The Surprise of the Resurrection
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
It has been about 6 weeks since we were in Luke together, but we left off at a pretty distinct stopping point. Jesus was crucified, buried and placed in a rich man’s tomb.
Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.
On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
We left off on Good Friday and Holy Saturday and now, two weeks after Christmas, it is Easter.
And I love this. I love that we are talking about Easter right after Christmas because the two events are inseparable.
Christ was born in Bethlehem in order that He would die for our sins in Jerusalem.
And He resurrected, declaring eternal victory for the redeemed of God.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus—for he will save his people from their sins.
The resurrection of Christ is the walking proof that Mary’s child complete the task that His Father set before Him.
So it makes total sense for us to jump from Christmas to Easter.
All four of the Gospel writers have their say on the resurrection. They all give their account.
And we will use a harmony of those accounts to piece the story together this morning.
But as we look at Luke’s text, you will see that as he narrates the event of the resurrection, he is particularly concerned with the resurrection and how it relates to the Word of God—to the teachings of Jesus.
To the promises of heaven.
And we will see how the The Resurrection proves:
God’s spoken words are true
God’s Incarnate Word is the Truth
Eternal hope to our hearts
Let’s read the passage:
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 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 is 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 these things to the eleven 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 these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, 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 marveling at what had happened.
GOD’S SPOKEN WORDS ARE TRUE (v. 1-9)
GOD’S SPOKEN WORDS ARE TRUE (v. 1-9)
Our passage begins with the women from the end of Luke 23 returning with the spices they had prepared for Jesus’ body.
He was placed in the tomb, but then the Sabbath came and they had to wait until Sunday morning to finish the work of getting Jesus’ body ready for burial.
Luke says it is the first day of the week.
The Jewish people did not have names for the days of the week. They just numbered them according to their relationship with the Sabbath.
That means Sunday would have been the first day of the week—the first day after the Sabbath.
This is why Sunday matters now by the way. It is the Lord’s Day because Jesus rose again. And every week, we gather together to celebrate that.
SIDE NOTE: This is the last time I will say something about it, but this is why I was so sad about many churches choosing to broadcast an at-home Christmas special instead of having church.
Many said it was too much to do Christmas Eve and that Sunday morning.
Then the biblical thing to do would have been to not have Christmas Eve service.
We don’t know when Jesus was born. We are happy to celebrate it on December 25th each year, but biblically that date had no significance until 336 when Constantine decided that would be the case.
Nobody picked Sunday for the Lord’s Day except God Himself.
He set it apart when His Son walked out of that grave.
To forsake it in the name of convenience is a sad commentary on what we have come to believe church is for in America.
We are not consumers. We are Christ-followers.
And we gather on the Lord’s Day because He is risen.
I am not saying a church should not have Christmas Eve service.
I am saying if you are bound and determined to pit the Lord’s Day and Christmas Eve against each other—the Lord’s Day should win every time.
Luke also tells us that they come at “early dawn.”
Matthew describes it as “toward the dawn of the first day of the week,” in Matthew 28:1...
Mark says that they “come very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen” (Mark 16:2)
And then John describes it this way in John 20:1
Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
Some accuse the Bible of having a major discrepancy surrounding the events of the resurrection because Matthew, Mark and Luke all say that Mary Magdalene arrives with other women, but John describes her as arriving alone
This is no reason to panic
It is only a problem if you are looking for a problem.
And people would love to be able to point to a major fly in the ointment of the resurrection accounts because if you can find a mistake in the relaying of one of the most central events of the Christian faith, then maybe you could undermine the whole thing
What is important is to simply breathe and use the common sense God has given us to harmonize the four Gospel accounts and put together a reasonable order of events.
So before we go any further, let me summarize the events of that first Easter morning from the perspective of all four Gospels so you can see that there is no cause for concern in piecing the story together
Mary Magdalene and the other women travel from Bethany, about 2 miles away, to come back to Jesus’ tomb
Nearing the tomb, they see that the stone has been rolled away
Matthew’s account almost makes it seem like the women were there for this event, but that makes no sense considering how they react to the whole situation
Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
Matthew was probably just reminding us of who was going to the tomb and then in verse 2 is reminding us of why they are going to find it empty.
