The Empty Tomb
Notes
Transcript
Wow, talk about March Madness. Incredible.
Uconn vs. Duke, Uconn being down 19 points late in the first half, the score would settle at 44-29 at halftime.
And in an amazing rally, Uconn would make up that entire deficit to make the score 72-70, Duke still up, in the last 10 seconds.
And you just saw it - in an attempt to run out the clock, Duke gives up the ball, it lands in the hands of Uconn freshman guard Braylon Mullins, puts up the way deep 3 pointer at 35 feet from the basket, and sound of that swish will be burned in the memory of basketball fans for decades to come.
I mean, how can you not love a good underdog comeback story?
And the most common comment I saw on Duke blowing a 19 point lead, was “Just hold the ball”.
All Duke had to do was hold the ball man. Just hold the ball, let them foul you, win the game.
It was that easy.
But, they couldn’t, or didn’t. And it lost them the entire tournament, which statistically, they should have been close to winning the whole thing.
But think about it - imagine sitting at that game, watching Duke obliterate their opponent, and the Uconn fan beside you says - don’t worry, they’ll come back and win the game with a 35 foot three pointer.
Don’t worry, this 19 point deficit is nothing, no worries, just look ahead to the winning moment.
You would think they’re crazy.
And this, my friends, is the life Jesus lived.
He was the underdog. A lowly carpenter, born in the hick town of Bethlehem, living in the modest city of Galilee.
For years, he had a following of nobodies, his closest friends were fishermen, a tax collector, people of normal means, and one of those friends would sell him for 30 pieces of silver to the Pharisees.
Jesus was the underdog, going up against the religious elite that controlled Judaism and the temple of worship, going up against Rome who controlled the land and the government and money.
Jesus didn’t have an army, he had 12 nincompoops that deserted him at the cross.
See, this should have been an easy job for Satan. Satan, the whole time, had to be thinking: this is the best plan of redemption God could come up with?
The Jews should have wiped Jesus from the earth and from people’s memory with ease. He shouldn’t have even been a blip on Rome’s radar.
And all this time, Jesus is telling the people - don’t worry. I know it looks bad now, I know we’re down at halftime, but just wait till the end.
All Satan had to do was hold Jesus in that tomb for 3 days. All death had to do was do anything but let Jesus come back to life.
But from death to life, Satan blew the lead he thought he had, evil let their guard down because they thought they were up…
And no, I’m not directly comparing Duke to Satan, although if the shoe fits…
But in the comeback story of a lifetime, Jesus’s tomb is found empty.
For a time, Satan thought he won. Death thought Jesus was taken care of.
But Jesus created the most significant day in history by walking out of that grave.
And this is precisely and only what our hope is in this morning - that we have a living God who defeated death on our behalf. This is the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So, let’s dig into this resurrection story, this morning of amazement, and see exactly why all the apostles hung their faith on the resurrection.
And this story starts in the most unlikely of people: women.
Women - The First Eyewitnesses
Women - The First Eyewitnesses
1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. 3 They went in but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
Okay, so these women, who are named in the various gospel accounts, are the same women that saw the death and burial of Jesus. This is very important.
Take a look back at Luke chapter 23, verses 55 and 56:
55 The women who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56 Then they returned and prepared aromatic spices and perfumes. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
So, the same group of women that saw Jesus literally being laid in the tomb, dead, stone rolled over the opening, these women are the ones that are going back to actually prepare Jesus’s body for proper burial.
Now, in this area, the tomb was well outside the city walls of Jerusalem, so it was kind of a trek to get there.
And it wasn’t a cool spring day like today, the sun would’ve been baking on that tomb.
This is the reason the ladies came with aromatic spices and perfume, to hide the stench of the body, and of course being the Sabbath, they weren’t allowed to do anything of labor or work.
So, the body would’ve been sitting, unprepared, baking in a tomb oven, needless to say, they were preparing for the worst.
Not only that, but the women had no way to remove the stone from the tomb. Now, the stone was cut in a way that you could roll it side to side in the slot it was designed to fit, but scholars estimate these stones weighed somewhere between 1 and 2 tons, which is 2k-4k pounds.
