The Power of the Empty Tomb / El Poder de la Tumba Vacía
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Can you imagine an event so catastrophic that would lead to the deaths of the entire population of Wyoming?
2020-2021, COVID-19 is such an event.
According to the New York Times which has been tracking COVID-19 related deaths, there’s been 553,000 COVID-19 related deaths in the United States, since the pandemic started.
All of us here have been affected either personally by the pandemic.
Either we’ve become ill and recovered.
…or we know of those that became very ill and did not recover.
Death has been very much a present reality during these last 12 months.
We all desire for the pandemic to be behind us, move on with our lives, and forget this very sad time in humanity’s history.
Although COVID-19 has caused much death and destruction, affecting not only our health systems but even the economy, we are thankful for:
The development of treatments that have proven to be effective.
The development of a vaccine in a short amount of time to prevent becoming infected with this virus.
…nevertheless, something still stands true: there is no treatment that can reverse death, in those unfortunate cases where our loved ones have passed away because of this awful virus.
Death is final.
Death is irreversible.
Death has no treatment.
Nevertheless, as believers we are here to celebrate the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
The apostle’s creed, which many memorized as children, has a phrase that says:
Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell;
On the third day he rose again;
Jesus fue crucificado, muerto y sepultado;
descendió a al infierno;
al tercer día resucitó de entre los muertos;
As the people of God, we believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
For this reason, we want to consider what happened on that glorious resurrection Sunday and recognize the glorious power of the empty tomb:
The events that lead up to Sunday
The empty tomb
What does this mean to us?
The events that lead up to Sunday / Los eventos antes del domingo
The events that lead up to Sunday / Los eventos antes del domingo
The events that take place in Luke 24:1-12 take place on Sunday, the first day of the week.
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
El primer día de la semana, muy de mañana, las mujeres fueron al sepulcro, llevando las especias aromáticas que habían preparado.
We see a group of women, who have gotten up very early on Sunday morning.
Luke tells us that these women have bags of spices and they are on their way to the tomb.
We know exactly where they are going.
They are going to the tomb that belonged to Joseph of Arimathea.
Two days ago, on Friday, Jesus Christ had been beaten, flogged, spit upon, and his hands and feet nailed to a cross upon Golgotha.
The cross was raised.
As the minutes passed, Jesus of Nazareth would be struggling to breathe.
Surely he was dehydrated, he had lost so much blood from the beatings at the hands of the Romans.
He was struggling to breathe. Since he was crucified, he had to raise his body using his feet which were nailed to the cross.
Each time he breathed he would use up precious energy.
Each time his breaths became more and more shallow.
He mustered up enough energy to let out a final cry and declare:
Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.
Entonces Jesús exclamó con fuerza:
—¡Padre, en tus manos encomiendo mi espíritu!
Y al decir esto, expiró.
It is at that moment that Jesus Christ was dead.
His blood would no longer flow, his heart was no longer beating, he was dead.
All that was hanging from the cross was a lifeless corpse.
It is natural that our hearts ache at the sight of the cross.
It was an absolutely brutal death.
Jesus Christ did not deserve to die in the way that he died.
However, there is deep theological meaning behind the death of Jesus Christ.
The Bible teaches us that humanity is under a curse for we all have sinned against God.
God, who is a just God, must execute judgement upon sinful humanity.
However, God in his great love sent forth his son to die in our place.
It was upon the cross that Jesus Christ received the punishment that we deserved.
He died in our place.
God poured out his judgement upon Jesus Christ as he hung upon the cross.
Therefore, it is through the death of Jesus Christ, his precious blood that our sins can be forgiven for he took upon himself our sin.
Once Jesus died, his body was brought down from the cross.
Joseph of Arimathea asked for Jesus’ body.
Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid.
Había un hombre bueno y justo llamado José, miembro del Consejo, que no había estado de acuerdo con la decisión ni con la conducta de ellos. Era natural de un pueblo de Judea llamado Arimatea, y esperaba el reino de Dios. Éste se presentó ante Pilato y le pidió el cuerpo de Jesús. Después de bajarlo, lo envolvió en una sábana de lino y lo puso en un sepulcro cavado en la roca, en el que todavía no se había sepultado a nadie.
Because the Sabbath was about to begin, and no work was allowed due to the Jewish Sabbath, the body of our precious Lord Jesus lay in the tomb.
His lifeless blood covered body lay in the cold dark tomb.
A large stone had been put at the entrance so that no person, whether a follower of Jesus or anyone else, could steal the body.
