The Emotions Of The Resurrection

EMOTIONS OF THE RESURRECTION

MATTHEW 28:1-10

#Easter2023

INTRODUCTION

Human beings are emotional. Emotions involve our minds and our hearts and sometimes our bodies as well. We feel anger and our blood pressure goes up or our face gets red. We feel anticipation and our mind races and it is hard to concentrate and our palms are sweaty, knees weak and arms are heavy. We can feel awe when in a place or admiring a piece of art or just looking up at the sky. Curiosity can lead to discovery, but it also killed the cat. Panic means we sweat buckets and talk fast and at times cannot think. Emotions are so complex. We can feel happy and sad at the same time which doesn’t make any sense. We can feel lonely in a crowded place which is more common than anyone would admit. Self-confidence is powerful, but one comment can shatter it. We feel fear that the preacher started his sermon the exact same way last week, but then have great joy to discover it is a different sermon.

It is Easter Sunday and today we will be looking at the beginning of Matthew 28 (verses 1-10) and we are going to continue to think about emotions, as we did last week, but the emotions we are going to think about today are not before the cross or on the cross, but after the cross and center on the resurrection of Jesus. I want us to keep in mind 2 questions:

What emotions were present after Jesus was resurrected?

What do these emotions share with us about our atonement in the blood of Christ?

DEFINITION OF ATONEMENT

This week is Easter Sunday where we center on the death of Jesus, but more importantly we think and reflect on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Jesus’ resurrection is all about atonement. I would like us to think about atonement. Atonement is what Easter is about. Yet, I don’t want to get too far before we define that word. “Atonement” is a word we do not use often and is quite possibly just a word we use in Church. Keeping God, the Bible, and the Christian faith in mind, “atonement” is the act by which God Almighty Himself restores a relationship of harmony and peace and forgiveness between Himself and human beings. The word itself gives us a clue…

‘at-one-ment’… it is the act of restoring a relationship whole or to the state of one and unity.

We must understand some basic truths about our spiritual selves for what Jesus said and did to make sense and for the at-one-ment based on His death and resurrection to make sense. These truths are not meant to be hard or complicated, but it might be difficult to accept.

These truths begin at the beginning of time when we believe God created the heavens and the earth and He created everything perfect. Morally perfect. Physically perfect. Nothing out of place. Right away something went wrong. God Almighty gave His created human beings a precious gift… free will. Adam and Eve (the first people) used that free will to do what they wanted against what God had said was right. They did wrong. They erred. That wrong and error is called sin. Sin separated human beings from God because God remained perfect and holy and we became imperfect and unholy.

Unknown to Adam and Eve, serious consequences flooded into their lives and creation. Sin ruined everything. Sinful people could no longer interact with the Holy God because a sin debt was created between people and God. Sickness happened. Thorns and storms and disasters happened. Death was introduced into creation. God, in His infinite wisdom and knowledge, knew this would happen, but He made us anyway because He already had a plan.

Salvation was needed.

Payment for sin was needed.

Forgiveness was needed.

Atonement was needed.

The sin that had happened… and continued to happen… needed to be made right, paid for, and satisfied. Again, keep in mind that sin creates a debt between people and God. God, in His wisdom and knowledge, also knew that we could not earn salvation or buy it or argue for it or luck into it.

God revealed His plan for us. The plan of God centers on Him sending One just like Him to Earth to fix what was broken to pay the debt and to make atonement. God sent Himself as a human being and His Name is Jesus. He sent His Son, Jesus the Christ, to live perfectly and to die on purpose and to raise from death to life. The whole purpose of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is to offer us redemption, grace, forgiveness, and freedom from guilt which we can put under an umbrella term of at-one-ment.