*INTRO>If you were to take a survey on the street, asking folks to identify the greatest rolling stone, most would probably name Mick Jagger, although some might give a nod to Keith Richards because he is such a specimen and testimony of what damage prolonged drug use will do to your body. But the greatest rolling stone, hands down, so far as historical consequence and affect on people’s lives is not a rocker like Jagger or Richards, but a real rock...the stone that was rolled away from the entrance to the tomb of Jesus Christ.
->In the past several weeks we’ve looked at the events of Passover Week...from Jesus’ weeping outside Jerusalem on His way to a triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, to teaching His disciples on Thursday evening what it means to be a servant leader and how He is indeed the long-awaited Messiah, the Passover Lamb sent by the Father. We’ve looked at His final words spoken to the Sanhedrin, declaring unabashedly that He is indeed the Son of God, words spoken to Pilate declaring that He is a King, words spoken to the weeping women, telling them to weep for themselves. Then we examined Jesus’ final words from the cross, forgiving us all, declaring the salvation of a penitent thief, and taking care of His mother, followed by His words of tasting the thirst of sin, declaring the fulfillment of prophecy in Psalm 22 as He yelled out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”, followed by His declaration that love’s redeeming work was finished, and trusting His spirit over to the Father.
->But today we come to the culminating event of Passover Week, and the most important event in human history...the resurrection of Jesus, as revealed by the rolling stone.
->I know we read earlier from Matthew 27, but I want to ask you to open a Bible now and turn to John, chapter 20.
---The events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, like so many other events in Jesus’ life, require us looking at all the Gospel accounts in order to get the full picture of what took place.
->While you’re turning, let me say it again...I love Easter!
---ILL>A few years ago a dad was watching with great enjoyment his 3-year old daughter getting excited as Easter Sunday came closer and closer. Theirs was a family who made a big deal about Easter...hiding eggs, eating chocolate bunnies, buying new clothes, and going to church services together as a family, followed by a special meal. But the dad pulled his little daughter aside and asker her, “Jenny, do you know what the real meaning of Easter is?” The little girl looked up at her dad, and in the enthusiasm and wide-eyed innocence of a 3-year old, threw her hands out wide, and shouted, “Surprise!”
->That’s actually what the devil experienced...as did the religious leaders, the soldiers, and even Jesus’ followers, as what seemed to be the end of Jesus’ mission on Friday turned into such victory, and its full and new beginning on that Easter Sunday morning.
<>Today, we begin by acknowledging the fact that the stone was indeed rolled away. That’s without any dispute.
--It if wasn’t rolled away, we wouldn’t have seen what was inside.
<>Also, who rolled the stone away is documented in Matthew 27: an angel of the Lord rolled it away.
--In fact, literally, the Greek word translated into English tells us he rolled it UP and away...he rolled it uphill, which would explain how Joseph of Arimathea would have been able to roll it into place by himself...he rolled it downhill.
<>So, our focus today is on 3 primary questions, each of which brings greater meaning and practical applications to our lives:
--a) WHY was the stone rolled away?
--b) WHAT did the rolling stone reveal?
--c) HOW does it find meaning in our lives today?
<>WHY THE STONE WAS ROLLED AWAY...
1) It certainly was not rolled away to let Jesus out.
-->Jesus didn’t need the stone to be gone in order to come out of the tomb.
-->Later that night, in fact, He would appear to the disciples in a second-floor room while the doors were locked.
---Jn.20:19 -- “When therefore it was evening, on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’”
-->No, the Creator of the universe would not be in any way confined by a big rock over the entrance to the tomb.
2) The truth is, THE STONE WAS ROLLED AWAY TO LET US LOOK INSIDE.
-->It was rolled away so we could do just as the angel suggested to the women...to come and see that Jesus was indeed risen, just as He said.
---Mt.28:5-6 -- “And the angel answered and said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He WAS lying.’”
-->And looking inside is exactly what Peter and John did when they arrived, having been told by Mary Magdalene of the events of that morning.
--(Read John 20:3-10)...
<>WHAT WAS REVEALED...
1) Jesus’ body was gone, but the grave clothes were still there.
---Jn.20:6 -- “Simon Peter therefore also came and entered the tomb; and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there.”
