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Lectio The Case for Jesus: The Resurrection of Jesus
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What is the Resurrection? What do we mean when we say Jesus “rose from the dead”? Dr. Pitre lays out the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus, focusing on three things:the empty tomb, the appearances of Jesus to his disciples, and the fulfillment of scripture.
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Well, welcome back, everyone, to our eighth and final session of the Lectio Bible study on Jesus, looking at the biblical and historical evidence for Christ. If you've been with us through the first seven sessions, you know we've covered a lot of ground. We've looked at the question of the authorship of the four Gospels, the date of the Gospels, the genre of the Gospels, the the historical reliability of the Gospels, as well as questions of Jesus messiahship and his divinity and his crucifixion. And now we come really to the climax of the whole story, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the empty tomb and the good news of Easter Sunday. So that's what we're going to be looking at in this session. However, before we dive into the mystery of the resurrection, I want to make one last point. Just about everything I've been saying to you about the truth of the Gospels and their witness to the life of Jesus. Some of the things I've said over the course of these lectures might have been a little surprising. Maybe you hadn't heard them before. I've cited a lot of different scholars, some of them Catholic, some of them Protestant, some of them atheists, giving you all these different names. And I just want to be clear before we bring our study to its close, that what we've really been talking about over these first seven sessions is just Catholic faith. This is just the Catholic approach to the Gospels. And I'm going to quote here from Vatican ii, Second Vatican Council, the document DEI Verbum. It's the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, and it's the Church's most authoritative teaching on the nature and the truth of the Gospels. And I just want you to hear what the Church proclaimed officially in 1965, which by the way, was at the height of skepticism about the Gospels. This is what the Church had to say about Jesus and the Gospels, the subject of our study. And listen to what Vatican II taught. This is in Dei Verbum, chapter 18 and 19, and I'm going to quote here. It's a long quote, but just listen along with me. The Church has always and everywhere maintained and continues to maintain the apostolic origin of the four Gospels. The apostles preached as Christ had charged them to do. And then, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they and others of the apostolic age handed on to us in writing the same message they had preached the foundation of our faith, the Fourfold Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute consistency maintained and continues to maintain that the four Gospels, just named, whose historicity she unhesitatingly affirms, faithfully hand on what Jesus, the Son of God, while he lived among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation until the day he was taken up. And it goes on to say the sacred authors in writing the four Gospels selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on either orally or already in written form. Others, they synthesize and explain with an eye to the situation of their churches, the while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus. Whether they relied on their own memory and recollections or on the testimony of those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word. Their purpose in writing was that we might know the truth concerning the things of which we have been informed. And you notice that last line there? What's it quoting? Luke 1:1:4. Those verses we looked at earlier when we were examining the historicity of the Gospels. So I just bring that up for you to show that everything we've been saying here, everything I've been sharing with you, is just a kind of distillation of the Catholic Church's official position on the historical truth of the Gospels. So if any of it's surprising to you, just go back and reread Vatican II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is the Catholic faith, right? Okay. Now, with that in mind, with that foundation with which, by the way, think about that. The four Gospels are the foundation of our faith. That's what Vatican II said. So what happens when you destroy their credibility or undermine their truth? You pull the rug out from under the faith. This is why so many people, especially so many young people today, no longer believe in Christianity or no longer practice the Catholic faith. They've heard these ideas about the Gospel, these skeptical approaches. And so we need to back up and lay that foundation once more to so that we can proclaim the truth about Jesus Christ. And nowhere is that more important than when it comes to the resurrection. So let's turn finally here to the mystery of Jesus resurrection from the dead. As we saw in our last session, there's really good historical evidence from all four biographies of Jesus, all four gospels, that Jesus claimed to be God. The next question is, why should I believe that? Right? There are lots of people who make lots of claims about themselves, right? Why should I believe that Jesus claims about himself were true? Well, we've already looked at the evidence from the miracles of Jesus, as well as some of the prophecies of Jesus like those about the destruction of the