Those ladies ain’t rolling that. I remember I had a giant tractor tire in my yard that weighted around 800 pounds, and let me tell you, I wasn’t moving it alone, and I’m sure it was far rounder than that tomb stone.
3 They were saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb for us?”
So, arriving at the tomb, it would’ve been utterly shocking. The stone was rolled away, and the tomb was open.
Now, at first to the women, this would have been an indication of grave robbery.
But Jesus wasn’t buried with anything. He had no possessions, they even gambled away his clothes after he died by casting lots to see who won them.
So, they start exploring, and find the tomb is empty. Panic, surprise, fear and anxiety would’ve washed over them.
And the text says - perplexed. I think thats an awesome word. They were at a loss, what do we do now?
But thankfully, there were two men standing beside them suddenly, in dazzling clothes.
And it would have been obvious to the original audience that these “men” were actually angels especially given the women’s reaction to their presence.
5 The women were terribly frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here, but has been raised! Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,7 that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”
Okay, a little harsh.
Why are you coming to a tomb where dead people are, go look somewhere else!
All the while, these women are thinking - I saw him, I saw his body laying right there, wrapped up, I saw Jesus die on the cross, I saw a soldier stick a spear through his side…
And the angels, they acutely knew what Jesus had taught, that he would be betrayed, crucified, and on the third day would rise.
Sometimes, probably a lot of the time, we miss the teaching in the moment, and are reminded of it later when we can actually apply it.
We can’t understand some important information in the moment it’s being given to us, but later we have an epiphany, and suddenly it all makes sense.
This is exactly what happened to these women:
8 And they remembered his words. 9 Returning from the tomb, they reported all these things to the Eleven and to all the rest.
So, they do the only thing they know to do, they hurry back and reported it to the disciples.
And here, we can why women as eyewitnesses is not a great way to lead off a story.
10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed like pure nonsense to them, and they did not believe them.
See, women in this day were second class citizens. And being second class citizens, their word could not be used as testimony.
Basically, the word of a women, not matter how many of them saw the same event, no matter how their stories corroborated one another,
They were dismissed. And this wasn’t just a cultural thing of the day, it was actually a Jewish thing, a perversion of God’s law.
The Talmud, which is a collection of Jewish teachings that was only a notch below the authority of the Old Testament, is quoted as teaching this:
“Sooner let the words of the Law be burnt than delivered to women”
And keep in mind, when the women delivered this news, it was in a room of Jewish disciples, Jesus’s disciples, who were in hiding. Men who probably agreed with the Talmud, that these women were talking nonsense…
But come on! I mean, this is crazy news. They don’t even want to take a stroll out there and check out a potentially empty tomb, someone who raised from the dead??
This is how unbelievable the bodily resurrection of Jesus was to them, it wasn’t even worth a short hike to see.
These disciples, Jesus closest followers and friends, hiding from the Jews trying to kill them, ashamed from deserting Jesus on the cross, ashamed at denying even knowing Jesus.
Scared. Hopeless. Alone.
But there was one who jumped up. One who just had to see it for himself, and that was Peter.
12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. He bent down and saw only the strips of linen cloth; then he went home, wondering what had happened.
Peter, arguably Jesus’s best friend of the group, ran out to the tomb and was amazed.
Talk about a guy who needed a second chance, he has just denied knowing Jesus three times to preserve his reputation, just as Jesus predicted, if there was anyone in the group that wanted to see Jesus again, it was him.
But he also walked away not know what happened.
They were all perplexed. The path forward, for the first time, wasn’t clear.
And I think it’s because no one fully believed Jesus…
No One Fully Believed Jesus
No One Fully Believed Jesus
Not one person who followed Jesus could understand what he was talking about.
I mean, Jesus said time after time that this would happen in the exact sequence it did.
21 From then on Jesus began to point out to his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day.
Then, Peter hearing this, he rebukes Jesus!
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned and told Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns but human concerns.”
Boy, talk about a memorable moment for Peter.
If they had carpet in his day, Peter would have wanted to be under it.