2) AN IMPORTANT QUESTION WOULD HAVE TO BE ANSWERED: WHY WAS JESUS’ BODY NOT IN THE TOMB?
<>There is no question that Jesus died.
---Jn.19:32-34 -- “The soldiers...broke the legs of the first man, and of the other man who was crucified with Him; but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs; but one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.”
---Mt.27:59 -- “And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock; and he rolled large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away.”
---He was declared dead by the centurion in charge of the crucifixion, the coroner of the day.
----->Had the “criminal” not died, the coroner and all his underling soldiers would have suffered the same sentence as the criminal.
----->In this case, that would have meant crucifixion.
----->There’s no question that the centurion was certain Jesus was dead.
---A spear was thrust through Jesus’ heart, resulting in blood and water (the clear fluid from the pericardium surrounding the heart) came gushing out.
----->The clear fluid would not have been present except that the heart would have stopped beating prior to this event.
----->And either way, with a severely punctured heart, and no blood left in His body, Jesus’ death was certain.
---Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus stuffed one hundred pounds’ worth of spices into every orifice of Jesus’ body, and then tightly wrapped His body afterwards.
---Jn.19:38-40 -- “And after these things Joseph of Arimathea..asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission. He came therefore, and took away His body And Nicodemus came also...bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight. And so they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.”
----->That means Jesus wouldn’t have been able to breathe from 6pm on Friday until at least the same time on Saturday evening, the sundown that would have ushered in Sunday’s beginning according to the Jewish system of a day beginning at dusk of the evening.
----->Think about it: if Jesus had even been able to hold His breath for 24 minutes that would have been a new world’s record. Twenty four hours or more?...No, He was dead.
<>There is also no question that Jesus’ body was placed inside the tomb, witnessed by the women who showed up again on Sunday morning, only 36 hours after they had watched Jesus’ body being placed into the tomb.
<>Some have suggested that Jesus’ body was stolen.
--But by whom?
--->The disciples?
------All of them except John had proven to be the cowards of the county, too afraid to even show themselves in public on Friday!
------They had already demonstrated they had no skill whatsoever in swinging a sword.
------They met together on Sunday evening with the doors locked, for fear of the religious leaders!
------They all died by torture or in exile. Do you not think that at least one of them, with their proclivity for cowardice and with the ramifications that their families would also suffer needlessly, would, upon having the torture started, would have “confessed” to stealing the body, and that Jesus’ resurrection was actually faked?
------No, instead, what we find is from that from Sunday evening, after having met with Jesus in the upper room, the disciples became extraordinarily bold...not cowards anymore...because they were certain that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead.
--->The soldiers?
-------Why would they have wanted the bloody corpse of Jesus?
-------They would have been putting their own lives and family members on the track for crucifixions of their own.
-------There was no report of them or anyone else trying to sell or profit from the sale of any of Jesus’ remains.
-------Besides, they already had Jesus’ robe...they had thrown dice to determine which of them would get to keep the only item of value that Jesus possessed. What more would they want?
--->The religious leaders?
-------You can be assured they didn’t have Jesus’ body. Otherwise they would have gladly brought a screeching halt to Christianity by merely producing the body, and declaring the “myth” of Jesus’ supposed resurrection to be merely a theft on their part.
-And, if someone had come in and stolen Jesus’ body, why would he/she have left the grave clothes?
-------Why would they have gone to the trouble of stripping Jesus’ body and carrying it away in all its gross condition?
-------Why would they have taken the time and risked discovery to do so...and to even neatly roll up the face cloth?
-->No, the body wasn’t stolen. It would make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
<>Some others have suggested perhaps this all occurred at the wrong tomb!
-But think about it:
--->That would mean that Mary Magdalene and the other ladies would have been mistaken, that they would have somehow been confused and forgotten which tomb they had been at only 36 hours earlier.
--->It would mean that the religious leaders, so anxious to make sure that no one snatched Jesus’ body away didn’t make certain which tomb they were sending a military guard to stand outside of, and which tomb they placed the official Roman “seal” upon, a seal that carried with it the full authority of the Roman Empire.
--->It would mean that the soldiers didn’t bother to check and see that they were guarding the right tomb, all the while knowing that if somehow the prisoner they were supposed to be guarding somehow disappeared, they would be killed by the Roman government themselves.