temple. But in this section, we want to look at the principal motive of credibility, the principal reason for believing that Jesus was who he claimed to be, namely, the evidence for the resurrection on Easter Sunday. Now, in order to do this carefully and clearly, we want to make sure at the beginning that we know what we mean when we say the word resurrection. Over the years, it's become more and more clear to me that not everybody means the same thing when they say that word. And not everyone is proclaiming the same thing when they say, oh, well, yeah, I believe in the resurrection. So let's start by making sure we know what the resurrection is not, and then we'll say what the resurrection is. Okay, so first off, what the resurrection is not. When the early apostles went around claiming that Jesus had been raised from the dead, when they were proclaiming the truth of the resurrection of Christ, they were not saying several things. First, they were not simply claiming that Jesus had returned to ordinary earthly life, right? You might call this a resuscitation, even if it were miraculous. So, for example, we see other people in the Bible who are brought back to ordinary life. Jairus daughter, right, is raised from the dead. Lazarus is raised from the dead. We even have in the Old Testament, a man is thrown into the tomb of Elisha and touches Elisha's bones, and he was dead. But when he touches the bones of Elisha, he's raised from the dead, he's brought back to ordinary life. Which, by the way, is kind of like an Old Testament background for Catholic relics, you know? But I digress. We'd have to do a whole lectio on relics anyway. But in each of those cases, the person returns to ordinary life, but they die again. That's not what the apostles were talking about when they were talking about the resurrection of Christ. Although I will say you got to think about that for Lazarus part. On the one hand, it's great, he's back from the dead. On the other hand, he has to die again. And I don't know if that's better or worse, right? If you've been through it once, maybe it's not as terrifying. Who knows? But in any case, that's not what they meant. It wasn't just a resuscitation of Jesus to. To ordinary life. Second, when the apostles claimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and this one's even more pernicious, they were not just claiming that his soul had gone to heaven to be alive with God. I encountered this in different students or Readers who kind of confuse resurrection from the dead with the immortality of the soul. Lots of different religions will proclaim the immortality of the soul. That the soul, the animating and unifying principle of the body, something somehow lives on after death, right? And maybe even goes to be with God the Creator. But in this case, that's not what the word resurrection anastasis meant. In Greek, they had another word for that kind of immortality. It was athanasia or deathlessness. Anastasia or resurrection literally means to stand up again, Anais, to stand like you were laying down and now you're standing up. See the bodily implication of that? So when we talk about the resurrection of the dead, we're not just saying Jesus soul or his spirit is alive with God. Like, for example, Lazarus and the rich man. Remember, Lazarus goes to be with Abraham and you can tell they're in a place of peace. But that's just Lazarus soul, right? It's not his body. Third, this is also important. When the apostles said the resurrection of Jesus, when they proclaimed it, they weren't just saying that Jesus had ascended into heaven and after he died in his soul. The ascension and the resurrection are two distinct events in the Gospels. So don't confuse them with one another. Sometimes some modern scholars have tried to say that there are two ways of saying the same thing. They're not. So what is the resurrection? When we talk about the resurrection on Astasis, we are talking about something happening to Jesus body, his soma. The religion of Christianity is based on the claim that something happened to a corpse. It's a very bodily claim. So when we speak of the resurrection, we mean three key things. First, that Jesus returns to bodily life after being dead. There's a famous Anglican scholar, N.T. wright, who puts it this way. Resurrection is not about life after death. It's about life after life after death. It's about the soul of Jesus and his body being reunited in a new mode of existence. Okay, so first, it's a return to bodily life. Second, when we speak about the resurrection, we mean that Jesus has the same body that was crucified on Calvary. It's very important. So it's not reincarnation where you go into a different body. It's resurrection, where the soul and the same body that had died are reunited. And then third, and finally, and this is very important too, this new body is transformed. It's changed. It's in a new mode of existence. It's not ordinary earthly life like the body of Lazarus or the body of Jairus Daughter. It's a New mode of existence. Jesus can walk through walls, right? He can appear where he wills and when he wills. He's not bound by space, not bound by time. He can hide his appearance, as in the road to Emmaus, right? So this is the same body, but it's also new in certain ways. And nowhere is this clearer, at least for me, than in Luke 24. If you have your Bible and you want to turn to Luke 24:36, 43, there's a great account of the resurrection of Jesus that makes very clear what the resurrection is and what it is not. And I've given you the passage here. This is one of the appearances of Christ to the apostles. In Luke 24:36. It says this. As