BIBLE MESSAGES ON EASTER
Bob Marcaurelle
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Message 6
Annual Sermons Text: Matt. 28:6; Acts 5:29-30
Vol. 9 No. 12 Bob Marcaurelle
JESUS’ RESURRECTION - ITS REALITY
AND MINISTRY
Thursday night, most of us probably saw the beautiful full moon shining down on Anderson. That is the same moon that shone down 2,000 years ago on Jesus Christ on His last night on this earth, as He knelt “neath the old olive trees” and prayed for the strength to die for you and me. It is the same moon that shone down 50 years ago today on a young Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his last night on this earth. He was hanged by the Nazis that next morning for His faithfulness to Christ. Today, I want to tie these two death, and our lives together and do it with the resurrection of Jesus.
I. THE REALITY (Matt. 28:6)
1. The Record.
The angel said, “He is risen!” At three o’clock in the afternoon, after six long hours of suffering “God only knows what,” as our sin bearer, the strong Son of God died. He whispered a prayer to the Father and gave up His spirit. This does not mean He as a living Person ceased to be. No. He went to be with the Father, but His body was dead. Life holds back the decay but now life was gone and decay was on its way.
The Jews had only three hours to finish their dirty work since their Sabbath began at 6:00 p.m., and they didn’t want dead bodies hanging around on their Sabbath. So they scurried like rats to Pilate and asked him to have his soldiers break the three victims’ legs and induce death. The soldiers did this, ending the lives and the misery of the two criminals.
But when they came to Jesus they saw He was dead. To make sure, one soldier stuck his steel spear into our Lord’s body and out lowed a mixture of blood and water. Some physicians see this as death caused by the literal bursting of the human heart. John tells us this fulfilled two Old Testament scriptures - not one of His bones will be broken and they will look upon Him whom they have pierced (Jn. 19:31-37). Even in death our blessed Lord was in control, fulfilling scripture.
The friends of Jesus, the women who stood by the cross, no doubt wept their hearts out with Mary His mother. But two new friends did more than weep. They were Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemas, two members of the Jewish Supreme Court, who probably were not invited to the crooked trial.
They were “secret disciples because of their fear of the Jews” (Jn. 19:38). But when the danger came of our Lord’s body being jerked down by soldiers and carted off to the garbage dump, their secrecy fell away. Taking their life in their hands they went and asked Pilate if they could take Jesus’ body and give it a decent burial. He agreed and they went to the cross, lovingly took the body of Jesus down, washed it (Acts 9:37), anointed it with spices, and wrapped it in layer after layer of linen, anointing each layer.
Then they, probably with the help of others, took it to Joseph’s family tomb, a cave carved in the side of a mountain, laid it inside, and rolled a large stone over the entrance. Then they, and the women who watched them do this, hurried to the houses where they were staying, to get there by the beginning of the Sabbath. Jesus was dead and buried! This is a fact of Roman and Jewish and human history!
From 6 p.m. on Friday to 6 p.m. on Saturday, the Sabbath, nothing could be done except weep over the terrible death of One so lovely. When 6 p.m. Saturday came, the women who ministered to Him in His ministry, went to work preparing spices to anoint the body. How long they worked into the night we don’t know, but early Sunday morning a group of them headed for the tomb with their spices. Among them were Mary Magdalene, out of whom Jesus had cast seven demons, Mary the mother of James, Salome, the mother of James and John, and Joanna (Mark 16:1; Luke 24:10).
At 6 p.m. Saturday our Lord’s enemies were also busy. Spending the Sabbath, no doubt, laughing at the death of Jesus, they felt free of this troublemaker. But then they remembered how He made the ridiculous claim that He would rise from death. Fearing His disciples might steal His body, and make this claim, they hurried to Pilate and asked him to seal the tomb, probably with clay, and put soldiers there to guard it (Luke 23:55-65).
Love is blind to obstacles, so as the women made their way at dawn it hit them that they wouldn’t be able to roll the stone away. Don’t worry, ladies! All heaven breaks loose when people show their love to Jesus.
A great earthquake has shaken the graveyard. An angel has come down like lightning, wearing bright white clothes. He has walked over to the stone, rolled it away and sat down on top of it. The guards were so frozen with fear they have become like dead men (Matt. 28:1-4; Mark 16:2-3). The women came, saw the stone rolled away, rushed inside and found the body gone. Sitting inside was the white robed angel and the women froze with fear as two angels stood beside them.
Then one angel said, “I know you are looking for Jesus Christ who was crucified. Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen just as He said. See the place where He lay. Remember how He told you when He was in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day rise from the dead” (Mt. 28:5-6; Mk. 16:1-6; Lk. 24:1-7).
