The Living Among the Dead
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
In 1894, Kate Chopin wrote a short story entitled “The Story of an Hour,” in which a young woman with a bad heart had found out that her husband was killed in a terrible train accident. At first she was devastated and cried. However, after a few moments, she went to her room and locked the door, sat down and stared out the window. As she looked at the blue sky above, she began to feel something unexpected. She didn’t want to feel it, but as the story goes, “When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” Soon find she found herself saying, “Free! Body and soul free!” You may be thinking, there’s no way she loved this man she married! Well, by the time we get to those words about body and soul being free, we’ve already read that “she had loved him—sometimes. Often she had not.” And so we see that there is certainly a lack of love there. When she finally is able to leave the room, she joins her sister as they walk down the stairs. As they near the bottom, the door opens and her husband walks in. He had not been in the train accident. In fact, he had not been anywhere near the train and didn’t even know about the accident. Unfortunately for him, his young wife died right there and then having seen she had lost the freedom she had just thought was hers.
I wonder sometimes if Christians are like that young wife. That maybe some would describe their relationships with Jesus with the words, “I have loved him—sometimes. Often I have not,” as they long for the freedom that they think would come if he had stayed dead, and so act as if he is dead when he is very much alive.
In this morning’s text, we find no such concealed joy, but there are emotions displayed. In fact, believe it or not, there are three emotions that are explicitly mentioned here in this text this morning. (I cannot make this up—I could, but I’m not). Luke wrote about this historical moment through the lens of emotions. First, we find the women perplexed at the scene. This gave way to them being petrified by the supernatural. Finally, we find Peter puzzled from the sight.
Perplexed at the Scene
Petrified by the Supernatural
Puzzled from the Sight
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.
Perplexed at the Scene
Perplexed at the Scene
The first emotion seen in the text is from the women who were perplexed at the scene before them.
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.
It is not hard to understand the perplexity that the women were feeling that Sunday morning. Friday afternoon they had prepared all the spices, ointments, salves, and oils to anoint the body of Jesus. Unfortunately, it was too late in the day to actually do the work that they had planned. They had to wait. They had to rest on the Sabbath—abiding in the commandment as we saw last week. And we can imagine how difficult that must have been for them. Everything was ready. They need only go and do the anointing. It would have only taken an hour or so, but they abided in the commandment.
Now it’s early dawn, probably around 6:00 am, as the women have gathered their supplies and are heading to the tomb. This was not a happy time. There is probably quite a bit of dread. On the one hand, they want to get this done—they need to get this done, on the other hand no one wants to see his mangled body again. So they walk on, dragging and lagging at times, picking up their pace with resolve, only to get lost in their thoughts and beginning to drag again.
We know at some point in time, someone asked about moving the stone away and a discussion about it followed. In the midst of all the grief, they had failed to consider the barrier between themselves and Jesus’s body. When they finally arrived at the same place they had seen Joseph lay his body, they found that that stone was already rolled away. That’s a bit confusing, wouldn’t you say? A bit perplexing.
Maybe someone had anticipated their coming? Maybe someone had heard about their plans and had gotten there sooner so they could get started. Sometimes weird things happen. They confuse us for a moment but we move on. Here the women went in the tomb fully expecting to find Jesus’s body, but it was gone!
The interesting thing about Luke’s account, at this point, is that Luke is the only one of the gospel writers that used the word “body” in describing Jesus. In reporting the historical reality of Jesus’s resurrection, it was as if Luke did not want any wiggle room for people to say that the body had not resurrected, only the spirit. Remember that the Romans and Greeks did not believe the spirit and body would rise as the body was a prison that the spirit was held in. The Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection at all; in fact, they didn’t believe the spirit/soul even existed after a person died. The Pharisees did believe in a resurrection, but only at the end of time.
If Luke was writing to Theophilus, he was probably a Greek or Roman who did not believe in the resurrection of the body. Thus, Luke not only claimed Jesus rose bodily, but as we see over the next couple of weeks, proved it through eye-witness accounts.
For now, the women enter the tomb and find it to be empty. Jesus’s body was gone. What was going on? You can picture them in your mind’s eye looking at one another with confusion. Mouths are hanging open. They try to utter words, but they can’t find them and so all you hear are faint mumbles and murmurs.
I want us to think about this in two ways for a moment. First, I want us to think about this practically. Then I want us to think about it introspectively.