they were saying this, Jesus himself stood among them, and he said to them, peace to you. But they were startled and frightened, and they supposed they saw a what, a spirit, right? Or you can translate it as a ghost, which tells you the apostles believed in ghosts. They think that this is just his penuma, his spirit. Like maybe some of you had the experience, you lost a loved one, and maybe they come to you in a dream, or you have some kind of experience of them after their death. That's what they assume they're encountering. It's the spirit of Jesus. But they were startled and frightened. Suppose they saw a spirit and he said to them, why are you troubled? Why do questions rise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see. For a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and wondered, he said to them, got anything to eat? I love this. Right? They. They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and he ate it before them. So just pause there. Notice a few things that are going on here. The apostles are assuming that they're seeing Jesus ghost or encountering what we might describe as his immortal soul in some way. But he makes very clear that's not what this is about. And the way he does it is first to say, look at me. See I have my body. But then notice he also says, see my hands and my feet. Why does he point to the hands and feet in particular? It's to show the wounds from the crucifixion, which, by the way, is an important piece of evidence. Sometimes people will debate, you know, where Jesus wrists. Was he crucified through the wrists or through the hands and People debate that. The reason we think the hands were the objects of the nails is because the gospel testimony says as much. That's where the wounds are in his hands and in his feet. So notice he's both showing them that he has a body, he's not just a spirit, and that it's the same body that was crucified on Calvary. Everybody see that? Okay. Also, too, he's making very clear that this isn't just the immortality of his soul and he's not just a spirit because his body is so real, he's able to eat food. And I'm no expert in the study of ghosts, but I would assume that ghosts can't eat fish, right? Because you have to have a body to eat something. Right? So if you've ever wondered how real will my body be in the final resurrection? Well, I would say just as real as Jesus body is here with the apostles, which is a pretty striking thing to really contemplate. It's so easy, especially for me as a Catholic, having grown up, you know, in the faith, to sometimes forget that when we talk about the souls of the faithful departed going to heaven, that's not the final stage of the good news, right? The faithful who are with God now in their immortal souls, who have the beatific vision, they're still waiting for the resurrection of their bodies on the last day. Going to heaven isn't the ultimate destiny of those who are in Christ. Amen. Yeah, this is the good news here. There are 1,001 religions that proclaim the immortality of the soul in some way, shape or form. But Judaism and Christianity are the only religions that talk about the resurrection of the body, living in the body for all eternity, body and soul, not just disembodied spirits. And so Jesus is trying to reveal that truth to the apostles. So he says, got anything to eat? And he takes the piece of fish and he eats it in front of them, not because he's hungry, but to show them the mystery, to help them understand what exactly the resurrection is. All right, now, of course, the question this immediately raises is, well, why would anyone believe that? Why do Christians believe that Jesus soul and his body were reunited for all time? How can we believe such a stupendous claim? Now, some scholars and some people say, well, that's just because ancient people were credulous. You know, they were primitive. They didn't have cell phones, they didn't have computers. You know, we moderns, we know better now, right? And this, if you grew up in the 20th century, you kind of grew up in this environment where you were taught that the 20th century was we're smarter than any other century that's ever been around. G.K. chesterton, I think, called it chronological snobbery. The idea that the most recent of us, we're the best. Right, which you'll be quickly disabused of if you ever try to actually read ancient writers, like go read Homer or read Shakespeare. Are you smarter than Shakespeare? I don't know. Okay, so are we necessarily getting better? I don't know. But the idea that they were just credulous in ancient times and they would believe anything is refuted by the Gospels themselves. Also common sense too. Ancient people were much more in touch with the reality of death than we are today. Right? You buried your own loved ones. They didn't have funeral homes and that kind of thing. They knew what death was. And ancient people, just like modern people today, knew that as a rule, dead people stayed dead. That's kind of the basic rule of thumb, right? And in fact, if you look at the gospels over and over again, all four gospels, what's the apostles initial response to the resurrection? Doubt, doubt, doubt and doubt. I mean, they all disbelieve it at first. Look at, for example, in Matthew 28 it says that when the 11 apostles saw the risen Christ, some doubted. I mean, they're standing in front of his resurrected body and what's their response? I'm not so sure about this. Right. In Mark, chapter 16, Jesus appears to these two disciples and it says they did not believe. When the two disciples came and told the other eleven they didn't believe them. Same thing Luke 24, when