Easter 2023

1 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. 2 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. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. 4 And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. 5 But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. 6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.” 8 So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

As we read the story of Jesus resurrection it is likely a familiar tale for many of us.

Many of us have been to Easter church services, we have read it in our own Bibles, we have heard the story as children even.

We must not though let this story simply pass us by.

The resurrection is the confirmation of the payment that Jesus made upon the cross.

The confirmation that he made the sacrifice that was required to atone for sin.

This confirmation is proclaimed in a bold way.

As the women were approaching Jesus tomb, verse two tells us that a great earthquake happened.

This was no ordinary earthquake and it was not the first to happen in recent days.

Upon Jesus death a few verses earlier we read

Matthew 27:50–51 ESV

50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. 51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.

This is more than an aftershock from that event though.

At this point an angel of the Lord descends from heaven, rolls back the stone which was sealing the tomb, and sits upon it.

No ordinary event.

The events of this week leading up until now have already been all but ordinary.

This grand display was for a purpose.

There were guards set at the tomb to keep any funny business from happening.

There was worry that someone might come and attempt to steal Jesus body.

As this angel appears though, it is like a bolt of lightning, his clothes were white as snow, and the guards trembled and became like dead men.

They essentially feinted in fear.

We must keep in mind that these were not everyday men.

Roman soldiers were held to very high standards.

Legionary discipline was taken extremely seriously by the Romans.

During a time when loyalty to the state, and later to include personal loyalty to the emperor, was demanded and expected, any deviation from this was met with extreme forms of punishment.

Although less severe punishments were used primarily to keep order,

any form of insubordination, desertion or mutiny could potentially result in death;

without trial and simply on the say so of a military commander.

These men were not ones to run and cower in fear.

But the presence of this angel, caused them to feint with fright.

The sheer power present at Jesus resurrection is astounding.

The earth shook once again, light flashing as a bolt of lightning.

What a sight it must have been to behold.

It was a sight that was not seen by Jesus followers though.

Jesus followers were in a very different position at this point.

They were broken individuals.

Some of them had witnessed Jesus enduring pain and suffering on the cross.

He died the most gruesome, painful public death known at that time.

He died with the weight of our sins on His shoulders.

His body was placed in a tomb.

Everything seemed lost.

Three days passed and Jesus’ followers waited in fear and uncertainty.

Did their leader and friend leave them with an impossible promise that He will suffer, die, but then come back to life?

They has seen Jesus raise others from death.

Mary’s brother Lazarus, the woman whose only son had died.

They knew it was possible, but doubt and fear still set in.

Did He really have the ability to come back from a brutal death?

Jesus had even warned them this would happen.

In the upper room after the Lord’s supper

Matthew 26:31–32 ESV

31 Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ 32 But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”

This is exactly what happens.

Matthew records for us that the two Marys had decided to go to the tomb to finish the burial process that was hastily begun days earlier.

They went with spices ready to battle the stench of a decaying body.

In John 11 as Jesus went to bring Lazarus back from the dead

John 11:39 ESV

39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.”

His body had already had all the proper burial rights performed.

The women approach and see a strange sight, the stone is rolled away, and an angel is sitting atop of it.

The angels speaks to the women, do not be afraid, Jesus who was crucified is not here, he has risen!

He gives them the message

Matthew 28:7 ESV

7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.”

A glimmer of hope!

As if that was not enough though, on they way back there here a man speak.

Greetings!

Jesus meets them on the road, and they take hold of his feet and worship him.

And Jesus repeats his message.

Matthew 28:10 ESV

10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

A quick side note -

Who Jesus first appears to is also significant for us to note.

No ancient legend would have made women the first witnesses to the resurrection,

given that a woman’s testimony was generally not admitted in legal contexts.

Something that we don’t fully comprehend is the fear and doubt that was in the disciples hearts during these days between Jesus death and resurrection.

Had the disciples listened, where would they have been?

Upon Jesus death, they would have already been headed for Galilee.

Jesus warned them of what was to come, and gave them a rendezvous point.

But instead, they remained huddled together behind a locked door in the upper room.

In fact we read in Luke’s account of the resurrection that two of Jesus disciples were even headed to Emmaus, which was not at all in the direction of Galilee.

Galilee was north of Jerusalem, Emmaus was to the east.

The mood in that room was complete hopelessness.

Jesus had done some many amazing things and was now dead.

When it comes to our own lives, we live in much the same way.

But it doesn’t take witnessing the death of Christ to make us cower and doubt.

Sometimes it may be as simple as waking up on the wrong side of the bed to cause us the doubt the goodness of God in our lives.

There are very real circumstances that cause us to doubt.

Health troubles, family difficulties, trials of various sorts.

What greater trial could there have been though than witnessing the man you had devoted years of your life to,

truly believed to be the promised messiah,

taken away, beaten, and brutally murdered upon a cross?