--->It would also mean that Joseph of Arimathea, who had spent untold months hewing the tomb out of stone with his own hands, would somehow have had to have forgotten where his own tomb was!
--->And it would mean that the angel of the Lord was also mistaken...that he had shown up at the wrong tomb, rolled away the wrong stone, and had mistakenly declared Jesus alive!
-------In truth, if the angel was sitting on the wrong stone, his words to the ladies would have been, “He is not here, he’s....OVER THERE!”
->NO, WHEN THE STONE WAS ROLLED AWAY IT REVEALED THAT JESUS HAD DONE JUST WHAT HE SAID HE WOULD DO...HE ROSE AGAIN!
-->And it invites us, just as the angel invited the women, to come and see for ourselves that He did it!
---POEM: Philip Brooks once said it well... “Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer; Death is strong, but Life is stronger. Stronger than the dark, the Light; Stronger than the wrong, the right. Faith and Hope triumphant say, Christ rose victorious on Easter Day.”
<>WHAT THE EMPTY TOMB AND JESUS’ RESURRECTION MEANS TO US TODAY...
1) GOD’S POWER IS UNQUENCHABLE.
---Mt.19:26 -- “and looking upon them Jesus said to them, ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’”
---Lk.1:37 -- “For nothing will be impossible with God.”
-->GOD’S POWER IS GREATER THAN ANY OBSTACLE WE’LL EVER FACE.
--->If there ever was an obstacle “too big” it would have been death.
-->But...with death defeated, we know that nothing is too big for God.
----It was true on that historical occasion, but it is also true in our everyday lives.
---ILL>A little boy and his father were driving down a country road on a beautiful spring afternoon. Suddenly out of nowhere a bumblebee flew into their car window. Since the boy was deathly allergic to bee stings, he became petrified. But the father quickly reached out, grabbed the bee, squeezed it in his hand, then released it. As soon as he let it go, the son became frantic again as it buzzed by the boy’s ear. Once again the father reached out his hand, but this time he opened it up and pointed to it so the boy could see. There, still stuck in his skin, was the stinger of the bee. “You see,” the father said. “you don’t need to be afraid anymore. I’ve taken the sting for you.”
-->That’s the message of Easter: we don’t need to be afraid of death anymore. Christ faced death for us, and defeated it.
----Jesus, by His victory, successfully took the sting of death so that we might live.
-->1 Corinthians 15:55 asks, “Where, O death, is your sting?”
-----The answer: it has been taken away by Jesus’ resurrection.
-->Fear is gone. New life is ours.
-->JESUS HAS PAID OUR DEBT IN FULL.
-----The wages of our sin is death, but the free gift of God, presented to us in Jesus, is eternal life.
-----There is nothing left to be “earned” or “paid”.
-->Think about it:
-----If salvation was “earned” by our good works, then Jesus’ death and resurrection would be meaningless...and He would have suffered needlessly.
-----He did it because He was willingly paying our price.
-----He did it because He loved us so much He demonstrated it in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
2) GOD’S PROMISES ARE TRUE.
---2 Cor.1:20 -- “For as many as may be the promises of God, in Him they are yes; wherefore also by Him is our Amen, to the glory of God through us.”
-->Jesus predicted / promised He would rise again (“tear down this temple, I’ll rebuild it in three days”)...and He did it.
-->Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah completely...even the detailed ones, like what we noted two weeks ago in Jesus’ calling out Psalm 22 (“My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”) from the cross for the crowd to see with their own eyes, the unfolding prophecies of His suffering.
-->But Jesus finished Passover week, and finished His mission on earth with the biggest promise fulfillment of all...He rose again!
-->IF HE COULD FULFILL THAT PROMISE, HE CAN BE COUNTED ON TO COME THROUGH ON ALL HIS OTHER PROMISES.
-->Like His promise that He’ll never leave us, never forsake us.
-->And His promise that nothing we’ve ever done is too big for God to forgive.
-->And that nothing will ever be able to separate us from His love.
-->And that all things will work together for the good to those who love Him and are called according to His name.
-->And His promise that He’s gone ahead to prepare a place for us in heaven.
