EASTER:  nO BONES ABOUT IT

Easter/The Resurrection of the Lord

            Have you heard the one about finding Jesus’ bones?  No, this is no joke.  If you’ve been following the news, you recognize my not-so-hidden reference to an incredible claim made by Israeli-born, Canadian-based filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici.  He claims that he has found the possible burial place of Jesus of Nazareth and his family.  This burial place is in Talpiot, a suburb of Jerusalem.  It was discovered back in 1980, only now making a splash in the news.  What the hubbub is all about is that there were ten ossuaries, burial boxes, discovered in a cave in 1980.  Six of these ossuaries bear inscriptions identifying them as those of Jesus, Mary his mother, a second Mary—Mary Magdalene, it is suggested—and relatives Matthew, Josa or Yose, and Judah son of Jesus.  A great stir followed these announcements, for to find the bones of Jesus might threaten the very foundation of Christian faith, namely, that he was raised from the dead.

            Well, before we panic and call off Easter, you should know that there are a number of problems with Jacobovici’s assertions.  The archeological community is not lining itself behind Jacobovici’s line of reasoning, not to mention the way he went about publicizing his findings.  Professor Jodi Magness, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is one who has problems with Jacobovici’s claims.  In her article, posted on the Biblical Archaeology Society’s Web site, Dr. Magness notes that going public in a press conference dodges the usual academic process.  “This is a travesty to professional archaeologists and scholars of early Judaism and Christianity, and it is a disservice to the public,” she said.  Professor Magness says, “The claim that the Talpiot tomb is the tomb of Jesus and his family contradicts the canonical Gospel accounts and means that we must reject our earliest traditions about Jesus.”  Dr. Magness is not persuaded to do that.  Instead the gospels, she says, “provide an accurate description of Joseph of Arimathea burying Jesus’ body in a loculus [a burial niche] in his family’s rock-cut tomb.”  Only the wealthy in those days could afford such arrangements.  Most of the population buried their dead in rectangular trenches in the ground, wrapped in a shroud.  Ossuaries are associated only with rock-cut tombs.  Bodies placed in trench graves were not later dug up for placement in ossuaries.  Professor Magness argues, “When the women entered the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea on Sunday morning, the loculus where Jesus’ body had been laid was empty.  The theological explanation for this is that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.”  Let’s say you don’t buy that argument for now.  Let’s say you believe that someone came and removed Jesus’ body.  Dr. Magness allows that would have been possible for family members to have removed Jesus’ body from Joseph’s tomb after the sabbath had ended and then to have buried it in a trench grave.  But, even in that case, Jesus’ bones would not have ended up in an ossuary in a Jerusalem suburb.  On the other hand, if the gospel accounts are right, that Jesus’ tomb was empty on that Sunday morning following his crucifixion, then it would be likely that someone else’s bones, not those of Jesus, are in the Talpiot ossuary.

            Is the evidence compelling that Jacobovici has found the bones of Jesus?  Consider:  When the followers of Jesus began to claim that his tomb was empty and that he had risen from the dead, wouldn’t the religious and civil authorities simply go to the tomb where Jesus was buried and point out his body, if there were a body to be found?  Yes.  Don’t you imagine that those who wanted Jesus to be crucified would have searched diligently for his remains the moment his followers began to declare that had risen from the dead?  You bet!  What’s more, if Jesus’ body had been removed to another location, wouldn’t those who wanted Jesus crucified have searched for a trench grave then, in order to disprove the claim that Jesus had risen?  You would think so.  But no one found such a grave after it was claimed that Christ had been raised from the dead.  What about the names on the ossuaries in the Talpiot tomb?  Those names were extremely common for Jesus’ time, just as certain names are common in north Texas in 2007.  Imagine today how often we might find the combination of names Jesus, son of Jose and Maria attached to graves.  Finding those names in combination today would not be remarkable because those names are so common.  These names are too common to make them remarkable in their combination.  The same is true of the names Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary, in Jesus’ time.  Those names were too common to make them remarkable, even when put together on a tomb.  Are there any legitimate archeologists who support the claims of Jacobovici?  Not that I can find.  Is the evidence compelling that Jacobovici has found the bones of Jesus?  No, it is not.

            So, what do the gospels say?  The gospels all say that Jesus’ tomb was found empty.  All four gospels bear the same testimony that Jesus’ tomb was unoccupied when it was visited early that Sunday morning.  Oh, sure, the details of each of the gospels vary.  But they all say that Jesus’ body was no longer in the tomb.  In Matthew 28, it says that the stone covering the tomb was rolled back.  The women who were the first to come to the tomb were invited to “see the place where he lay.”  They were told about Jesus, “He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.”  The clear message:  Jesus’ tomb was empty.  In Mark 16, it says that the stone to the tomb had been rolled back.  The women who were the first at the tomb were told concerning Jesus, “He has been raised; he is not here.  Look, there is the place they laid him.”  The clear message:  Jesus’ tomb was empty.  In Luke 24, our gospel lesson for today, it says that the women coming to Jesus’ tomb found that the stone was rolled away.  When they went in the tomb, they did not find Jesus’ body.  They were told, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”  The clear message:  Jesus’ tomb was empty.  In John 20, it says that the stone had been removed from the tomb.  Peter and another disciple went to the tomb.  The other disciple saw the linen wrappings lying in the tomb.  Peter, the gospel says, went into the tomb to have a look, and also saw the linen wrappings.  And he also saw “the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.”  The clear message:  Jesus’ tomb was found empty.  All of the gospels say that the tomb of Jesus was found to be empty on that Sunday morning.  They all say the same thing:  the tomb of Jesus was empty.