19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days.” 20 Therefore the Jews said, “This temple took forty-six years to build, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
31 Then he took the Twelve aside and told them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. Everything that is written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. 32 For he will be handed over to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked, insulted, spit on; 33 and after they flog him, they will kill him, and he will rise on the third day.” 34 They understood none of these things. The meaning of the saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.
This sequence of events that happened shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was.
But for some reason, the disciples didn’t take Jesus for his word. They simply couldn’t understand it.
And to give the a little credit, I can’t blame them. I mean, it didn’t fit into their theology, it didn’t fit into Jewish doctrine, it certainly didn’t fit into their view of the messiah figure,
But here they are. With frantic women and a missing body.
All the things coming true that Jesus said would.
And what Jesus was talking about, the framework he set up, it’s actually our story - it’s the entire story of human history, and it has three parts: betrayal, death, resurrection.
Betrayal, Death, Resurrection
Betrayal, Death, Resurrection
It starts at the very beginning of our Bible, in Genesis, what happens?
God creates man, Adam and Eve betray God by eating the fruit, and God says they will now surely die.
But…God finished the story with this:
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.
This means that God will send someone, although Satan and the forces of evil will cripple humanity, the final crushing blow will come from God’s power, and interestingly, that power would be in a human.
Betrayal, death, resurrection.
Genesis 6, we find the whole earth is corrupt, except for Noah, so God commissions him and his family to build a great big ship, they board the ship, the earth is wiped out, and eventually the ark lands on dry ground.
Betrayal, death, and resurrection at the hands of God.
Josephs brothers nearly killed him, sold him into slavery, yet he welcomed them them back in redemption.
I could go on and on, the covenants with Abraham, with Moses, David and Saul, Ruth and Boaz - all these stories have identical Christological qualities -
And now, Jesus is living out that story.
See, just like these stories, Jesus is saying humanity will treat him on earth the same way humans have been treating God all along.
They must betray Jesus. Even his closest loved companions that should have been the last ones to betray him.
Jesus must experience the death that we deserved. The death we earned from betraying a Holy God. He must truly die.
And then, at the end of the story, Jesus has to prove that death the powers of evil can’t hold him down.
And this is exactly the significance of the resurrection.
Because the betrayal and death thing, that’s easy.
All of our Biblical heroes, all of the prophets, they were betrayed by their people, God had always been betrayed by His people, that’s no problem to encounter that.
And death, everyone has experienced death. I don’t think there’s any prophet walking about the earth today. No one that wrote anything down in the law is here today on earth having a great time,
No, everyone who had died has stayed dead.
Except for one.
I mean, even Satan, the most cunning being, the being who met Jesus face to face in the wilderness, even Satan didn’t believe Jesus could raise from the dead.
It made no sense, because Satan knew the power of Jesus, but he simply understand why that all powerful God would become man and subject himself to things like humility and being the last of these.
Even Satan was in the dark about Gods plan, because it was so absurd, Satan couldn’t even believe it.
And that’s why the entirety of the apostles teachings hinged on not Jesus’s death, not Jesus’s ministry, not social justice, not concern for the poor, not being amazing and perfect,
But on the resurrection of Christ.
Our Faith Hinges on the Resurrection
Our Faith Hinges on the Resurrection
Listen, if Luke ended in chapter 23, with the women preparing spices for the tomb.
If the start of chapter 24 was “and the women rolled the stone away to find Jesus’s body”,
Then church, we wouldn’t be here right now.
This thing called Christianity, it would be a complete waste of time.
And the original apostles who started the ministry of Christ post resurrection, they all talked about it constantly as the cornerstone of their faith.
I mean, if the disciples wanted to create a story where a guy raised from the dead to push a narrative, they did a terrible job.
Women finding the empty tomb that no one believed, they bring the news back to Jesus closest followers who don’t believe them and aren’t even bothered to get up and go look.
And then, at the end of their lives, most if not all of those disciples would die as martyrs, where all they had to do was recant their story.
But no, no a single apostle denied the resurrection of Jesus.
In Peter’s inaugural speech at the Pentecost, he says this:
22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to these words: This Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through him, just as you yourselves know. 23 Though he was delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him. 24 God raised him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death.
Paul, the man whom Jesus knocked down on the road to Damascus after going on a murder spree to rid the world of Christians, writes this:
1 Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. 6 Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep.
