After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake …“Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. (Matthew 28:1,2, 5-6)
Some years ago while living in Ontario and obviously bored . . . my son–in-law Chuck and I decided to raise Turkeys. Now the only thing I know about raising turkeys is with a fork, but the fact that we didn’t have a clue about raising them didn’t stop us. After all, we had bought “Storey’s Guide to Raising Turkeys” – and thanks to my English teacher Ms. Shaw I could read. Chuck could read too, I think!
We bought 50 chicks from the local co-op, picked up a ‘brooder’ lamp, a bag of starter feed – and we were in business. The turkeys came in a box about 10 days later and they peeped and stared at me like I was their mother whenever I peeked under the lid. Huddled together, they looked like Hobo’s in a box car.
What the grandchildren didn’t know was that the turkeys and I had made an agreement. I had agreed to shelter and feed them, and they had signed on to eventually give up their life come October.
Muslim tradition says that when you kill an animal you are supposed to look it in the eye until its soul departs –
but I didn’t have the heart to do it –
after all I had 50 executions to do.
“In the fullness of time” Chuck and I packed our feathered friends off to a local butcher. And the next day, at the appointed3:00 p.m. hour, as the afternoon sun streaked the October sky orange ― the Turkeys met their Maker.
The turkey I decided to keep for our family table . . . ‘rested’ in the refrigerator for a couple of days – like Lazarus in a tomb. On Thanksgiving morning, I pulled the cadaver from the tomb of the fridge ... and like a young mom bathing her baby, I rubbed olive oil and salt over every part of his body. Next I embalmed ‘Tom,’ slipping garlic cloves, herbs and butter under his skin. And when I put him into a 425 degree oven that Thanksgiving Day, that day was transformed from a funeral into a dinner party.
Well, today’s story, taken from Matthew 28 is a much older story than the more modern one I have just told you. Just two days ago was a Good Friday Funeral. Today that solemnity has morphed into an Easter Sunday Dinner Party — a celebration of the sacrifice of Christ, the victim who fulfills His messianic expectations and rescues us from our spiritual graves by rising from the dead. Quite the difference between Friday and Sunday, eh?
Good Friday stresses the cross and our need for a Saviour. After all, we are all sinners by birth … by nature … and by choice. We are spiritually crippled. We need help outside of ourselves. And that is why Paul declares in Romans 5:8 “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
On the surface it looked like the lights went out on Good Friday. On the surface it appeared that unbelief and feelings had trumped truth and faith. On the surface it seemed death’s fingers had overcome heaven’s divine hand. However, what we see is not always what is! The real story behind the news of Good Friday is that Christ was our substitute who satisfied the demands of God’s righteous judgment by dying in our place. From that funeral comes Easter Sunday — with its message by an angel that Christ is Risen.
One person I know described this holiest weekend in the Church’s calendar as the “Christian Super Bowl’. You might not like the analogy – but the fella was right!
Today we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. When Christ rose from the grave.
Today we celebrate the fulfillment of that prophetic word spoken to the serpent in Gen. 3:15 -- "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed: he shall bruise your head," In one master stroke, for those who believe in Christ — hell, death, the devil and sin have all been destroyed.
Today the truth of Romans 4:25 suddenly became operative in our lives and … in our standing before God, where Jesus not only “… put to death for our sins [but] was raised to life for our justification.”
The death of Jesus Christ was the payment of our debt. But “Up from the grave He arose” and when Christ rose His resurrection was the receipt. It certified the payment, it verified the payment, it proved the payment had been made . . . and it shuts the mouths of those who would like to contest it.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the authentic document that powerfully proves that God has received the payment of our guarantee ... that He has agreed to it ... that He is content with it, and that we should not fear the investigations of His justice or the condemnations of His tribunal. And if the devil or our consciences presents our sins again to us, this Resurrection Receipt shuts them up too.
True, our sinfulness was cancelled by His sinlessness;
True, our guilt was absolved by His innocence;
True, our deserved penalty was paid by His sacrifice.
But the resurrection of Christ depended on God’s power to raise Him from death to life. So, let’s make sure we have the story right folks. Jesus did not raise Himself from the death – God did.
Ephesians 1:20 “That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He [God] exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the death and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms ...”
Romans 8:11 says “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”
And when Peter preached to the crowd in Acts 2 on the Day of Pentecost, his testimony in v. 32 was “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.”
Mary did not expect a dead Jesus to be raised. And Mary certainly did not expect a risen Jesus to come back for her. Yet, on Easter Sunday he did both.