            Even so, the fact is that the empty tomb does not explain itself.  The discovery of Jesus’ empty tomb does not prove the resurrection.  It is possible to have come to Jesus’ tomb on that first Easter Sunday, seen that was empty, and merely to conclude that Jesus’ tomb was empty for some unknown reason.  Easter faith needs a stronger leg to stand on than the four gospels’ proclamation that Jesus’ tomb was empty.  The empty tomb, by itself, proves nothing.  Imagine that you are a detective for the Lancaster Police Department.  A call comes into the department and it is routed to you.  You answer:  “Yes, ma’am?  Your uncle’s body is missing from the cemetery, is that right, ma’am?  Yes, ma’am, I’ll check into it.”  You get into your unmarked police car.   You go down Nokomis until you get to the cemetery.  You look around for an empty grave.  You find one.  The head stone marks the grave of the uncle of the one who called you.  The grave is now a gaping hole.  There is no body.  Is your first conclusion that this man rose from the grave?  No.  You decide to bring in the Crime Scene Unit to go over the site for clues.  Chances are, someone came here and removed the body.  That’s your main theory.  You don’t suspect that the body has simply vanished.  Why not?  It never happens.  Assuming the four gospels are all telling the truth about finding Jesus’ tomb empty, by itself, it doesn’t prove that Jesus was raised from the dead.

            What would prove Jesus’ resurrection?  We begin with the proclamation that accompanied the women discovering the empty tomb.  In Matthew 28, the women are told, “I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he has been raised.”  In Mark 16, the women are told, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised; he is not here.”  In our gospel for today, Luke 24, the women are told, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”  In John 20, the narration says of the disciples who saw the empty tomb, “. . . as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”  All four of the gospels give an explanation of the empty tomb, that the same Jesus who was crucified had been raised from the dead.  The reason that Jesus’ tomb was empty, they all say, is because he had risen.

            But is this enough evidence to support Easter faith?  Well, there’s more convincing evidence of Jesus’ resurrection.  The appearances of the risen Lord Jesus give the meaning of the empty tomb.  Christian faith is not based on the absence of bones in a borrowed tomb.  The foundation for Easter faith is that Jesus appeared to his followers.  I can say it no more eloquently than Martin B. Copenhaver.  “On this the gospel writers agree, and this I believe,” he says, “Jesus appeared to the disciples and others after his death, in such a sure and unmistakable way that they agree that it was Jesus.  They grope for ways to express the reality of it, as we might grope to express love to a person who has never experienced it, but it is no less real for their inability to fully capture the experience in words.  Of this the disciples and gospel writers were sure:  It was Jesus.  It was not simply the power of his memory overcoming them, not some generalized sense of the presence of God.  It was Jesus, in the midst of them again in a way that was previously unknown and as unimaginable to them as it is to us.  It was an experience of such power that they could no more ignore it than they could ignore their own lives.”  The apostle Paul testifies to the appearances of the risen Lord in a letter he sent off to the Christians in Corinth.  He tells them, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received:  that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [another name for the apostle Peter], then to the twelve [meaning Jesus’ closest disciples].  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.”  In other words, Paul is saying, there are witnesses to what I’m telling you; you can go ask them yourself.  Then Paul says something else, something more dramatic.  He says,  “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”  Paul doesn’t mention the empty tomb.  When you see the risen Lord for yourself, you are no longer interested in where Jesus’ body used to lie.  When you see the risen Lord, you have all the evidence you need that Christ is risen from the dead.  Christian faith is based on the appearances of the risen Lord Jesus, not simply an empty grave being discovered.  Easter faith, sparked by his post-crucifixion appearances to his followers, is that Jesus was raised from the dead.  Jesus rising from the dead explains why his tomb was empty.

            Need still more evidence that God raised up Jesus from the dead?  Just look at the great transformation in his disciples.  Jesus’ disciples were themselves raised from fear to public preaching of a risen Lord.  Imagine the disciples coming out of their hiding place to preach a gospel of a risen Lord Jesus only on a wish or a hope.  These people were not gullible.  Yes, you could certainly describe them as afraid.  Sure, you could describe them as distraught.  You could describe Jesus’ disciples as defeated and dejected immediately after they saw their master brutally spiked to a cross to hang and slowly die.  But there is no reason to conclude that they would come out of hiding, into the dangerous open, on a theory or a simple wish that their Master had come back to them.  No, something happened to them.  How did Martin B. Copenhaver put it?  “Something happened that day.  We know something happened because something unexpected, something powerful, something marvelous turned the followers of Jesus, this huddle of dispirited men and women, into a valiant band ready to dare anything and doing it.  Something made them leave the dark comfort of the room in which they hid to proclaim in the light of day, ‘He lives!’  Something they could only describe as Jesus happened to them, and they could no more hold it in than a new mother could hold in the news of the birth of her child, no more than a blind man could ignore the restoration of his sight.”  So you see the apostle Peter, in the New Testament book of Acts, standing out in public, declaring, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.”  If you want dramatic proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, look at the great transformation of Jesus’ disciples.