Introduction
Over 300 years ago, a French benedictine monk called Dom Pierre Pérignon, developed a skill for producing white wine from red grapes. One day, he happened upon the creation of a previously unknown effervescent wine that came to be called Champagne. And when he made that discovery, he excitedly called everyone in the monastery saying, “Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!” Or so the legend goes…
Champagne is a drink we associate with success, with celebrations, with parties and with happiness. We open bottles of it at special occasions; weddings, birthdays, graduations and the like. There is nothing cheap or everyday about Champagne. It is a luxurious, high-end sparkling wine renowned for its finesse and subtlety and quality. Even the sound of the popping of a Champagne cork is evocative of exceptional events.
And I say this by way of introduction because the first Easter Sunday is surely by any measure the most exceptional event of all time. It is the ultimate special occasion. It is the most thrilling news announcement that the world has yet heard. It’s the greatest day in history; heaven's Champagne moment.
The First Witnesses
Whenever any newsworthy incident takes place, whether terrific or catastrophic, journalists and reporters are invariably keen to speak with those who were first on the scene.
Mark’s Gospel is thought to be the first of four eyewitness reports of the events of that first Easter morning. And, according to Mark, there were four individuals on the scene; three women and a mysterious, unnamed young man. This is how Mark reports it.
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, ‘Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?’ But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 'Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.’
The three other Gospels all agree with Mark that Jesus’ grave was first visited by three women. They know the location very well, because they had been there at the burial just before dusk on Friday. They go together at first light intending to lovingly wipe the dried blood from Jesus’ cold, dead body and embalm it with costly spices. It’s their last act of devotion.
It occurs to them on the way that they will struggle between them to move the heavy stone in front of the tomb, but they’ll just have to cross that bridge when they come to it. When they get to the cemetery, they find, to their alarm and dismay, that the stone has already been moved, the grave has been disturbed and the body is missing.
According to John, the emotion of the weekend gets the better of one of them called Mary Magdalene; it’s been a traumatic few days for her and now she can’t even have any closure, so she just wells up right there and begins to sob helplessly.
She’s got tears running down her cheeks. She feels wretched. She’s been crying for three days and now it’s getting worse. Her eyes are wet and weary from constant crying. All she’s got are unanswered questions. Why did they all turn against him? How could they? Why is the tomb open? Who’s taken the body? Where have they moved it? What do I do now?
An ancient tradition says that Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute. The Bible never says that, but some people identify her with an unnamed woman in Mark’s Gospel who had lived a sinful life and who had earlier poured perfume on Jesus’ feet.
Luke’s Gospel tells us that Jesus had delivered her of seven demons. To have one was a living nightmare – she had seven of them. Just imagine the oppression, the constant torment, the heaviness, the darkness that she lived with…
We don’t need to speculate what these demons were about or how she became possessed. All we need to know is that when she met Jesus, all seven had to go with a word of his command, and her living hell was over.
No wonder she loved him! No wonder she was so devoted to him. No wonder she stayed to the very end, so he didn’t die alone. And no wonder she was first to arrive at the tomb and see to the embalming.
She and two other women, Salome and another Mary, peer into the burial chamber, hollowed out of a rock. They don’t know it yet, but this day will become for them the most wonderful of their lives.
Because as they squint into the shadows that morning, all they see is a discarded, bloodstained burial shroud lying on a cold stone slab and a young man dressed in white, who can see they’re freaked out – understandably.
“Don’t be alarmed” he says. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.” Who is this? How did he know that? “He is not here,” he continues. They can see that. And as they try and take everything in, he says the most wondrous words. “He has risen! Look, this is where they laid his body.”
Sometime shortly before they arrived, the most momentous event in world history had taken place. The victorious and glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
We don’t always realise this, but the New Testament letters were mostly written before the Gospels. So although Mark’s Gospel is probably the earliest eyewitness report of the day itself, an even earlier written reference to the resurrection, probably about 15 years after the events, appears in a section of a letter written by a former arch-enemy of Christianity, the Apostle Paul. Here’s what he writes:
Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, 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.
This is, he says, a matter of first importance. Second to none in prominence and significance. It’s at the very top of the list of absolutely essential things in life.
Here is the indispensable core of what all Christians believe. “I received it” Paul says. “I passed it on to you like a relay baton as my top priority. Now, whatever you do, don’t drop it.”
The former Bishop of Durham Tom Wright calls what we find here the ‘irreducible minimum.’ If you take this away; Jesus’ death as a substitute, in our place, his burial, and his physical, bodily resurrection from the dead, it’s no longer Christianity. If we don't hold onto this, we are not Christians, we are still estranged from God and lost for all eternity.
As J.John says, being a Christian is all about Christ and what he did. “You take Christ out of the word Christian and you’re left with Ian, and Ian isn’t going to help you.”
These events must have prominence and precedence and pre-eminence in our faith. This is the good news. Without this, we have nothing of value to say to the world.
If you’ve seen the film based on Homer’s Iliad called Troy starring Brad Pitt, you'll remember a scene where the armies of Greece and Thessaly are lined up against each other, armed for battle. And they come to an agreement. They decide that, to avoid massive bloodshed, each army should select a champion, a bit like David and Goliath, and they can fight it out between them and the victory will go to the army of whoever prevails.
Thessaly select an absolute ox of a man called Boagrius. What a specimen! He’s about 7 foot tall, shaven headed, eyebrows joining together, all muscle, he’s hard. And he strides forward with a mean frown and a snarling mouth.