John 20:1-2 tells us that at this point, Mary Magdalene leaves to go and tell Peter and John
The other women head back to Bethany to tell other followers of Christ
Mary Magdalene returns to the tomb with Peter and John
Peter and John go back to where they are staying after seeing the tomb
Mary Magdalene gets back to the tomb later or stays around after Peter and John leave and speaks to the resurrected Jesus there
Jesus also speaks with the women on their way back to Bethany, according to the disciples who speak with Jesus on the road to Emmaus
That is a basic outline.
We could spend about ten minutes really breaking it down beat by beat, but we don’t have the time
But even in this summary, I hope your mind is put at ease
There is nothing here that is not reconcilable
The women are perplexed when they see Jesus’ body is not there. They surely assumed that grave robbers took the body. This was a major issue in Judea, to the point that the Romans put strict laws in place to stop the the epidemic.
You can even see in Mary’s words to the angels when she gets back to the tomb in John 20...
“They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” (John 20:13)
But these two men in dazzling clothes are standing by them in verse 4, which causes them to bow their faces to the ground.
There is no reason to think these are not angels.
Luke does not identify them as angels outright, but angels are all over Matthew and John’s accounts.
It is reminiscent of the angels that appeared in human form in Abraham in Genesis 18…
The angels ask a simple, but profound question: Why do you see the living among the dead?
Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and THE LIFE.
The is the Resurrection and the THE LIFE.
He told the disciples these things. He told His followers these things.
Why would they be looking for Him in a grave?
And then they recall to the women what Jesus had told them—that He would suffer and be crucified and then He would resurrect.
In this study of Luke, we read Jesus saying these things to His disciples
And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”
And all were astonished at the majesty of God.
But while they were all marveling at everything he was doing, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so that they might not perceive it. And they were afraid to ask him about this saying.
And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
And the women remember His Words in verse 8, which prompts them to return to tell the other disciples and followers of Christ
Let’s stop here to make our first point this morning:
1. The Resurrection proves God’s spoken words are true (v. 1-9).
I think it is easy to miss that important part of this passage. There is so much happening here and it is all so important, that we can breeze past the fact that when these women are perplexed, the angels point to God’s words.
Don’t be perplexed—God in the flesh told you all this would happen. It is happening just as He said.
We will see the same thing in the next scene on the Emmaus Road. The disciples are talking with Jesus and they don’t realize it is Him.
They are telling Him all about how Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and they can’t find the body and angels told their friends He is still alive. Jesus responds and says :
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
And then He taught them:
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
In both cases, the Word of God is confidently proclaimed—in one sense by the angels who say, “Remember how He told you,” in verse 6, and again by Jesus Himself in Luke 24:27...
And in both cases, the Word that is proclaimed has already been proven true because Jesus has resurrected
His resurrection serves as an exclamation point of confirmation that the Word of God is true
That is why Luke says that Jesus interpreted the Law and the Prophets to the Emmaus Road disciples
The Resurrected Christ was showing them that His very Living Presence before them as the Slain But Victorious Messiah, proves every Word of God is true and trustworthy
Among the many eternal benefits of our Savior walking out of the grave, is the reality that we can know that God’s Word is worthy to bear the full weight the trust of our souls.
The empty grave means that every shred of my soul can put its hope in God with absolute confidence that my hope is not in vain
Here is how John Calvin said it:
Although we have complete salvation through his death, because we are reconciled to God by it, it is by his resurrection, not his death, that we are said to be born to a living hope (1 Peter 1:3).
John Calvin
What Calvin was saying is that Jesus’ death made us right with God, but it is His resurrection that gives us hope that we will be right with God forever.
God says, “I will be their God and they will be my people.”
The Resurrection ensures that we can trust in that.
The women here had forgotten Jesus’ words.
The drama of the events of Holy Week were a whirlwind.
The trauma of watching their Rabbi be crucified like a common criminal would have been grueling.
The fear of not knowing if your own association with Him will have any consequences for you.
And in all the drama and trauma and fear, they forgot about what Jesus said.
We can do that too. We get so spun up into a fearful, anxiety-ridden fit.
If those fits are not dealt with, they can drag us into depression and despair.