the women come back from the empty tomb. Do you remember this little episode? The male apostles hear the women's tale and what do they think? They say it was an idol tale. Right? They just. The women, you know, they're just being emotional or something and we can't really trust their testimony. Although Peter, what does he do? He goes to check it out, he goes to the tomb, he finds it exactly as the women had said. And it says he went home wondering what had happened. Huh, I wonder what happened. Did you not hear the triple proclamation of the resurrection that Jesus had given you? But Peter's a little slow on the uptake and that's okay because I like to identify with him. And then of course, Thomas gets the most famous reputation for doubting, but he's just one of many. When Jesus comes to the apostles and Thomas isn't there and they tell him about it, he says, look, Unless I put my finger in the wounds in his hands and put my hand in his side. Now think about that, how graphic that is. That means the wound in Jesus side was not just a little, a little incision. This was a Roman spear, a gaping wound. And Thomas says, if I put my hand in his side, only then would I believe. But until then, no, of course, he becomes doubting Thomas as a result. So notice if the Gospels were making up the story of the Resurrection to try to get everyone to believe in it, why are they so honest about the doubt of the apostles? Ever thought about that? It's kind of an interesting argument against these stories being created. They're not trying to hide the fact that the apostles first reaction was not credulity, but skepticism. So anyone who says, oh, they just believed it because ancient people believed it hasn't actually looked at the evidence. The evidence says the opposite. That just like today, most of us would probably react with some, some doubt, some skepticism. I mean, this has never happened before. All right, so it wasn't because they were credulous. So what are the reasons that the early Christians, the first Christians, believed in the Resurrection? Well, there are lots of different arguments that are given about this. I'm going to highlight for me what are the three most important, not just for me, but the three reasons the New Testament itself gives us. There are three primary motives of credibility for believing in the Resurrection. First, the empty tomb. Second, the appearances of Jesus. And then third, and finally the one that no one talks about, the argument from prophecy and the fulfillment of scripture. So let's look at each one of those in turn. The first reason anyone believed in the resurrection was of course, the discovery of the empty. This is a fundamental aspect of the Gospel of the Resurrection. According to John chapter 20 and Matthew 28, when the women went out to the tomb on Easter Sunday morning, or it wasn't called Easter Sunday then, it was just Sunday. It was just the first day after Sabbath rest. Right. That they could get out there to take care of the body. I don't know if you ever thought about that. Why didn't they go take care of Jesus body on Saturday? Well, because Saturday is the Sabbath and once the sun goes down on Saturday evening, well then Sabbath's over. But now it's dark and you don't want to go out to the cemetery and try to take care of the body in the dark. So they wait until first light on Sunday and then they're there right at the tomb with the spices they had prepared. And so when they Go there, they discover that the tomb is empty. And here's Luke chapter 24 and the account of the empty tomb, that this is so important for understanding the resurrection. Luke says this. Luke 24:1 12. On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in, they did not find the. What? The body. It's about his body. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? He's not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified? And on the third day rise. And they remembered his words. And returning from the tomb, they told all this to the 11 and to all the rest. Now, it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary, the mother of James and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale. Wow. And they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in. He saw the linen cloths by themselves, and he went home wondering, huh, I wonder what happened. Okay, there it is. Luke 24:1 12. Now, there are several aspects of this text that really are important to highlight. First, first, it begins with the empty tomb. Now, as you know, you can explain an empty tomb in lots of different ways, right? We actually see in the Gospels themselves at first, what does Mary Magdalene think in the Gospel of John? That they've moved the body. I mean, if you had buried a loved one, say maybe your mother, your father, and you went back a couple days later to pay respects. And the tomb or the mausoleum, I'm from the south, so we bury everybody above. The ground is empty. What would you think? I mean, your first thought is going to be not that they've been raised from the dead, but that somehow the body was moved. So that's one way to explain an empty tomb. Another way is to say that the disciples stole the body, right? Which was one of the claims that was alleged in Matthew, chapter 28. We hear that the guards were paid by the Sanhedrin, members of the elders, the Jewish elders, to circulate that story, although that's an absurd story. So you're telling me that fishermen versus Roman soldiers, the fishermen win. Come on. Especially when it was death for a Roman soldier, that was the penalty for falling asleep on guard duty. Okay, so that's not a plausible