Practically speaking, this goes to the credulity of the resurrection. Much like the virgin birth sounds ludicrous so does a resurrection. Everyone pretty much knew how babies are made. There has to be a mommy and a daddy. To say that there was no daddy would be absolutely stupid. It would be unbelievable. In the same way, to say that someone was dead for three days and then suddenly rose again would be just as unbelievable. Luke was a physician. He was a smart man. He would understand the incredibility of saying Jesus rose from the dead. I bet in all his time setting bones, wrapping wounds, being at the bedside as children recovered from their fevers, and the many times he had to tell loved ones that someone had passed on—as many times as he had done that—not one time had any of his patience come back from the dead. For this guy to accept that Jesus rose from the dead, there had to be credible witnesses.
And so he wrote about them—not just of the horror of the women seeing the angels, but of their perplexity of finding an empty tomb. They were perplexed at the scene. In other words, this was just as confusing to them—just as incredible/unbelievable to them—as it would be to any sane person.
But introspectively speaking, thinking about ourselves for a moment. Once again, you or I go to honor Jesus with our attending the king, and finding that we can’t do as we planned. We too are perplexed at the scene before us. It’s not what we expected. We stand there with all the things we had prepared in our hands and there is no way to use them for the King. Look inside; how are you feeling? Are we not confused at the sight of it all. We have no idea what’s going on or how we fit into it. God’s plans and our plans have not lined up and we come out confused, perplexed, and maybe even a little frustrated. Where do you go from there? We’re about to find out.
Petrified by the Supernatural
Petrified by the Supernatural
But first let’s go to the second emotion the women felt. They went from being perplexed to being petrified.
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.
Once again, imagine the scene. The women have entered the tomb. Jesus’s body is no where to be seen. They stand there with mouths agape and perplexed at all that is happening and then suddenly they find that they are not alone. Two men are standing there next to them. Luke seems to have loved to present the angels this way. We don’t always get it in the translation, but Luke states the same thing happened in Luke 2 with the shepherds and then again in Acts 1 as the apostles looked up into the sky at Jesus’s ascension. In the case of Acts one, it was as if the men had been standing next to the apostles for quite some time and were never noticed until they started speaking.
In this case, the men were quickly noticed. They nearly scared the women to death! They were wearing dazzling apparel. Literally flashing apparel—like lightening. Now it may have been that the women were scared at the sight of the men or maybe they were just scared because they sneaked up on them, so them lowering their heads was a sign of trying to compose themselves. Either way, this—once again—was completely unexpected.
And they are asked the question: why do you seek the living among the dead? Now, that may have been a rhetorical question. I’ve kind of always taken it to be such, but what if they had answered? What would that answer be? Would it not be something like: “I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about. We’re looking for Jesus and he’s dead.” Again, there was no understanding for this kind of resurrection.
But before they could answer, the angels proclaimed the gospel message to them. He was delivered over to sinful man, he was crucified, and rose again. And suddenly, it all made sense. They remembered those words and understood them finally.
Now here we find that the women who have gone from being perplexed to being petrified are reminded of the message of Jesus. Oh how often we forget the gospel message! We know it. We believe it. But we forget it when we most need it. I don’t think it is for no reason that the angels told the women the gospel story. Think about what Peter wrote about the angels. In 1 Peter 1:12, we read that the Holy Spirit led the prophets in the prophecies concerning Jesus. These gospel prophecies were of such a sort that the angels longed to look. Being holy and elect angels, they would never participate in the receiving of the gospel message themselves. They would never experience the salvation and joy and hope of the gospel message. In the Old Testament the prophets were led by the Holy Spirit and totally skipped the angelic message. But starting with the birth of Jesus and now the resurrection, angels get to proclaim the joy of the living, breathing Christ! And when these women were reminded, they went to remind the others as well.
Beloved that is now for us to do. We are now part of God’s holy messengers—not angels obviously—but ambassadors for Christ. And we need not only tell our neighbors, co-workers, enemies, friends, and family. We must remind one another of this gospel message! Because in our perplexity over what is happening in our lives and in the petrifying moments when we are unable even to raise our heads, we need someone next to us to remind us of the good news of Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, some of you may have been preparing to serve Christ in a certain way just like these women. They had prepared the spices and oils and ointments and God never let them use what they had prepared. As I said last week, that doesn’t mean the time was wasted. Time preparing ourselves for God’s use is never wasted. He blesses our efforts as we are hungering and thirsting for righteousness and seeking his kingdom first. But what do you do if and when he doesn’t use your preparations? The very least is proclaim the gospel, and it may be that you need to proclaim it to yourself first. In the midst of all that is spiraling around you, ground yourself in the gospel message.