We have much in common with the disciples as the cowered in fear those three days.

Life is difficult, at times we can feel hopeless.

But Jesus broke through that hopelessness.

Jesus did not stay dead!

He appeared to the women, then appeared to his disciples, and eventually to hundreds more before his ascension.

We also have hope, a hope they were told about, but did not understand or believe possible.

Jesus resurrection serves to provide for us a reminder of the goodness of God.

The faithfulness of God.

Promises were made, and promises were kept.

Easter is the most thunderous moment in the whole year.

Easter is such a huge event that even in the churches we can’t cope with it, and we’ve scaled it down to fit our little minds.

The world turns it into fluffy rabbits and chocolate eggs, which are pointing vaguely in the right direction;

but they don’t really get off the starting blocks.

We in the Church have made Easter the source of our present spiritual life:

Jesus is alive today, so I can have a personal relationship with him.

That’s true; it’s wonderful; but it is certainly not the full truth of Easter.

We have made it the ground of our future hope:

Jesus’ resurrection proves that there is life beyond the grave.

Even this though is just scratching the surface.

Easter isn’t just about you and me and our present spiritual experience, or our hope beyond the grave.

Easter is the beginning of God’s new world.

The world around us today is constantly pushing for new cultural norms.

The battle cry is making the world a better place.

The reality is though, God’s new world is not coming to this earth as we know it.

But the process has begun.

The first Easter Day, the history of the cosmos changed its course.

That’s when the real New Age began;

Easter is the victory of the creator over all evil.

It is the victory of the God of love over all tyranny—

It declares that, after all, God is God, and that his kingdom shall come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Easter speaks of a world reborn

HOPE!

Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship Chapter Six: A World Reborn: Revelation

Most Christians, if pressed, would express their future hope in terms of leaving this world and going to another one, called ‘heaven’.

Revelation speaks differently though.

Revelation 21:1–5 ESV

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

To be sure, God’s people go to heaven when they die; they pass into God’s dimension of reality, and we see them no more.

But Easter unveils the truth beyond the truth of mere ‘survival’,

beyond the truth even of ‘heaven’; the truth that God’s kingdom shall come, and his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Our ultimate destiny is not a disembodied heaven,

just as the ultimate destiny of this created world is not to be thrown away, abandoned as secondary or shabby.

It’s the tyrants who want to blow the world to bits. God wants to re-create it.

Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship (Chapter Six: A World Reborn: Revelation)

The truth of Easter unveils the astonishing fact that the whole world is to be reborn.

New heavens and new earth, married together; that is our destiny, that is the world’s destiny, and all because of Easter.

Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship (Chapter Six: A World Reborn: Revelation)

Without Easter, Calvary was just another political execution of a failed Messiah.

Without Easter, the world is trapped between the shoulder-shrug of the cynic, the fantasy of the escapist, and the tanks of the tyrant.

Without Easter, there is no reason to suppose that good will triumph over evil, that love will win over hatred, that life will win over death.

But with Easter we have hope; because hope depends on love;

and love has become human and has died, and is now alive for evermore, and holds the keys of Death and Hades.

It is because of him that we know—we don’t just hope, we know—that God will wipe away all tears from all eyes.

Do you have this hope this morning?

Are you trusting in Jesus, that he has taken your sin and made the payment that is required?

Does your life look different because of what Jesus has done for you?

True hope comes only through faith in Christ.

This is a hope that you can have today, here and now.

All you need to do is seek Jesus, run to him.

Trust in his death and resurrection.

Three Reasons the Resurrection Matters

1. The resurrection proved God’s faithfulness.

Because Jesus conquered death, we have hope (1 Peter 1:3).

Because Jesus rose from the dead, we have proof that God keeps His word and provides a better future for us than we could ever plan.

Jesus fulfilled Old Testament promises by connecting people to God (Isaiah 61:8).

God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

God kept His word then, which means we can place complete confidence in Him to keep His word now.

2. The resurrection validated Jesus’ words.

Everything Jesus said would have been discredited if He hadn’t been resurrected.

His credibility was on the line, and Jesus’s resurrection proved what He said was true.

When Jesus told His followers to go out and share the good news with the world, they recognized Jesus’ authority and obeyed (Matthew 28:18-20).

3. The resurrection proved Jesus’ power.

Jesus was resurrected, and He resurrects us, too. We don’t just agree that Jesus was resurrected; we get to experience His resurrection in our own lives.

The resurrection allows us to leave sin behind and move forward with Christ (Romans 6:6-8). Jesus’ power over sin breaks the chains that hold us back, and He gives us new life that we could never attain on our own.

The resurrection matters because it’s the most significant demonstration of who Jesus is. God showed His love for us by sending Jesus to earth and inviting us to follow Him. Jesus showed us grace by dying for our sins and rescuing us from a life separated from God. God demonstrated His power when Jesus paid for our sins on the cross and came back to life.