They can cause us to act rashly.
They can cause us to forget what God has told us and we begin to doubt Him.
We must remember the words of God. The things that He has spoken to us.
He is not silent. Thankfully. Mercifully.
He is a God who talks to His people. And if we have ears to hear, we will trust His words, because if He has told us the truth about the death and resurrection of Christ—the crown jewel of salvation history—we know He is telling us the truth about the rest of it.
GOD’S INCARNATE WORD IS THE TRUTH (v. 1-9)
GOD’S INCARNATE WORD IS THE TRUTH (v. 1-9)
But with that said, we would not stop there. We don’t just say that the resurrection proves that the spoken Word of God is true. It also says something about the One who resurrected.
Allow me to jump from Luke to John.
John begins His gospel in this way:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Who is John talking about? Who is this “Word?” Who would be with God and be God. If you keep reading, he tells you:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
It is clear that John is speaking about Jesus—the Son of God.
Who else but the 2nd Person of the Trinity could be with God and also be God?
And who else but the 2nd Person of the Trinity became flesh and dwelt among us and showed us the glory of the only Son from the Father?
This is Jesus. He is the Word.
He is the Logos. He is the Final and Absolute Revelation from God.
And He spends His ministry telling His followers that He is going to suffer and die and resurrect.
You could say that considering what was at stake, these were the most important predictions that Jesus made.
It was the most crucial revelation that the Absolute and Final Revelation revealed to humanity
And what we are learning from this text in Luke 24 is that it all came true.
His resurrection proved His revelation. And that proved He IS THE Revelation of God. He is the Word.
2. The Resurrection proves God’s incarnate Word is the Truth (v. 1-9).
We have already seen how the resurrection proves God’s spoken words are true, but it goes more than that.
It proves His Son is the Word of God in the flesh.
It proves His Son is THE Truth.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.
This is so important because of what Jesus does for us as The Truth.
He transforms our lives. He rescues us from the lies of sin and Satan and then uses His truth is sanctify us and separate us from the grip of that sin throughout our Christian walk.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Jesus the Word sets us free from sin.
His truthfulness has won the day in our hearts and He is minute-by-minute bringing us under the authority of His Word.
He is taking every Master that once claimed us and He is prying their cold, dead fingers off of our hearts. Hearts that now belong to Him. Hearts that belong to the Word. To the Truth.
He is changing us and taking us from looking like our sinning, stumbling father Adam to looking like Him…The Truth.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Now with that said, we can’t stop there because saying Jesus is The Truth is more than just saying He is right.
It is more than just saying that His words are always true.
It is more than just saying God is a holy truth-teller at heart.
We are saying those things, but in recognizing Jesus as the Truth, we are also saying He is authoritative.
See, Jesus did not claim to simply be a good teacher or a moral example.
He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” He was claiming to be God.
We see those claims in His teachings and His interactions:
He called Himself the Son of Man—a Messianic term that points to the divine figure of Daniel 7 who was to come on the clouds and rule over the earth and judge the nations.
He claimed to have the authority to forgive sin—a power only ascribed to God.
He referred to Himself with these seven “I AM” statements in John that all are meant to let us know that He is the God who spoke to Moses in the burning bush.
He is the Great I AM, incarnate and in the flesh.
He performed miracles like casting out demons and calming storms—transgressing what we think we know of nature in order to show that He has authority over nature and over the whole created realm—including the demons
He said that He and the Father were one and if you have seen Him, you have seen the Father.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
These words and actions were claims to divine authority as the Truth, come down from heaven, in human flesh
And when Jesus rose from the grave on Easter morning, He backed up every one of those claims for good.
And I wake up every day confident that this is who Jesus is and this is what He is doing because He resurrected and proved His most important claims.
Therefore, I can trust Him on every other point, including His claim to be THE Truth.
The Truth that suffered for me. The Truth that saved me. The Truth that sanctifies me.
The Resurrection empowers my faith to believe in who Jesus is.
My heart is more ready to trust Him, knowing that He got up out of a grave and defeated death.
And my heart is prepared to believe in every bit of who He is and what He has said, because the empty grave shows me that Jesus doesn’t lie. He does what He says He will do.
If He resurrected, can’t I trust Him?
