He is Risen!

Scripture Reading

Matthew 27:57–28:20 NKJV

Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed. And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb. On the next day, which followed the Day of Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees gathered together to Pilate, saying, “Sir, we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise.’ Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day, lest His disciples come by night and steal Him away, and say to the people, ‘He has risen from the dead.’ So the last deception will be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard; go your way, make it as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure, sealing the stone and setting the guard. Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came 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 from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.” So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word. And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.” Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened. When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, saying, “Tell them, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.’ And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and make you secure.” So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day. Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

I. His burial proves he truly died

Tombs from this period consisted of one or more burial chambers which had little slabs cut into the side walls. The dead person was initially placed onto these stone “beds,” until the body decayed. After a few years the family would return and scoop up the bones and put them into a little box called an ossuary and put the box into a little archway. The burial niche could then be used for the next member of the family.

Therefore it’s important that this was a new tomb, so there were no bodies in it yet. Lots of people had tombs, but a carved tomb like this was very expensive, so only the rich would have them. It certainly wasn’t normal for victims of crucifixion to be buried like the rich. They were usually taken down and thrown into a mass grave. However here the Scripture was fulfilled Isaiah 53:9.

To protect the bodies from wild animals and to prevent smell, it was important to seal the entrance of the tomb with a very large stone. Thus this stone could weigh as much as a couple of tons, and could easily take a dozen men to lift. They would carve the stone into a round shape, then make a track for the stone to fall down into. They would prop the stone up with a wedge, until they wanted to seal the entrance. Then they would remove the wedge and the stone would simply fall into the track. Moving the stone back out again, however, was much more difficult, as you’d have to work against gravity.

The significance of Jesus being buried is simply that he was definitely dead. He had already died in a very public manner, with many people witnessing the actual moment of his death, and furthermore the Romans oversaw the crucifixion, men whose job it was to make sure their victims actually died. The soldiers were accustomed to death, and would be brutally punished if they flubbed up the job; they didn’t care about the victim, they cared about their own neck, so they were sure not going to let him live, and they knew death when they saw it.

II. The Disciples couldn’t have stolen the Body

Clearly the reason for relaying the story about the guards is to disprove the oldest resurrection hoax theory of all time. The Jews latched onto the idea that the disciples had stolen the body to make it look like Jesus rose again, and completely fabricated the entire story.

First of all, the religious leaders pressured Pilate to give them a guard of Roman soldiers, because they claimed they were worried about the “stolen body” theory. Now the language Pilate uses “you have a guard” could be read two ways. (1) the chief priests did have temple guards, so Pilate could be telling them “you’ve got your own guards, use them.” Such people would be Jews loyal to the religious leaders and would have no motive to lie. That would explain why they reported to the chief priests first. However, given that the chief priests told these soldiers that they would make things go well with the governor, they must have been Romans soldiers. Jewish guards had nothing to fear from Roman commanders. They reported to the chief priests first because they knew where the orders came from and were trying to get themselves out of a bad situation.

That’s the other way Pilate can be read - Ok, you can have a guard. Take them and do whatever you like. Thus these would be the famously disciplined Romans soldiers. It was common to have a guard of 16, four of them being on duty at one time with the others sleeping in a circle around the thing to be guarded. Again, they were Romans, they don’t care about the job, but if they fail, they could be executed. They weren’t going to fail.

Imagine how weird it was to get the order to guard a tomb. They probably thought, “easiest job ever. Just have to make sure a dead man stays put. What could go wrong?” But really, the tomb was guarded by soldiers around the clock, and it would have further been sealed with Pilate’s seal, a string sealed with clay or wax, so that if it was broken, everyone would know. When was the last time someone guarded a tomb for real, to keep the body where it was supposed to be?!

