, he was taken to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, to be sentenced to death upon a cross.
He died that afternoon. A Roman soldier made sure he was dead by sticking a spear into his side. Late that afternoon, his body was taken down, mummy-wrapped with linen and spices, and placed in a cut-rock tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea — a well-respected and wealthy Jewish leader. He was helped by Nicodemus, the leader who had visited Jesus at night and had been told that he must be born again.
And then, they all went home, because the sun was going down that Friday evening and the Jewish Sabbath was beginning. Everyone must be home by sundown and stay there until sunset on Saturday. It was the custom and it was the Law!
Different societies have different customs about time. We measure time in hours and minutes and days. But the ancient people of Israel counted days differently. We would say the time from Sunset on Friday to Sunrise on Sunday was about 36 hours, a day and a half, because we measure time. But other societies, including the ancient Jewish people, counted any part of Friday as one day, Saturday as a second day, and any time after Sunset on Saturday evening as a third day. So three days Jesus lay in that tomb by ancient Jewish reckoning.
And early on Sunday morning, something happened that had never happened in the history of the world. Just as in 1800, every European and American knew that all swans were white – until living black swans were brought to the capital of France --every person in the world knew that dead people stay permanently dead. The rumors and stories recorded in the Old Testament of prophets bringing someone back to life could be dismissed as rumors or people who were mistaken. Even Jesus’ ability to bring the centurion’s daughter and Lazarus back to life might have been mistaken.
But after seeing Jesus beaten so severely Friday afternoon, paraded through the streets, hung on the cross and seeing him die – confirmed by the Roman soldier who stuck him with a spear causing water and blood to spurt out from his lungs and heart cavity – everyone knew that Jesus, the man who might possibly have had the power to raise people from the dead (after all, those eyewitnesses of the raising of Lazarus were very sure of what they had seen) – but everyone knew that Jesus was truly dead.
So even if Jesus had some magical power to raise the dead, how could a dead man raise himself from the dead? It could not happen. It had never happened. And so people - even including His disciples - went home saddened or joyful that Jesus was dead. Permanently dead.
Yet on Sunday morning, women claimed he was no longer in the grave. Well, someone might have stolen the body. But Mary claimed to have seen him alive. But the men said they were all just hysterical women. But then Peter and John confirmed the body was missing. And then, Jesus appeared to Peter the Rock, the strong, reliable fishing boat captain whose nickname in Aramaic was Cephas (the Rock), and whose original name was Simon.
Jesus appeared to two men later that afternoon on the road to Emmaus, a tiny village about five miles from Jerusalem. And as they rushed back to town and joined the disciples in the locked upper room again, Jesus appeared before all of them (except Thomas, who was Missing in Action, probably from a combination of fear and depression.)
Even more, in each of these cases, Jesus did not appear like he had been beaten and lost most of his blood. He didn’t look like he’d been “run over by a Mac Truck”. He had scars in his hands and feet where the nails had hung him on the cross, and he had a hole in his side where the soldier had stuck the spear, but other than that, he looked great – better than he had looked in weeks!
And over the next forty days, he kept meeting people. Look what the Apostle Paul tells us:
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, … he was buried, … he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and … he appeared to Cephas [Peter], and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born out of time.
Five hundred people saw Jesus alive. Paul tells us, in effect, most were still alive when Paul wrote this letter - you can go and ask them! Going through the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament, we count eleven separate appearances of the living Jesus come back from death, with different witnesses each time, singularly and in groups, sometimes men, sometimes women, inside buildings and outside, with reports of Jesus eating food, cooking fish, people touching him, Jesus teaching, and Jesus breaking bread once again.
Yet, like the Europeans and Americans of 1800 who doubted the existence of the black swans, despite drawings and stories from reliable witnesses, there are still people who doubt Jesus’ Resurrection today. But we need to learn from the story of the black swan that some things simply cannot be touched or felt or seen - yet exist. The evidence for the black swan was there in Europe almost 170 years earlier because of the reports of the Dutch ship captains – yet most people chose not to believe.
Under normal conditions, we cannot see or touch Jesus today. In the same way, we cannot see the wind. But we can see the actions of the wind upon the world around us. And we can see the actions of Jesus upon the world around us.