The most important thing, the gospel of Jesus, the good news, it always ends in the resurrection.
This is the defining characteristic of followers of Jesus. You cannot be a Christian and be iffy on the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, to do so is to deny the fundamental truth of the Scriptures and our God.
Jesus would eventually appear to the disciples, just as he physically appeared to Paul.
These men would go on to evangelize, plant churches, leading people to Christ,
But they couldn’t do it without experiencing first hand the risen Jesus.
And that is something we need to come face to face with,
The Risen Jesus is the Gospel
The Risen Jesus is the Gospel
See, this is the point of the sermon where I usually say there are two groups of people, saved and unsaved.
But today in this room, there is one group of people - every person here is headed toward death.
Death is not something that is natural, as much as we want to think it is - no, death is the most unnatural thing in the world.
That’s why even burying our 103 year old great grandmother felt bad.
Because death was never meant to be.
But, we betrayed God.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The payment we get is death, and that’s because we’ve chosen to be outside of God.
Even the believers in this room, at some point, our bodies will die.
And fortunately for us, there are two words in the Bible, two words exist in the Bible that make my hair stand on end, there’s a two word phrase that we should be rejoicing at their mere existence…
But God.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!
See, even though we betrayed God, even though we are dead, God sent His son Jesus to us, because of his great love for us, and now we are no longer bound to death, but we are made alive in Jesus Christ.
This is why the resurrection matters.
Because without Christ, we are dead. I’ll go a step further than what I said before, without christ you are dead right now.
We are all dead men walking.
But through the grace of our Lord, we are made alive. And this isn’t a future reality, or something only to come later,
It’s right now. We all have the opportunity to be alive, to be resurrected.
Because on that cross, Jesus took our sin, Jesus took our death, and you know what he did?
He took it to the grave with him, but you know what didn’t come walk out on the third day with him?
Sin. Sickness. Anxiety. Worry. Doubt. Evil. Death.
It stayed buried, and it’s defeated forever and ever.
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
Listen, if you have never truly submitted to Jesus Christ. If you have never given up your life to him,
I want to make you aware of a burden you have.
It’s a burden that I know you feel, but you might not be aware of, but it’s on your back, and you’re trying to wade though life, but your burden is making you sink.
And that burden is sin.
And I don’t mean the burden is you doing bad things, so you need to do good things to win God over.
No, sin in a noun more than a verb. Sin is something we’re in. It’s a state of being.
4 For my iniquities have flooded over my head; they are a burden too heavy for me to bear.
Sin is too heavy a burden for any of us to carry.
18 Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
But Jesus climbed up on that cross to take away your burden.
28 “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
My urge, my plea to you this morning, is to go to Jesus with the burden you have, and swap it out for Jesus.
Without Him, we stand condemned already.
Because I fear far too many well-intentioned, morally decent people are fighting a battle that Jesus already won.
You’re struggling with this burden, and you don’t have to.
9 If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
And I know I just said Jesus defeated sin and death, but we still live here in the world where the effects of sin are rampant, and death still happens.
And that’s the painful point of waiting.
But, if you are in Christ this morning, you know what’s coming.
You know there’s a time where death won’t even be an afterthought, as if it never existed.
Won’t that be a wonderful day?
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
This is our hope. A future inheritance that is preserved forever. Where resurrection is abundant.
I mean, think about it… What’s the best thing that could ever happen?
In my mind, it’s walking into a cemetery to find your love one standing there next to an empty hole in the ground.
I would love nothing more than to go over to Roselawn cemetery just to find an empty hole where we buried our daughter Chloe, I would love to go down to Florida just to find my brother standing beside his grave marker, waiting on me…I’m sure you have someone like that.
And thank God, that is our future. That one day, there will be no weeping, the pain of death will be no more.
Death doesn’t win.
We will be in a perfect creation with our Creator, our God, in perfect harmony, happily for eternity.
That is the step back three pointer, swish, and the crowd goes wild.
This is what is afforded to us, though the blood of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection.
This is the only gospel. This is why we celebrate today. And that is the only thing this church will proclaim as the way to eternal life with God.