-->IT MEANS WE CAN GO CONFIDENTLY INTO THE FUTURE, RELYING ON GOD’S PROMISES, AND KNOW THAT OUR BEST DAYS ARE AHEAD OF US.
---ILL>Little Philip, born with Down’s syndrome, attended a 3rd grade Sunday School class with several other 8-year old boys and girls. Typical of that age, the children did not readily accept Philip with all his differences, and often made fun of him. One Sunday the teacher brought L’Eggs pantyhose containers, the kind that look like large eggs. Each child was instructed to go outside on that lovely spring day and find some symbol for new life, and put it in the egg-like container. Back in the classroom, they would show the whole class their new-life symbols, one at a time. So...after running around on the church’s property in wild confusion, the students returned to the classroom and placed their containers on the table. Surrounded by the children, the teacher began opening them one by one. After each one, whether a flower, butterfly, leaf, the class would ooh and ahhh. Then one was opened, revealing nothing inside. The children exclaimed, “That’s stupid! That’s not fair! Somebody didn’t do their assignment!” Then Philip spoke up, saying, “That’s mine!” The children turned on him, saying, “O, Philip, you don’t ever do things right! There’s nothing there!” Philip insisted, though, “I did too do it! It’s empty. The tomb was empty!” Silence followed. From then on Philip became a full member of the class. He died not long afterward from an infection most normal children would have shrugged off. At the funeral, this class of 8-year olds marched up to the altar, not with flowers, but with their Sunday School teacher, each one of them laying on the altar an empty pantyhose egg.
-->You see, BECAUSE THE TOMB IS EMPTY, OUR LIVES CAN BE FULL.
3) FOR BELIEVERS, DEATH IS NOT THE END.
---Jn.6:40 -- “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
---1Cor.15:20,22 -- “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep...For as in Adam all die, so also (those) in Christ shall be made alive.”
---2Cor.4:14 -- “knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.”
-->WE TOO WILL BE RESURRECTED.
-->The Bible tells us that Jesus is the first fruit of the resurrection.
-----“First” tells us that there are more to come.
-----And we, as believers, ARE those who will also rise.
---ILL>A bank in Binghamton, New York, had some flowers sent to a competitor who had recently moved into a new building. However, there was a mix-up at the flower shop, and the card sent with the arrangement read, “With our deepest sympathies.” The florist was greatly embarrassed, but the bank manager assured him he understood, that it was no big deal to him. The florist replied, “Well, thank you, but what I’m most concerned about is that means the card intended for this arrangement was sent to a funeral...so the message that will accompany the arrangement will read, ‘Congratulations on your new location!’”
-->You see, that’s exactly what the Bible tells us happens at the passage of a believer!
----In fact, the Greek word used in referring to the death of a believer, translated “departure,” is the word describing a ship raising its anchor in order to depart on a new voyage.
----The Bible tells us that, for a believer, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
------>We simply depart this life to begin our new voyage with the Lord throughout eternity...in heaven with Him.
4) JESUS IS COMING BACK.
---Jn.20:6-7 -- “Simon Peter also came...and he beheld the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth, which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.”
---1Thess.4:16 -- “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
-->The “napkin,” the face-cloth tells us so.
-->It is no accident that John recorded seeing the “napkin” that had covered Jesus’ head ROLLED UP and in a different place from the linens.
---In the Jewish custom of the first century, if you left the table after a meal and you were finished, not planning to return to the table, you would throw your napkin on the table, signifying you were not returning.
---However, if you were planning to return, you would fold up the napkin neatly, and roll it up, signifying you were coming back.
-->Jesus made sure to send the message to all who knew the tradition...and now to us today...HE’S COMING BACK.
BRINGING IT HOME...
->The resurrection of Jesus is the most astounding and most important event in all history.
->In fact, without the reality of Easter, there would be no reason for us to celebrate Christmas...or to celebrate anything else of any significance.
->But because Jesus rose again, we know ...
-----God’s power is bigger than the hour...bigger than any obstacle we might ever face.
-----God’s promises are true and reliable.
-----For believers, death is not the end, but actually only the beginning for a greater life to follow.
-----And, to cap it all off, we know Jesus is coming back again.
<>WE HAVE REASON TO CELEBRATE...
---BECAUSE JESUS IS RISEN! -- HE IS RISEN INDEED!
