A Resurrected Arrival

Luke 24:36–49 ESV

36 As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them. 44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

The Setup

Our text for this morning actually picks up at the END of Luke’s account of the resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus is preparing to depart from this world and according to John 14:3, is going to prepare a place for all of those who, by faith, trust Him as Savior and Lord, placing their lives in His hands.

By this point in the story, Jesus has already rose from the grave, His female followers have already visited His grave only to find it empty, they’ve already went back to tell the 11 disciples who did not believe them, and Peter needing to see for himself, has already ran to the tomb and found it exactly as the sisters described it.

And by this point in the story, Jesus has already appeared to some of His followers including two who were on their way to a village seven miles outside of Jerusalem called Emmaus.

And according to Scripture the eyes of these two followers were initially kept from recognizing Christ and while they didn’t recognize him a conversation sparks up between the three and part of this conversation was to help them see that all these events that took place, the death on Good Friday, the resurrection on Easter Sunday had to take place in order to fulfill the word of the prophets!

And later after they arrived in the village and prepared to share a meal together, their eyes were opened to recognize Him and at that moment he vanished from their sight…this is where verse 32 picks up:

Luke 24:32–35 ESV

32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” 33 And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 34 saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Verse 36 continues the story with an unexpected dinner meeting the disciples are about to have with the resurrected Christ. Look with me at verses 36-40.

Luke 24:36–40 ESV

36 As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

The Resurrected Christ Arrives To Doubt

First take notice that they are now in the presence of the RESURRECTED CHRIST. He has RISEN! AND YET THEY STILL ARE DEALING WITH DOUBT!

You can almost hear them in the moment as you read the account: “This can’t be real, can it? I mean how can it be? It’s impossible!”

By now, you would think that doubt was the only thing they would consider impossible:

They’ve all witnessed Jesus’ miracles and yet they still doubted in this moment: Walking on water, Feeding thousands of people off of two pieces of fish and five loads of bread, ceasing storms, healing all manner of disease, and YES, even bringing the dead back to life!

Jesus told them this day was coming and yet they doubted. Matthew records at least three occasions where this is done…

Matthew 20:18-19 See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.

They received the report from the women in the group as they went to tend to body of Jesus only to find it gone and still doubted!

They saw with their own eyes the empty grave and they still doubted!

They received a report from the two who were heading to Emmaus and they still doubted!

You know I would like to think that if I spotted Jesus walking across the Mississippi River one evening maybe I wouldn’t doubt He could rise from the grave

I would like to think that if I handed Him a two piece catfish dinner that I got from the local fish house down the street (SHOUTOUT Boston Fish Supreme) and he fed thousands of people with it that maybe I wouldn’t doubt His resurrection.

I would even like to think that if I took Jesus down to Vicksburg Cemetery one Sunday after church and he called a recently deceased man out from His grave and that man ANSWERED, that maybe I wouldn’t doubt Him coming up from his grave later on.

Family, if you think that’s the case, it’s only because you don’t know how doubt actually works in the human heart.

Doubt doesn’t fixate on all the times that He answered. It instead locks in on the possibility that He maybe this time HE WON’T.

Doubt doesn’t fixate on all the times He told the truth. It will instead lock in on the possibility that maybe this time HE WON’T.

No matter how faithful He’s been. No matter how good He’s been. No matter how much he’s come through to take care of us. Doubt is always trying to creep in to say to us, “That was then…what about now!”

The Resurrected Christ Arrives Bringing Grace

Here’s what’s fascinating about this episode of doubt though: Christ meets them in their doubt with GRACE!

It is important for us to see that EVEN with the audacity they had to doubt given all the evidence they were provided they still were met with GRACE!

The Eleven answered his crucifixion with cowardice. They denied Him. They abandoned Him. Even in this very moment, they aren’t expecting His return. They’re actually locked up and hiding from the authorities in fear of their lives.

But how does Christ deal with that? Does He return with a harsh punishment for Peter for denying Him three times? Does He return ready to shame Thomas because He still doubts after all that He has done for Him?

No instead He returns with an ABUNDANCE of GRACE to share in the midst of their struggling faiths.