story. But, you know, there are different ways to explain the tomb, but the fact that the empty tomb itself is essential to the foundation of the resurrection claim, because it shows that when they talked about the resurrection, they were talking about the fact that they didn't find his body. I bring this up because a few years ago, maybe you remember, there was a lot of news about the discovery of the bone box, the ossuary that supposedly had the inscription, james, the brother of Jesus. Do you remember this? And there was a whole flurry of articles and news reports right around Easter, of course, right? Questioning whether this bone box of James the brother of Jesus called into question Jesus resurrection. Now, I never quite figured out how that worked, because it wasn't the bones of Jesus, right? I mean, even if you took it at face value as being authentic, it wasn't about Jesus bones. But, you know, whatever. It's the media, okay? What do you expect? But even more, there were some debates about it. I remember watching this one television show where there were a panel of experts on it, and they asked each of them what they thought about whether this bone box challenged the foundations of Christian belief in the resurrection. And I was really scandalized because there was a Catholic priest who was a representative of a major university who said. I remember this distinctly, who said, well, even if the bones of Jesus were discovered today, it wouldn't change my faith. I was like, wow. Well, with all due respect, Father, it would change the faith. But I don't know about your faith, but the faith is based on the claim of Jesus bodily resurrection. See, this particular priesthood probably picked up the idea, the confused idea, that when we talk about the resurrection, we. What we mean is. And what the first Christians meant is that, well, Jesus is alive in spirit in heaven, and he's alive in our hearts. And those are both true. But that's not what the resurrection means. That's not the whole truth. It's a half truth. Okay, yes, he's alive in spirit, in heaven, but he's also alive in his body. And that was the radical claim that the Christians were making. And so the empty tomb safeguards the bodily nature of the resurrection. It was one of the first motives of credibility. But it's not enough to prove the resurrection because tombs can get emptied in other ways. So we have to look at the second reason for believing in the resurrection, and that is the appearances of the risen Jesus in his body. And in the book the Case for Jesus and also in my outlines, I just give you a list, basically, of all the times Jesus appears in his body to the various disciples. In our four biographies from the first century, as well as in the letters of Paul, we have multiple accounts of the bodily appearance of Jesus to his disciples. This isn't like your grandmother coming to you in a dream at night after she died. This is bodily appearances of Jesus to the disciples. For example, number one, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene in Matthew 28 and John 20. Number two, Jesus appears to several female disciples and multiple Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Third, Jesus appears to Simon Peter multiple times, not just in the gospels, but even St. Paul tells us about this in his first letter to the Corinthians. Number four, Jesus appears to James, John, Thomas, Nathanael, and two others in John 21. Number five, Jesus appears to 11 disciples as a group in Matthew 28. And in John 20, number six. This is my favorite story, the story of the road to Emaeus, where Jesus appears to Cleopas and to an unnamed disciple who. Luke doesn't tell us who the other person is. And I have a book on the Jewish roots of Mary where I actually go through and show you how Cleopas is Jesus. Uncle, we know this from other sources. Okay, so he appears to have a family member. Okay. He appears to more than 500 brothers at one time. And then finally, of course, he appears to James, who is called the Lord's brother, who, as Catholics believe, and I can show in that book, is his cousin. So we have all these different appearances to different people at different times in different places over the course of the 40 days between the Resurrection and the Ascension. So this is the second reason for believing that Jesus was raised from the dead. His bodily appearances to others, which, by the way, note this. Well, if the early Christians were trying to make up stories about the resurrection and they wanted people to believe it, they would not have attributed the first resurrection appearances of to women like Mary Magdalene. In the first century A.D. josephus himself tells us that the testimony of women was not accepted in a court of law. Okay, now you can talk about that. There are all kinds of problems with that, but it's an important historical fact because all four of the Gospels say the first witnesses to the resurrection were not just women, but Mary Magdalene in particular, who, if you recall, had been demon possessed. So if you want to make up a story that people are going to believe, don't say no. Trust me. The first woman to see him was this former demoniac. She had been possessed by seven demons. But trust me, you can believe her now. I mean, like, this is. This is not the kind of thing you do if you're fabricating a story, but if you're telling the truth, it makes perfect sense, right? All right, what about the third and final reasons? We have the empty tomb. We have the appearances of the risen Jesus. And for most people, you'll stop there if you're trying to share your faith in the resurrection. Sometimes