If the tomb wasn’t empty, then the religious leaders could have easily killed off Christianity before it even got started, simply by producing the body. That they didn’t is evidence that there was no body to produce. Also, even if he could have passed out instead of died, the stale air of the tomb and the 100lbs of spices they wrapped him in certainly would have killed him. Even if he did come to, it would have been completely impossible to get out from the inside.

When the guards saw the angel, they of course were terrified of this mighty supernatural being and fainted. They were trained to deal with human threats, not this. The chief priests had to bribe the soldiers, since the soldiers wouldn’t agree to put themselves in danger for nothing. The fact that they had to bribe the soldiers shows that they didn’t have a body. It’s not a very likely story - that the soldiers slept, and somehow that was OK? That’s dereliction of duty. It’s quite impossible for eleven ordinary Jews to overpower 16 professional Roman soldiers, even if they did have the courage, which they did not John 20:19.

III. The Witness of the Women proves He is Risen

The women saw Jesus die; they saw where he was buried; someone rolled the stone away, and there was no possible way a couple of women had the strength to do that. Since the disciples as a group were the only humans with sufficient numbers to be capable of that, it must have been the angel, just as Matthew says. Otherwise how did the stone get rolled away?

The fact that all the gospels agree that women saw the empty tomb first is proof it was real. In that age, many people didn’t trust the witness of women, so if you wanted to invent a story, you wouldn’t have women be the first ones to discover it. To be clear, that wasn’t the Christian’s view, but it was the view of both Judaism of its day, and of the wider Greco-Roman culture. The only plausible reason the gospel writers could have for telling us that women discovered the tomb, was that this is exactly what happened.

The rolled away stone allowed the women (and later Peter and John) to investigate and see that indeed, the tomb was empty.

IV. The Doubtful Disciples proves they really saw him Alive.

Now Matthew doesn’t focus on the disciple’s failures as much as some other gospel writers, but he does tell us enough.

The Eleven saw him alive, and the first thing Jesus has to say, is “don’t be afraid.” If they were expecting him alive, they wouldn’t have been afraid

Jesus arranges a meeting with other people in Gallilee - probably the 500 that Paul talks about. The two times Matthew tells us about weren’t the only times Jesus was seen alive. Even with all that evidence, some at the Mountain still doubted.

Again if you were inventing a story, would you invent one that made you look bad? of course not. But the disciples do look bad for not believing.

Matthew doesn’t tell us what happened after the ascension, but he does give us the famous Great Commission, a program that was in full swing by the time Matthew wrote his book. Every other Messianic Movement died with the death of its founder, but Christianity spread. How? Something must have been different. Something must have taken doubtful, cowardly disciples and made them into fearless spokesmen for Christ.

No one dies for something he knows to be a lie; the original 500 all witnessed Jesus’ resurrection, and many of them paid for it with their lives. 10 of those Eleven disciples died a Martyr’s death. None of them ever changed their mind, no matter how great the tortures.

V. The Great Commission remains until he Returns

The Basis of the command - all authority comes from him, so he has the right to give such an order, and the power to support us in it.

"Make disciples” is the verb, the main idea. That is, we don’t just win converts, we establish a learning relationship, so we aren’t finished when someone gets saved, we are just getting started.

The supporting ideas:

Going is part of it - in ancient Israel God expected the nations to come to them, but we are supposed to go everywhere.

Baptizing them in the Trinity, the declaration that begins the Christian Life.

Teaching them to observe everything Jesus commanded.

So the command isn’t finished until

everyone is saved

All of those people are baptized

They all keep everything Jesus commanded.

However, we are told that the church will be plagued with false teachers and persecution, so we know some will not believe, and some will fall away. Thus, the Commission can never be “finished.” But this isn’t a problem, because Jesus didn’t intend us to finish it; he intended us to be busy doing it until he returns.

The Power of the command Jesus is with us to help us accomplish this until the very end. Thus we can expect success. Some will be saved; some will be baptized; some will diligently follow Jesus. Some will not, but that’s not our fault. We’re just supposed to do our part.