What else does He need to do to prove Himself to me?
And furthermore, it isn’t just that I can trust Him, but I can be confident of who I am trusting.
This is the same Death-Defeating God who overcame the sin of the Garden by walking out of the tomb outside Jerusalem.
If He has the authority to crush death like that, can He not handle my finances? The lives of my children? My job? My health? The very days I have to live?
Of course.
ILLUSTRATION: Imagine you are in a foreign country and you are concerned for your danger because the government of this nation thinks you are a spy and they are putting you in prison.
It is all a big misunderstanding, but you are having trouble communicating and it is clear that this is serious.
Now imagine two possible heroes to rescue you.
One is me. I show up and I am like— “Hey! Don’t worry. I am here. I am going to try and talk to some people to get you out.”
You’d be like, “What are you going to do? You have no power. You have no authority. You can’t help me.”
Now imagine instead of me, you hear Air Force One land and about ten secret service enter the room first and then the President walks in and says, the same thing— ““Hey! Don’t worry. I am here. I am going to try and talk to some people to get you out.”
Who do YOU trust to rescue you?
Even if you think Joe Biden isn’t a great President, you would be much happier to see him than me. Why? Because he has the authority to do something about your problem.
The God who stepped over death’s crossed-up, broken-ankled body as He left the grave is the same God who reaches His authoritative hand to you and says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
He offers you rest from your worry as you trust in Him—the Truth. The Absolute and Final Revelation from God. Jesus Christ, the glory we have beheld.
The glory of the only Son sent by the Father.
ETERNAL HOPE TO OUR HEARTS (v. 10-12)
ETERNAL HOPE TO OUR HEARTS (v. 10-12)
Let’s head toward the finish line here.
The Resurrection proves God’s spoken words are true.
The Resurrection proves God’s Incarnate Word, Jesus, is The Truth.
And now our final point:
3. The Resurrection provides eternal hope to our hearts (v. 10-12).
Look at the last few verses of this scene.
Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, 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 marveling at what had happened.
Peter stoops and looks in and when he sees the linen cloths by themselves, he knows something extraordinary is taking place.
The Greek word that translates to “marveling,” simply means “to be amazed.”
Peter knows that if grave robbers had taken the body, it would be obvious.
The cloths would have been thrown about every which way. There would have been no care taken because there would have been no respect for Jesus’ body.
This was not the scene of a crime and Peter knows it. It is the scene of a miracle.
We don’t know that he gets it all.
That word for “marveling,” was used in a lot of ways in Greek culture:
It could mean amazed, but doubting
It could mean amazed, but believing
It could mean amazed, but confused
The bottom line is he goes home pondering the truth in his heart
We should do the same thing as Peter today, but with a finished Bible in our hands, we can marvel in faith.
Peter had some important conversation with Jesus ahead that would clear up a lot of theological and personal issues for him.
You and I have the pleasure of having the complete Word of God in our hands and the throne of God open to us for our prayers.
And because of that, we are able to look at the resurrected Christ and know exactly what that empty grave means. We can marvel in faith at what that empty grave promises to us.
In terms of eternal hope, the resurrection secures our future.
It lets us know we will be raised like Him.
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
We believe Jesus has risen
Therefore we also believe:
Those who are dead in Christ will rise first when Jesus returns
Then any who are alive will be caught up together with the Lord in the clouds
And then all of them, as the people God, will live under His authority
And we will reign with Christ forever as His co-heirs
This is the living hope that we are born again to
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
Heaven is not an ambiguous, “fingers-crossed,” pie-in-the-sky, fairy tale that we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better.
It is the destination that we endure for. It is the reality we are anticipating.
And by faith, we are as convinced that heaven will ours as we are that Jesus resurrected 2,000 years ago.
Because we know that He is alive and by His life, we will be alive forevermore in Him.
Let us marvel in faith in our hearts at that.
And let our marveling lead us to worship our King who has come and who is coming.
He is not here. He is risen.
And because of this, we know His Words are true.
We know His Son is true.
And we know our hope ends in reward.
Glory to God alone. Let’s pray.
INVITE THE BAND TO COME
Invitation to congregation for salvation
For a renewed faith in the living Christ, i