Christian apologists will say a third reason was the apostles zeal for this, that they, you know, they were willing to die for the truth of the resurrection. And if you look at the accounts from the early church, many of them were in fact martyred for the sake of the gospel. And so sometimes people will say, well look, if they went to their deaths believing in it, it must be true. And I think that that's a valid argument, but it's interesting. That's not the argument the New Testament makes. The New Testament never makes that claim. The third argument the New Testament gives is the argument from prophecy that the resurrection fulfilled prophecy. And you can see Jesus himself says this in Luke 24, that it was written in the scriptures that he would be raised on the third day in John 20, that he must rise from the dead according to the scripture. And in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says he rose from the dead on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. Now the only problem with that is if you know the Old Testament and you go look for a prophecy of the Messiah rising from the dead on the third day, guess what? You'll find? There isn't one. Okay, so this is a weird argument to make. There is no explicit prophecy that when the Messiah came, he would die and rise on the third day. So what are they all talking about when they say he would rise on the third day? Well, there's one passage that I think they're referring to in particular, and it's Jesus himself who is the first to use it. But it might not be one you would think about. Let's end with this third reason from Scripture. It's the famous passage about the sign of Jonah. Remember this from the Gospels, Jesus. The only time Jesus gives an Old Testament text that's a foundation for his resurrection on the third day is when he alludes to the book of Jonah. So let's read what he says and we'll try to see it through Jewish eyes. And we'll end with that. Some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, this is in Matthew 12:38. Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you. But he answered them. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will arise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, something greater than Jonah is here. End quote. Now, for years, when I read that passage, I was always. I mean, I understood it, right? Three days for Jonah, three days for Jesus. I got the parallel. But I always was a little unimpressed because it seemed like a bit of a stretch. I mean, after all, the whole story of Jonah is so incredible, right? I mean, when you think of Jonah being swallowed by the fish, how does he live in the belly of this whale for three days and three nights? I start thinking about Pinocchio. Do you remember the old Disney Pinocchio story where Geppetto and Pinocchio set up a raft and they have a fire? Like, is this what we're talking about? This kind of incredible scenario in which Jonah remains alive in the belly of the whale? Is that what he means? Is that a good analogy for the resurrection? I always felt like it just didn't land for me as a powerful argument. And then one day, I did something crazy. I went back and I actually read the Book of Jonah instead of watching the movies. Okay? And what's fascinating is that if you actually read the Book of Jonah, especially in Hebrew itself, what you'll discover is there's very good reason, and in fact, ancient Jewish tradition interpreted it in this way, to believe that Jonah is not alive in the belly of the whale for three days, but that he's dead. That the story of Jonah is the story of a death and resurrection. Listen to this. The way you can see this is reading Jonah's prayer after he swallowed by the whale in Jonah 1:17. And following, we read this. The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord, his God, from the belly of the fish, saying, I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and thou didst hear my voice. The water closed in over me. The deep was round about me. Weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever. Yet thou didst bring up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. When my soul, my Nephesh, my life fainted within me. I remembered the Lord and my prayer came to him in thy holy temple. Now pause there. What do the words Sheol and the pit mean in the Old Testament? They're the names for the realm of the dead. That's right. So when Jonah's Nephesh soul faints within him, what is he saying? He died. And at the moment of his death he cries out in prayer to God. And God hears his prayer. And so what happens? The Lord spoke to the fish. It vomited Jonah out upon the dry land. And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying what? Arise Kum. It's the same word Jesus uses with Jairus daughter Talitha Kumi, little girl. What? Arise Jonah, arise. Go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the message I tell you. So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh. This time he did it right. Not going through that again, according to the word of the Lord. Alright, so with that in mind, now go back to Jesus words. Why does he say that the only sign that will be given to his generation is the sign of Jonah? Well, if you see the scripture through a Jewish lens, and Jonah is the story of a death and resurrection on the third day, then it makes perfect sense. Just as Jonah died and rose again. Watch this. And went to the Gentiles and preached and they repented, so too Jesus, who is greater than Jonah, will die. Be three days in the heart of the earth rise. And then what's he going to do with the apostles? Send them to the nations to