Then the Greeks bring out their champion, Achilles. It looks like a mismatch. Achilles is muscular and fleet-footed by most people’s standards, but Boagrius is a monster. Everyone watches with bated breath. The two men advance towards each other. Boagrius takes a javelin and hurls it at Achilles. Achilles raises his great circular shield and swats it away like it is some kind of insult, and he continues to stride forward, completely fearless.
Boagrius seems to find it amusing though and he hurls a second spear. The same thing happens. Then, as Achilles approaches, out comes Boagrius’ huge flashing sword but it is scarcely out of the scabbard before Achilles has athletically leapt towards him and he dispatches him in one move. Boagrius drops to the dust face first and with a mighty cheer the day goes to the Greeks. What a scene!
Then Achilles, unflinching, strides out towards the Thessalian army all lined up in rank and he looks up and down, and left and right, and he shouts out, “Is there anyone else?” No one moves. No one speaks.
Listen, on Good Friday Jesus took an absolute battering at the cross. It was brutal. It was carnage. He took the full brunt of human wickedness; they beat him to a bloody pulp and gave him a complete hammering – literally.
But sometime between Good Friday and Easter Sunday Jesus faced off all the powers of hell and said “Is that all you’ve got? Is there no one else? Does no one else want to have a go?” Is there no other challenger? Is there no other adversary?”
There was no one else! All the powers of evil cringed and shrunk off into the shadows of hell. Sin and death, like rats on a stricken ship, panicked and ran. Every evil spirit cowered and recoiled. And when he’d seen them all off, as the old hymn says, “up from the grave he rose with a mighty triumph o’er his foes.”
Jesus is always true to his word. He said he was going up to Jerusalem - and he went. He said he would be mocked, beaten, spat on and handed over - and he was. He said they would crucify him - and they did. He said after three days he would rise again - and the grave could not handle him.
The Buddah, Muhammad, Confucius, Patanjali and all the rest of them are dead. Every last one of them. Their followers don’t dispute it. You can visit their graves and pay your respects at the shrine. But Jesus is unique because he alive. That’s why he alone of all religious figures can bring real forgiveness, true freedom, transformational healing, new life, fresh hope and a bright future today to all who turn to him in faith.
The Evidence
There are many reasons why we should believe that the resurrection really happened. But as I draw towards a close, I’m just briefly going to list twelve.
1. The resurrection of the suffering and death-defeating Messiah was clearly prophesied in the Old Testament centuries before the birth of Jesus.
2. On several occasions, as I have just referenced, Jesus himself predicted his own resurrection while teaching his disciples – who didn’t understand what he was saying until it happened.
3. According to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the body was missing from the tomb. But Luke and John also note that the burial shroud and head bandage were still in place. Grave robbers stole linen, because of its high value, and left bodies in the tomb. Why would any tomb raider steal a dead body and leave the burial clothes?
4. If the Jewish authorities or Roman guards had secretly moved the body elsewhere, why did they not exhume it to put a stop to the public claim - in the same city just six weeks later - that Jesus was alive?
5. If the disciples removed the body and lied about it, why did they not go quiet when threatened with imprisonment and death? None of them backed down when facing the death penalty because they knew it was true.
6. How would anyone get past armed security guards at the tomb, shift the stone and remove the uncovered body unnoticed?
7. According to 1 Corinthians 15, over 500 eyewitnesses, “most of whom are still living”, saw Jesus alive after his death. The challenge of the passage is “If you didn’t see him alive yourself, go and ask someone who did.”
8. If reports in the Gospels of the resurrection were made up, why were women the first recorded eyewitnesses? Their testimony was not admissible in court in the ancient world so there was nothing to be gained by saying that they attested the empty tomb and the risen Jesus before anyone else. (That’s why incidentally, Paul doesn’t think to mention them in the second passage we read).
9. How do we account for the eleven surviving disciples all being completely transformed individuals with the resurrection at the heart of their message? These people had fled, fearing for their lives, when Jesus was arrested. What happened to them? Only something out of the ordinary accounts for such a dramatic and permanent change in their behaviour.
10. How do we explain the sudden conversion of hardened sceptics like Jesus’ cynical brother James and Saul of Tarsus, a former persecutor of Christians? Both conversions are attributed to personal post-resurrection encounters.
11. Why did the earliest Christians, who were all devout Jews, suddenly change their “holy day” from Saturday to the first day of the Jewish working week – Sunday? First Century Jews were obsessive about the Sabbath, but they started to meet for worship instead on Sundays at dawn before going to work. Something momentous must have taken place.
12. How is it that a thoroughly laughable story, originating from a motley band of unpromising losers in a back of beyond province of imperial Rome, became what is the world’s biggest movement and which is still growing today? How do you explain the improbable and rapid rise of what was a despised and illegal sect?
Ending
In many ways, Jesus was just like anyone else because he was fully human. But the Bible tells us he is also totally different from anyone else who ever lived, because he is at the same time fully God.
Jesus did something no one has ever done; he rose from the dead for evermore. His resurrection is proof of his divine nature.
So I urge you this Easter to turn to God and invite Jesus to be Lord of your life. Do it today. When you do, you’ll discover that God loves you and wants to make you his child forever.
That's why today, and every day, can be an echo of the greatest day in history; heaven’s Champagne moment. The day Christ rose from the grave and put death for all eternity under his feet.
Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 5 April 2026.