The death of Jesus at the hands of wicked men is a fact of human history. But the resurrection of the body of Jesus, the reuniting of it with His spirit, in a glorified form is ALSO A FACT OF JEWISH, ROMAN AND HUMAN HISTORY.
For the next forty days He appeared no less than ten times. He talked; He cooked breakfast; He came through solid walls; He showed the scars in His hands and side; He appeared to the women, to Peter, to His Apostles, to His brother James, to two unknown disciples, and to 500 followers, giving them the task of world evangelism.
In Acts 1, on the fortieth day, the glory cloud of God reached won and lifted Him up in His Ascension to the highest throne of heaven (Acts 1:9-11). From there, ten days later, He poured out His Holy Spirit on the waiting church, to empower them to preach the good news of His sinless life, His sacrificial death and His supernatural resurrection from the dead.
2. The Reality. People laugh at this. They talk of Jesus only fainting on the cross and being revived by the cool tomb. They talk of the Romans, the Jews or the disciples stealing His body. All such talk is nonsense! We have the historical records. The twenty-seven Old Testament books say, “He rose from the dead!” We have the Christian church. As important as our Lord’s teachings are, He does not differ a great deal from the ethics of Judaism or other moral teachers. And we are not here today because of His teachings. We are here because we believe He lived a sinless life.
He was God in human nature. He died a substitutionary death for each of us. He rose from the grave. He sits today as King of kings on heaven’s highest throne. He will come to get us when we die. And one day He is coming again to judge every human being. This is the foundation of the Christian church and the very reason for our existence.
We have the faith of the disciples. When Jesus appeared to them that first Sunday they were hiding behind locked doors like rabbits, afraid the Sanhedrin would take them before Pilate and plant ten more crosses on Calvary (Jn. 20:19).
But a few months later they are hauled before this very Sanhedrin and told to stop preaching this nonsense about Jesus rising from the dead. They were thrown in jail and when an angel released them, they didn’t run to the hills like rabbits.
They went back to the Temple to preach the resurrection. The Sanhedrin seized them again and said, “We ordered you not to preach in His name yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. You are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”
And Simon Peter and all the apostles said, “We must obey God and not man! The God of our fathers RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD - the Jesus you killed by handing Him on a tree. God exalted Him to His own right hand as Prince and Savior . . .” (Acts 5:29-30).
These one time cowards laid their lives on the line and you don’t do this for a lie. The only explanation of their brave willingness to die was they had been with Jesus after He was crucified, dead and buried. The REALITY of the resurrection! And. . .
II. THE NECESSITY (Matt. 28:6)
The angel said, “He has risen JUST AS HE SAID” (Mt. 28:6). The resurrection was an absolute necessity. It confirmed the Old Testament scriptures like Isaiah 53:10 that said He would live beyond death to see the result of His suffering. It confirmed His word, time and time again, that He would rise (Mt. 12:40, etc.). It confirmed His claims of equality with God.
Paul said He was declared to be Son of God by His resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4). It completed Calvary and showed His sacrifice for our sins was accepted by God. Paul said, “He was delivered (into the hands of sinners) for our sins, but He was raised for our justification (Rom. 4:25).
Finally, it confirms our coming resurrection. Paul said, “By His power God raised the Lord from the dead and He will raise us also” (1 Cor. 6:14).
III. THE MINISTRY (Matt. 28:7; Acts 5:29-30)
The text gives, finally, the ministry to us of Christ’s resurrection. The angel said, “He is risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee” (Mt. 28:7). The Lord commissioned them to take the news of His death, resurrection and call to repentance and faith to the ends of the earth (Mt. 28:18-20). And He told Peter it would cost Him his life (Jn. 21:18-19). And from the bold stand of all the Apostles before the Sanhedrin we saw a few minutes ago, we know they were all willing to lay down their lives.
Fifty years ago today, the moon shone down on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a 39-year-old German Lutheran pastor, seven years older than Jesus, who dared stand against Hitler. On the morning of April 9, 1945, he was stripped naked and walked outside to face the gallows. It is said, “When little men (like these Nazis) cast long shadows, the sun is going down.” Maybe not. Listen to Mary Glazener’s description in her book THE CUP OF WRATH:
“The executioner, wearing an SS uniform, waited for him. Dietrich looked him straight in the eye until the man, at last, turned his eyes away. At the foot of the scaffold, Dietrich knelt and with his finger traced in the trampled earth the sign of the cross. He rose and surrendered his life into the hands of the Father.
“The executioner clamped Dietrich’s hands behind his back, then motioned him to the steps. Dietrich lifted his head, stood erect, and mounted the three steps. There he turned. Beyond the lights, beyond the men and the dogs, beyond the far wall on a distant hill the dawn lit up the trees. The sun was rising. Eleven days later, the camp was liberated by American soldiers.”
(THE ANDERSON INDEPENDENT, April 9, 1995).