Now that — is amazing!
A few years ago, I was in Nepal teaching in a seminary. One late afternoon, after class I hopped a ride on a student’s motor cycle and went downtown. Some 25 minutes later in the middle of a congested Kathmandu city street a powerful earthquake out of China struck the city and buildings all around me started to shake, rattle and sway. Like ants on their way to a family picnic, armies of people evacuated the office buildings ― seeking the relative safety of the middle of the street.
The Gospel of John says that when Peter and John got to the tomb on Easter morning, they found it empty and so they went home (20:10) The earth shook – and you go home? Are you kidding?
In Luke 24, 2 disciples of Jesus are on their way to Emmaus. Jesus shows up unannounced and unrevealed . . . and the 2 disciples say to this apparent stranger “Some women (v. 22) told us that Jesus was alive . . . but we already had a dinner engagement in Emmaus and we couldn’t change our reservations.” Really? Jesus is raised from the dead and you can’t cancel lunch? The earth shook – and you go home? Are you kidding?
But Matthew 28 says that when there was Easter, the whole earth shook (28:2). Matthew cannot seem to escape the significance connected to the Resurrection.
In the Gospels, Luke does Easter as a Sunday evening meal with Jesus; John has a resurrected Jesus encounter Mary Magdalene in the garden . . . but for Matthew, Easter is an earthquake, with doors shaken off tombs and dead people walking the streets and an imprudent angel sitting on the stone that had sealed the tomb. I hope you see the connection today: Easter is an earthquake that violently shakes our world.
Some folks look for ways to ‘explain’ the resurrection. “Well,” say some, “Jesus was only in a deep, drug-induced sleep and simply woke up.” Others suggest that the disciples were simply victims of their own over-worked imagination. But let’s admit that we cannot explain a resurrection. Resurrection explains us. Think of it . . .
Not a single disciple expected Jesus to live. Really?
Some simply returned home . . . and the 2 Emmaus travelers simply continued on their way even though they had been told Jesus was alive (Luke 24:23). Really?
And the women were no better because in Mark 16, when an angel told 3 women that Jesus was alive and to go tell the disciples, verse 8 says “they said nothing to anyone...” Really?
Not one of them expected Easter! Jesus ran a good campaign, but unfortunately he never got elected. “We had hoped, but it never worked out. Let’s go for lunch.” So, death and defeat become our last words.
These are the facts. What gets tied down, stays down; what dies stays that way. There are few surprises in life. This is us!
But Easter is about God! About God who makes a way when there was no way; the God who makes war on evil until evil is undone; the God who raises dead Jesus to show us who is in charge in this world. On Good Friday the world did all it could to Jesus; on Easter Sunday, God did all He could to the world. And the earth shook!
You don’t explain the earthquake. Like me on a motorcycle in downtown Kathmandu, you witness the earthquake. That is why Jesus 1st appeared to His own disciples – because they could confirm for sure that this was Jesus. Imagine . . .
Jesus comes back to forgive every disciple who had deserted Him. And the earth shook!
Jesus comes back to show us the purpose of those nail prints in His hands. And the earth shook.
Jesus comes back to prove that a new world has been made visible. And the earth shook.
Jesus comes back to demonstrate that our realities are not His. And the earth shook
Jesus comes back to deliver us life in a different envelope. And the earth hook.
Jesus comes back to destroy cheap grace, sloppy love and our gold-plated crosses. And the earth shook.
Jesus comes back to remind us that He took all of our sin and shame away. And the earth shook.
Jesus comes back to prove the truth of 2 Timothy 1:10, that He has “. . . destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” And the earth shook.
Today is Easter Sunday . . . and I want to announce to you that with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ we have moved from a funeral to a dinner party; from a crypt to a celebration; from a Paradise Lost to a Paradise Restored.
Today is Easter Sunday . . .and I want to announce that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave led the earth to shake . . . and when Jesus appears a 2nd time to take all of His disciples with Him . . . the earth is going to shake again. I promise you!
On this Easter Sunday I remind us that our sins have been forgiven on the Cross and our great destiny / future has been shaped by Christ’s Resurrection from the grave. In response to His great love and amazing work, I pray today that each one of you will not miss this opportunity to believe in Christ through faith. When you do, your life will shake as well – resonating with new hope.
In Ephesians 1:18-19 the Apostle Paul prayed that we would know how rich we are in Christ. Today – this Easter Sunday, this is my prayer for you:
“I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”
“Only Saying …”
Comments