The empty tomb / La tumba vacía
The empty tomb / La tumba vacía
The women have returned to the tomb but something is wrong.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
Encontraron que había sido quitada la piedra que cubría el sepulcro y, al entrar, no hallaron el cuerpo del Señor Jesús.
Please allow this verse to sink in.
Think about what the women were expecting to see.
Their eyes must have been extremely puffy from the constant sobbing.
Their beloved teacher had not only died but was cruelly tortured to death and crucified.
All their hopes had been dashed.
The last they could do is is wash his body with myrrh and wrap it with linen cloths. They would tuck the spices into the the cloth for they knew the body would soon start to decompose and the stench of death would overpower it.
Therefore, we see the timid, distraught, overwhelmed women, come to the tomb…but to their astonishment it is empty.
What could be going through their minds?
Where is the body?
Who has taken the body?
Who has vandalized the tomb by taking away their master’s body?
In fact, this is a theory that circulated amongst the unbelievers.
Many people started circulating rumors that the disciples had taken the body.
Others said that someone must have stolen the body.
…at the end of the day, all that was necessary to destroy Christianity was to show people Jesus’ dead corpse.
Come up with Jesus’ dead body and Christianity is dead.
Come up with his dead / lifeless body and Christianity is doomed.
We know that his body was not stolen.
Although the women did not see Jesus’ body, they did see the angels who delivered a message to them:
While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:
Mientras se preguntaban qué habría pasado, se les presentaron dos hombres con ropas resplandecientes. Asustadas, se postraron sobre su rostro, pero ellos les dijeron:
—¿Por qué buscan ustedes entre los muertos al que vive? No está aquí; ¡ha resucitado! Recuerden lo que les dijo cuando todavía estaba con ustedes en Galilea:
The angels proclaimed the same thing we believe: Jesus is not dead, he is risen!
Jesus was raised from the dead, after being dead for three days, he was raised by the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus rose from the dead to demonstrate that the Father accepted his death as pleasing sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins.
The women hear what the angels have to say:
‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” Then they remembered his words.
“El Hijo del hombre tiene que ser entregado en manos de hombres pecadores, y ser crucificado, pero al tercer día resucitará.”
Entonces ellas se acordaron de las palabras de Jesús.
The angels declare, what Jesus himself had told them, it was necessary for him to be handed over, to be crucified, but that was not the end.
His death upon the cross was not the end of the story.
He prophesied, as the Scriptures of the Old Testament had declared, that God would deliver him from the dead and raise him up to live forever!
The angels remind them that all that had occurred since that awful moment when:
When he was arrested by the Jewish and Roman authorities in the Garden of Gethsemani,
When he was tried by the jewish leaders,
When he came before Pontius Pilate and the people demanded that he be crucified,
When he was made to carry the cross
When he cried out with a loud voice “Father, in your hands I commend my spirit”…all this occurred just as Jesus had declared.
…however, they were forgetting that he would rise from the dead. They were overwhelmed with sadness and despair and forgot that on the third day he would live again.
What does this mean to us? / ¿Qué significa todo esto?
What does this mean to us? / ¿Qué significa todo esto?
The women started to understand what all this meant. They must tell of the good news! They must tell the other disciples who are just as distraught as they are.
When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Al regresar del sepulcro, les contaron todas estas cosas a los once y a todos los demás. Las mujeres eran María Magdalena, Juana, María la madre de Jacobo, y las demás que las acompañaban. Pero a los discípulos el relato les pareció una tontería, así que no les creyeron.
Notice the reaction from the eleven disciples.
They could not believe what they were being told.
They thought that it was all nonsense.
They did not believe, they could not believe, could it really be true?
It is easy for us to criticize the disciples for failing to believe the testimony of the women that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead.
However, the truth is that we are very much like the disciples.
Do you believe in the resurrection?
Do you believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead?
…do you really believe that Jesus Christ is no longer a dead corpse?
…if you do, let me tell you what he told a different Mary from the Mary’s in this story:
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;
Entonces Jesús le dijo:
—Yo soy la resurrección y la vida. El que cree en mí vivirá, aunque muera;
Jesus Christ rose from the dead to demonstrate that God accepted his sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins.
Jesus Christ rose from the dead to prove that he is the resurrection and the life.
Jesus Christ rose from the dead as a guarantee that if we believe in him, although one day we will die, he will raise us up from the dead such that we will live with him for all eternity.
If you truly believe this, then be assured that your sins are forgiven. When we finally die, and we shall all die, be assured that we will be raised from the dead to live with him for all eternity.
…if you truly believe this, and are convinced this is not nonsense, you will commit to give your life to him and follow him until your last dying breath.