Easter Miracle

Thank you for joining us this morning for our Sunrise service. I want to let you know there is a great breakfast waiting for you down stairs in our fellowship hall. Also we have an inspiring worship service planned for you at 10:00 am. Next week we begin a new series call Superheros. Next Sunday will also be our Holy Humor Sunday so Please bring your funniest, perhaps corniest joke for next Sunday.

This morning we are looking at the greatest story ever told. There have been some powerful stories told in the past. The plays of Shakespeare like Macbeth and my favorite, the Taming of the Shew, have stood the test of time. But they are entertaining and fictional. As you read Spakespeare, King Duncan, and Macbeth may seem all most life like, but that is the difference in the stories of Spakespeare, and the Bible, Spakespeare seems life like, but Bible is real live.

Take for example our story before us this morning.

Luke 24:1 CEB

Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, the women went to the tomb, bringing the fragrant spices they had prepared.

We find a group of women, who are walking toward the grave of Jesus in the early morning hours. These same women had helplessly stood by as Jesus had been beaten with a whip in hand of a mighty Roman soldier not 24 hours earlier. They had walked behind him on the The Via Dolorosa as he carried his cross through the street of the City of Jerusalem, on his way to his crucifixion, not 24 hours earlier. They had cringed with each resounding thud of the heavy hammer as the nails were driven through the tender flesh of his hands and his feet, not 24 hours earlier. They had heard him cry out those pain drenched words, “IT IS FINISHED!” But that was 24 hours ago.

As the final words of Jesus died out, so did their hopes and dreams. Their hope for a better life, their hope that Jesus was their long awaited Messiah. Their hope that God had truly heard their cries. The dream of sins forgiven, and home in heaven that he spoke of. All of it, yes, all of if was shattered, broken, it too was finished.

And now, this morning they return to the place of horror from yesterday. Nothing is left to do, but honor their friend, their leader, yes, even their hoped for Lord. They came with their fragrant spices, they had prepared to anoint the body, one last act of kindness, for a man who in life had recieved any thing but kindness.

As their walked, silence abounded. What do you say then all your hope and dreams lay scattered like glass at your feet?

Then one of them speaks, “Who will roll away the stone?”

The stone was large and heavy, it had been placed in a channel cut in front of the tomb. It would take men, several men to move it.

Now their since of abandon deepen, had they make the trip for nothing? But like many of us with nothing to loss, and nothing to go back for, they continued on the grave site.

But then...

Luke 24:2 CEB

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,

Can you image how their felt as the tomb came into sight, and the stone, the rock, that had cause such glum eariler had been rolled away. Luke tells us the women enter the tomb only to find the body of Jesus was missing.

From joy over the stone being rolled away to a deep hopelessness because their closest friend and confidant was missing. Listen how Luke puts it.

Luke 24:3 CEB

but when they went in, they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus.

Luke 24:4 CEB

They didn’t know what to make of this. Suddenly, two men were standing beside them in gleaming bright clothing.

The NIV Application Commentary: Luke Original Meaning

At this point “two men” appear. Their clothes gleam like lightning

At this point they encounter two men, no doubt angels, who are dressed in gleaming bright clothes, clothes that are so bright that they shone like lighting.

T

Luke 24:5 CEB

The women were frightened and bowed their faces toward the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?

Living people don’t hang out with dead people. dah.

I remember an old He Haw routine where Grandpa jones was asking Buck Owens if he votes to use tax dollars build a fence around the old cemetary. Buck said, “Nah, the folk in there are not going to get out, and the people out don’t want to get in.”

Sorry, the corny jokes are for next week. But you get the idea.

Why would you look for the living among the dead.

Our Lord is not dead, he is risen. And because Christ is alive we will live also.

Christianity Today, 1958–1959, Volume 3, Numbers 1–25 Significance of Resurrection

Jesus always keeps his word. He said he would rise from the dead, and he did; he says that his people also shall rise, and they shall.

C. H. SPURGEON

Christianity Today, 1958–1959, Volume 3, Numbers 1–25 Significance of Resurrection

Opinions may conceivably differ whether it would have been possible to believe in Christianity as a supernaturally given religion if Christ had remained holden of the grave. But it is scarcely disputable that the fact that He did rise again, being once established, supplies an irrefragable demonstration of the supernatural origin of Christianity, of the validity of Christ’s claim to be the Son of God, and of the trustworthiness of his teaching as a Messenger from God to man.… From the empty grave of Jesus the enemies of the cross turn away in unconcealable dismay. Christ has risen from the dead! After two thousand years of the most determined assault upon the evidence which establishes it, that fact stands. And so long as it stands, Christianity too must stand as the one supernatural religion. The resurrection of Christ is the fundamental apologetical fact of Christianity.

Christianity Today, 1958–1959, Volume 3, Numbers 1–25 Significance of Resurrection

What a supreme moment was that! How it changed the look of all things; their views of Calvary, of Christ, of Evil, of Life, of Death! It takes away from Calvary every look of failure or mistake; from Christ, all attributes of weakness; from Evil, that apparent sovereignty under which man had groaned; from Life, its worthlessness; from Death, its terror. The whole universe of God joins the angel in saying: He is risen.

Our story started in despair, but that was 24 hours earlier. Fear has been transformed into faith. Tears of sorrow have surrendered to tears of joy. Despair has given way to discipleship. What a difference a day makes.

Amen.