Hospitals did not exist when Jesus walked the earth. The were founded by Christians who wanted to heal people as Jesus had. Charity was rare in the world before Jesus – most of our charitable organizations like the Salvation Army, food pantries, the Red Cross, and clothing closets were founded by Christians trying to love their neighbors. Government support programs grew because of lobbying by Christians. Rules to limit warfare and what is allowed in warfare like the Geneva Conventions came about because of Christians.
Have you considered the differences between societies where most people are Christian – and societies where Christians are few and far between? For example, consider the Waodani people of Peru and Ecuador. When missionaries arrived in the 1950’s, the Waodani promptly killed the four young men from Wheaton College who were attempting to simply meet them. A few months later, the four men’s wives visited the Waodoni and lived among them. (The story is told in the book Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot, one of the women, and in the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor. A fictionalized movie account, End of the Spear was released in 2005.)
At that time, in the 1940’s and 1950’s, the murder rate among the Waodoni was 40%. That meant that when you died, 4 out of ten times, your death was a murder. For, you see, the Waodoni believed in two things – first, there were no limits to personal behavior – they had complete liberty to do whatever they wanted. And second, if someone else did something you didn’t like, it was considered proper to kill him or her.
The Christian ladies helped the Waodoni survive a polio epidemic. And they gradually converted the people to Christianity. Today, the Waodoni have peace. They have developed Waodoni doctors and dentists and missionaries who help each other and the surrounding people. For Christianity brings peace to society. After all, wouldn’t you rather live among a group of people committed to loving their neighbors? Or would you rather live among a group of people who fought about everything, like we find in several countries around the world - and online - today?
Recently, a couple of social scientists examined the results of over 325 studies about happiness. 74 percent – almost three-quarters of the studies, showed the people who attend religious services often are happier than people who do not attend. Even stronger, the more often people attend, the happier they are. 1 percent – three of the studies – showed that people who attend religious services are less happy. 74 percent of studies show attending religious services makes you happier – 1 percent showed the opposite. 25% were not clear either way. The conclusion is that the odds are that attending religious services every week is one key way to finding happiness in our lives.
It is true that some Christians do not live up to the ideals of Christianity. Most of the time it is because they are either new to the faith, have not listened well, or been taught poorly. But most Christians come close to the ideals. Most Christians are trying to be better people and learning through their attendance at services. Jesus changed the world for the better – and continues to change the world through those people who claim to be Christians. Just like in any group of people, there are people who adhere to the ideals of the group and people who don’t understand. Don’t let your opinion of Christianity be affected by the least trained Christians - instead, look for the best Christians.
Ask your Christian friends - and yourself - if you have experienced the blessings and actions of Jesus Christ in your life. Ask your Christian friends - and yourself - if you think Jesus Christ died, was buried, and came back from the dead.
As Isaiah wrote about Jesus, 800 years before Jesus arrived on earth:
“On this mountain, {meaning the mountain where Jerusalem was built], the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine— the best of meats and the finest of wines.
On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations; He will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.
In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”
On that first Resurrection Sunday, almost 2000 years ago, Jesus defeated death through His willingness to die as a sacrifice for all people. Jesus had claimed to be God walking on the earth. The Lord Almighty confirmed that claim by bringing Jesus back to life. God would not have resurrected Jesus if Jesus was a liar or crazy. And so we can trust everything that Jesus taught.
Death, on the other hand, was destroyed by Jesus’ sacrifice. For because He lives, we who choose to follow Him shall live forever, with our earthly death being just a brief transition, like happens when we switch the channel between television shows. For since He lived again in the flesh, we shall live again in the flesh. He has promised this.
And with that certainty and promise, backed up by the power of God and the love of the One who went forward to die in our place and rose again, there is nothing on earth to fear – not politics, not warfare, not poverty, not disease, not other people or the loss of our status. And that is what allows mature Christians to be kind and love other people. It is when we are certain in our faith of eternal life that we can put the things of this life in perspective – and focus upon doing what God asks of us, no matter what.
So if you are a Christian believer, remember that Christ died so you could have eternal life. And if you are not yet a Christian believer, join us here so that you may come to understand why we have the faith that we have.
For the people of 1800 had never seen a black swan, but the black swans existed. And you may never have seen the love of Christ, but it is there, for He lives.
He is Alive!