convert them through the proclamation of the Gospel. Now what's so fascinating about this is that Jesus, notice what he's saying here. The proof of the truth of the resurrection isn't just in the fact of his coming back from the dead. It's in the conversion of the nations. Sign of Jonah is a twofold sign. Resurrection from the dead and conversion of the Gentiles. Right. And you don't have to take my word on this. You can just listen to the church fathers. This is really interesting. When I wrote the book, the case for Jesus, I still hadn't found a church father who had recognized that Jonah had died and risen and rose again. But I just found out recently, Ephraim the Syrian, in his interpretation of the gospels. He's a 4th century church father, a doctor of the Church says that Jonah died and rose again. Because see, Ephraim was writing in Syriac. He's, he's in a Jewish environment, so he's reading the Bible through a Jewish lens. But even more importantly, Eusebius of Caesarea, who we looked at before. I want to close with this final quote because this is really important for us in our day and time to remember. We often take for granted the conversion of the pagan world to Christianity. But if you were living in the first century A.D. and you were part of the Jewish community which had been under the thumb of gentile pagan oppressors for century after century after century, when the whole world was pagan and idolatrous and worshiping all of these different gods, you know, Zeus and Athena and Isis and Osiris and Molech and BAAL and all these other gods. The idea that the prophets had said for centuries that one day the nations of the world would worship the God of Abraham was laughable. It's ridiculous, right? It's impossible. How could it ever be that all these pagan nations would convert to the worship of the God of Israel? This little people, tiny little people. And yet what happens? Jesus of Nazareth is crucified. Jesus of Nazareth rises on the third day and then he sends the apostles out. And what starts to happen, city after city, town after town, the Gentiles convert and one by one they put aside the pagan gods and the temples start to fall and, and they begin to worship the God of the Jews, just like the prophets had said for centuries. Is this a coincidence? Well, you can believe that if you want, but it makes much more sense to me to think that it is providence. Listen to the words of eusebius in the 4th century. This was one of the main arguments for the truth of Christianity, showing that Christianity wasn't a man made religion, but divinely revealed. Eusebius points around in the 4th century to all the pagans converting and he says this. Behold how today. Yes, even in our own times, our eyes see not only Egyptians, but every race of men who used to be idolaters, released from the errors of polytheism and the demons and calling on the God of the prophets. Yes, in our own time, the knowledge of the omnipotent God shines forth and sets a seal of certainty on the forecast of the prophets. You see this actually going on. You no longer only expect to hear about it. And if you ask the moment when the change began, for all your inquiry, you will receive no other answer but the moment of the appearance of who? The Savior. When did this start? It started on Easter Sunday. It started after Jesus of Nazareth was risen from the dead. And. And who would not be struck by the extraordinary chains that men who for ages have paid divine honor to wood and stone and demons, beasts that feud on human flesh, poisonous reptiles, animals of every kind, repulsive monsters, fire and earth, the lifeless elements of the universe, should, after our Savior's coming, pray to the Most High God, the creator of heaven and earth, the Lord of the prophets and the God of Abraham and his forefathers. Is that a coincidence or is it providence? I say providence. And this is how the early Christians converted the Roman world. You don't have to take my word for it. Look at the words of the prophets and how all this changed when Jesus of Nazareth came into the world. And look around us today. You know what? They're still converting, aren't they? This is happening all around us every single day. Pentecost is not over. It continues to spread throughout the world. And this is our task. This is our mission as members of the church, to bring the new evangelization, to bring the good news of Christ's incarnation, passion, death and resurrection to the nations of our time. Because we live in a time where so many souls, countless souls, still need to hear the good news about Jesus and the answer to the question, who is He? He is the God who loved humanity so much that he came into the world to save us. He suffered, he died, and he rose again. And now he sends us out with the message of the good news of his resurrection. Amen. So let's close and thank him in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Lord Jesus, thank you for the gift of the Gospel. Thank you for the good news of your incarnation, your passion, your death and your resurrection. Thank you for the gift of the Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke and John that tell us the truth about who you are, about what you did and what you said. We ask that in this age of skepticism and secularism and doubt that you would help us through our study of the Gospels, through our study of the Church's teaching, and through sharing the truth with others, to be what you called us, to be a light to the world, a light to the nations. And we give thanks to you for this good news as we pray. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thanks, everyone.