Puzzled from the Sight
Puzzled from the Sight
And the thing about it is that it doesn’t matter if the person believes you or not. In fact, at that moment, you might not rea25.
lize how important it is or put too much stock in the gospel being proclaimed. After all, what does it have to do with your situation now? And I would say, never underestimate the gospel! If Jesus is alive, then our darkness—our confusions, our fears, our anxieties, our dreams, our nightmares, our pains, our troubles, our afflictions—cannot stand.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The eleven did not believe the women at first either. In fact, at the end of this passage, Peter is still puzzled at everything he’d heard and seen.
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.
Again, as a historian, Luke wrote about real women in real space and time. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James. These were real women. In essence, Luke was giving some sources, eyewitnesses. Now, in a courtroom, these women could not be called, but as individuals they could be interviewed. They could be found and asked. As many have pointed out before me, if the apostles were going to make up the resurrection, they would not have included women because it makes them less credible. Yet as we can see, their testimony helps us to see that this could not be, would not be a ruse.
Even the apostles thought it was at first. Once again, speaking to the authenticity of the resurrection, everyone understood that coming back from the dead was an impossibility. Less than a handful of people could raise a person from the dead. Elijah had done it. Elisha had done it. Jesus had done it. And only Jesus was capable of resurrecting someone who had been dead more than a few hours or so. There was no one to bring him back to life. It was just an idle tale; it was a bunch of nonsense.
That’s exactly what this world believes about Jesus too. This world and the disciples had something in common. The gospel is just a bunch of nonsense to them. Thomas often gets a bad rap for not believing, but in reality none of the disciples believed at first. The women believed what the angels told them, but the disciples would not believe what the women reported. But that did not stop the women from telling them. In fact, Luke changes the language as he wrote about this event. In verse 9, Luke used the aorist tense of the word for “tell” and basically wrote that they told the eleven and the others. He was making a statement of fact; it was something that happened. But in verse 10, he elaborates about how they told them. At this point, he used the imperfect tense. I mentioned that last week. It’s the tense that says that something continued without any indication it stopped. Thus, it wasn’t that the women just told the disciples and that was the end of it. They kept telling them even when they did not believe them.
Perhaps it was their persistence that made Peter get up and run to the tomb to see for himself. And just as the women had reported, the tomb was empty—except for Jesus’s burial cloths. Luke wrote, “he went home marveling what at what had happened.” When Luke uses the word marvel, it is not as much with a sense of “wow” as it was a sense of “huh?”
We who believe can’t imagine why anyone would not believe, but we need to keep in mind that those who had been with Jesus for three years did not initially believe either even though they were told by women whom they knew well. As Paul told the Corinthians
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Or as he would write later
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
If the disciples doubted the women, we should expect the world to doubt us. But as the women, so should we continue to proclaim the news to doubtful hearers. The disciples would not believe until they actually saw Jesus. They were blinded until the veil was removed. God still removes veils so people will see Christ. So let us keep on telling a puzzled, doubtful people.
Conclusion
Conclusion
As we finish up with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have seen that though the women were perplexed and petrified at the tomb, they were reminded of the gospel by the angels who were with them. And they took that same gospel message and proclaimed it to an incredulous group of disciples. One who left the tomb, not believing, not in awe, but bewildered—puzzled as to what he’d seen and heard.
But we cannot leave here without understanding what Luke was doing here for Theophilus and for us. He proclaimed the gospel message to Theophilus and he showed us the example through both the angels and the women. The women needed to hear the gospel in their fear and confusion. The disciples needed to hear it in their doubts. The gospel is the message of the church. It is not the pastor’s message. It is not the evangelist’s message. It is not the missionaries’ message. It is the church’s message that must always be on our lips—to the hurting, the confused, the fearful, and the doubtful. As the church, we need the reminder of the goodness. Let us forever be God’s messengers.
Like the young wife in Kate Chopin’s story, the world sees freedom in Jesus’s death, not his resurrection. But you and I hopefully know and understand and feel the freedom that comes with Jesus’s resurrected life and presence. If so, we do need to be telling that good news as often as is possible.