Some of us need to hear that because we think right now that God wants nothing to do with us because maybe we’ve allowed our faith to grow shaky during this season of trial and testing. We’ve seen Him answer time and time again and yet we still have the audacity to think that maybe he’s not listening now.

Some of us need to hear this because all we’ve ever had was doubt. We’ve never really trusted in Him and even now, He’s becoming realer to us but still the presence of our doubts keeps convincing us that we’re just too far away to try and come to Him.

No matter where you are in your doubts in the shallow waters or in the deep waters, you may at times feel a great deal of shame and think to yourself, why should I pray? Why would He want to hear from someone like me?

But don’t underestimate the abundance of His grace. He offers grace to the strugglers and He invites them into His presence so that their faith may be refreshed and restored. Don’t run from His presence as He draws near with grace. Lean IN.

The Resurrected Christ Arrives Bringing Peace

Also, pay attention, to the first words that Jesus offers this bunch.

They’re scattered, they’re scared, they’re doubting, they’ve denied Him, they’ve abandoned Him, they’ve forgotten so much of what He has shared with them.

AND YET, what are his first words: Peace to You!

One pastor theologian captures the moment with these words:

Exalting Jesus in Luke The Resurrected Lord 24

All of them had proved backsliders and cowards. And yet behold the return which their Master makes to his disciples! Not a word of rebuke is spoken. Not a single sharp saying falls from his lips. Calmly and quietly he appears in the midst of them, and begins by speaking of peace. “Peace be unto you.”

He is far more willing to forgive than men are to be forgiven, and far more ready to pardon than men are to be pardoned.

So Christ, with much grace and peace, bears with his brothers and helps turn their troubling doubt to joyful disbelief!!!

The Resurrected Christ Arrives With a Resurrected Body

So how does Jesus GRACIOUSLY and PEACEFULLY calm the doubts and the fears of His flustered followers?

Luke 24:38–40 ESV

38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

Look at my hands and my feet. Touch my nail scarred hands and feet and notice that I’m not a ghost, I’m not a hallucination, I’m not an apparition. I am REAL!

Jesus is making an important appeal here. He will not be relegated to an imaginary space and illusory sort of space that in a sense could be real but may in fact not be. No Jesus says I AM VERY REAL. Touch my feet. Touch my hands.

I’m HUNGRY! Do y'all have something to eat?

Why am I hungry because I AM REAL!

And keep in mind that it is in this state, that Jesus ascends into the Heavens…When he returns, he will return in this state!

Jesus in this very brief moment is answering a very important question for us. What should we expect in the resurrection of our own bodies?

It is not a move from purely physical to some ghost form. God is recreating us. He is not doing away with our present body. He is resurrecting it into a new creation!

Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 15

1 Corinthians 15:42–46 ESV

42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.

Most of us when we think about life after death. We think about this out of body, ethereal experience when in fact, God is doing something quite different. God is making something new from the old. We’ll be incorruptible and still be able to enjoy a great fish dinner like Jesus in this moment.

God is making a new heaven and new earth out of the present one. And not just us and our bodies, but all of Creation!

Romans 8:19–21 ESV

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Christ arriving in His resurrected body gives us a glimpse into our own resurrected glorious state!

The Resurrected Christ Arrives Bringing Fulfillment

Jesus also arrives on this final scene bringing fulfillment to all the words spoken by the prophets before His arrival to Earth.

Pick up in verse 44

Luke 24:44–46 ESV

44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,

We hear of this promise to suffer in many places one such place is Isaiah 53

His Promise to Suffer…

Isaiah 53:4–10 ESV

4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

If you say that it sounds a lot like Jesus you would be right

However, if you say that the time this was written must have been pretty close to the time of Christ’s death, you would be wrong.

Christ most likely died between 30 – 32 AD. Isaiah was written somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 BC! We are talking about a prophecy that was fulfilled over 700 years after it was declared! We take even further back to the very beginning at the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden where the Lord declares that the seed of the woman will come forth and crush the head of the serpent but the serpent will bruise his heel. In other words, the one chosen by God will conquer, but he will do so through suffering.

The Resurrected Christ arrives in this room, in this moment saying Peace To You because I’m REAL and THIS WAS ALWAYS APART OF THE PLAN!

His Promise to Rise!!!

Not only did Christ fulfill the prophecies concerning his suffering on the cross…Jesus also went a step further and fulfilled the prophecies concerning the resurrection!

Luke 24:46 ESV

46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,

Finding these prophecies are little more likely…as a matter of fact, it makes since how the disciples at first couldn’t see it…Hence the reason why we see Jesus HAVING TO OPEN THEIR MINDS to understand the Scriptures! He probably opened their minds to see Psalm 16:10-11

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Initially, the disciples would have looked at a text like this and immediately thought of David…but as Peter visited this same Scripture in his 1st sermon after the day of Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit came and later Paul from a Antioch synagogue in Acts 13 in the Antioch synagogues, we find the Apostles using this passage to reference Jesus and his resurrection power!

Therefore he says also in another psalm, You will not let your Holy One see corruption.

For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption.

(Acts 13:35-37 [ESV])

A text written possibly centuries before Christ being fulfilled through CHRIST!

THIS IS WHERE Jesus is VASTLY DIFFERENT from other religious figures!

All of Jesus’ claims take place on the stages of history AND in the PUBLIC SQUARE! Every claim He makes and prophecy spoken happens for all the world to see and witness!

His miracles are performed for the world to see! He’s hung for the world to see! He’s raised for the world to see! He is a Historical Savior

All other religious figures find their beginnings of their faith done in private…However, The prophetic fulfillment of Christ is on PUBLIC DISPLAY

So, the Jesus that shows up in this room on this night is not an abstract God with a vague testimony only known in secret. He was prophesied about. He foretold the world what He was going to do and even though very few actually understood Him and even fewer believed Him, He did exactly what He said He would do. In other words, His death, burial, and resurrection was again all apart of the plan.

APPLICATION: Sometimes the darkness can seem beyond God’s reach. It can feel hopeless and futile with no end in sight. In fact, I’m sure that is EXACTLY what was felt Friday and Saturday night for the disciples, but never lose sight of the truth that Sunday WAS ALWAYS apart of the plan.

Family of God, no matter how dark our situations may appear, RESURRECTION, New Heaven, New Earth, New Creatures, New Creation has been promised by the Resurrected Savior, so trust that it WILL HAPPEN! The struggles we experience WILL NOT STOP HIS PLAN for US!

So, He arrives bringing Grace and Peace, He arrives bringing Fulfillment, now lastly He arrives bringing Redemption.

The Resurrected Christ Arrives Bringing Redemption

Luke 24:46–49 ESV

46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

This is why the resurrection happened. Not just to flex. The Christ saves…

Forgiveness of sin is stated! You know what you don’t see? Riches…rescue from trouble…situations getting better…better jobs…wife…kids…dog…

NONE OF THAT will send you to HELL?

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? (Mark 8:36 [ESV])

Forgiveness of sin is listed with Repentance…Christ’s Death and Resurrection has enabled our Repentance to happen? It has unlocked us from the bondage of sin that will not allow us to turn.

What a privilege it is to be forgiven? But what a privilege it is to desire Christ over sin!

True Christianity doesn’t celebrate one without the other!

But it doesn’t end there, the God that saves through His resurrection…now sends us with Resurrected LIFE and RESURRECTED POWER!!!

The Resurrected Christ sends…

The Spirit will guide us, glorify Christ

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

(John 16:13-15 [ESV])

The Spirit will bring us life!

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

(Romans 8:9-11 [ESV])

He will enable you to change! He will turn your heart to Christ and away from sin! He will slowly and surely sanctify you and cause you to begin to have victory over sin!

The Spirit will intercede for us

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

(Romans 8:26-27 [ESV])

He knows the perfect prayers and can pray them on our behalf!

The Spirit will embolden us and empower us!

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8 [ESV])

The Spirit will seal us!

In him you also, when you heard [] the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, [] were sealed with the [] promised Holy Spirit, (Ephesians 1:13 [ESV])

Conclusion

The Resurrected Christ arrived into a house filled with despair bringing home. He showed up to a group of followers paralyzed by fear and doubt and He brought Grace and Peace, Fulfillment, and Redemption.

And He is still