Matthew 27:57 – 28:10
57 As evening approached, Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea who had become a follower of Jesus, 58 went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. And Pilate issued an order to release it to him. 59 Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth. 60 He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance and left. 61 Both Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting across from the tomb and watching.
The Guard at the Tomb
62 The next day, on the Sabbath, the leading priests and Pharisees went to see Pilate. 63 They told him, “Sir, we remember what that deceiver once said while he was still alive: ‘After three days I will rise from the dead.’ 64 So we request that you seal the tomb until the third day. This will prevent his disciples from coming and stealing his body and then telling everyone he was raised from the dead! If that happens, we’ll be worse off than we were at first.”
65 Pilate replied, “Take guards and secure it the best you can.” 66 So they sealed the tomb and posted guards to protect it.
The Resurrection
28 Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb.
2 Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. 3 His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. 4 The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint.
5 Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying. 7 And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee . You will see him there. Remember what I have told you.”
8 The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message. 9 And as they went, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee , and they will see me there.”
The Report of the Guard
11 As the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and told the leading priests what had happened. 12 A meeting with the elders was called, and they decided to give the soldiers a large bribe. 13 They told the soldiers, “You must say, ‘Jesus’ disciples came during the night while we were sleeping, and they stole his body.’ 14 If the governor hears about it, we’ll stand up for you so you won’t get in trouble.” 15 So the guards accepted the bribe and said what they were told to say. Their story spread widely among the Jews, and they still tell it today.
I want to talk about 2 key questions this morning:
- Did Jesus really come back to life on the third day?
Most people are happy to accept Jesus as a really good man, an inspired teacher who even possibly chose to sacrifice himself for others, but isn’t it a bit much to expect intelligent people to believe that he expected to come back to life on the third day and then actually pulled that off? Isn’t it a bit much to expect an angel to move the stone and for Jesus to suddenly appear and disappear in a bunch of different locations before leaving to go and be in Heaven with God the Father? Surely that’s just a story his followers made up.
- Does it matter anyway?
What difference does it make if you believe that story or not anyway? Can’t you follow the teachings of Jesus just as well if you don’t go in for that resurrection stuff?
We’re going to start with the second question before we come back to look at the first. We need to decide if the resurrection really matters to see if it’s even worth bothering to find out if it happened or not.
Does the Resurrection Really Matter?
I was watching the news on TV last night and I saw a report about a group of three friends who put in to buy a Lotto ticket together. They won 13 million bucks! The problem is, that money has been frozen by the courts because the three guys have gotten into a fight about how it should be split up between them!
It reminds me of a story in the gospel of Luke…
Luke 12:13-21
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
Do you see what Jesus is saying here?
We don’t know how long we have on this earth. From God’s point of view, thinking only of our own happiness and comfort on this earth, with no thought of eternity, is foolishness. He wants the person in the crowd to stop fighting about money, which is temporary and can only buy temporary pleasures, and start thinking about what God thinks of his life. He wants this person to trust God, not money; and to want to please God, rather than squabbling to have his own desires satisfied.
As He often did, Jesus then gives more detailed instructions to His closest followers.
Luke 12:22-34
22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
27 “Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29 And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30 For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31 But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.[2]
On this occasion He is teaching His disciples to live with trust in God and generosity toward others. He contrasts selfish grasping to selfless giving. Selfish grasping comes about when we rely on our own resources and so we fight to get what we need, selfless giving comes from a reliance on God to provide for us. If you really trust God you will be generous toward others as He wants you to be. That’s why looking at a person’s finances is a great way to gauge the strength of their faith in God!
But Jesus doesn’t just promise that God will give us what we need in this life – He promises that God will give us “the kingdom”. He urges us to lay up treasures in heaven by living lives of trust and obedience here on Earth.
The passage continues…
Luke 12:35-40
35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 37 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”
Whenever a king visits his subjects, he would expect to be served, and he would expect gifts to be given to him. That’s just how things work, right? Kings are a big deal, and ordinary folks are… ordinary!
Yet when Jesus returns, He is bringing with Him a kingdom which God is pleased to give us! Part of that includes rewards for the service we have offered to Him in our lives. Not only that, but Jesus even describes the master as waiting on his own servants at the table as a reward for their faithfulness. This is a great picture of God’s delight in his faithful servants and His intention to bless them. But none of this makes sense without the resurrection.
In Luke 12 there are two warnings given. The first points out that none of us know how long we have on this earth before we die and face judgment by God for the lives we have led. The second points out that none of us know how long it will be until Christ returns to judge the Earth and establish His kingdom. So be ready!
But how can Christ return if He is dead? How can He speak about life after death with any authority unless He demonstrates its that there is such a thing?
I want you to understand that the teaching of Jesus were inextricably intertwined – you could not separate them – from His expectation to die for our sins, come back to life on the third day, ascend into heaven and then one day return. He had all of that in view when He taught people how to live.
Jesus taught that the manner of our life in this life prepares us for the manner of our life in the next. If you accept Him in this life He will accept you in the next. If you deny Him in this life He will deny you in the next (Matt 10:32-33).
None of this makes any sense if there is no life after death!
You can’t say Jesus is a good teacher if he is lying about the reality of life after death.
That’s why in 1 Corinthians 15:19 Paul says “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”
If Jesus did not fulfill His promise to rise from the dead, how can we be expected to believe that He truly was God? If He did not fulfill His promise to rise from the dead, how can we be expected to believe that He qualified as a sinless substitute for us? He was a liar! If He did not fulfill His promise to rise from the dead, how can anyone else expect anything at all after death? It remains a terrifying mystery or a welcome void.
Furthermore, if Jesus did not really rise from the dead, why should we trust anything else that the Bible says about Him? We are left with no foundation for this life or the next, except our own ideas.
The resurrection of Jesus matters because it is our guarantee of life after death. It is our guarantee of the reality of salvation through Jesus Christ. It is the reality that shapes the way we live in this life, with Jesus as our Saviour and our Master. We live as people striving to be ready to depart to be with Him, and people who are ready should He come to be with us!
There is another vital reason that the resurrection matters, and that is Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to live within us until our time comes to be with Christ in person. Before Jesus returned to Heaven He promised that He would not leave us alone, but that He would ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit to come and live within us. Because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we have a personal connection to God at all times. We will reflect more on this in just over a month’s time when we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, the anniversary of the occasion where the Holy Spirit came and filled the first Christians with supernatural power. He continues to live within God’s people today, helping us to know Christ and live for Him day by day. That couldn’t happen without the resurrection of Jesus.
Glenn Stevens, governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia
"I would say that, despite claims to the contrary, there is a God. This is worth checking out and the critical issue people have to deal with is, was Jesus Christ who he claimed to be? If he wasn't then you can forget about it, and if he wasn't then I am living in a fool's world."[3]
Christianity only makes sense with a risen Christ. We don’t follow a dead man we follow the risen Lord!
Did the Resurrection Really Happen?
OK, so if the resurrection really is important, can we be sure that it actually happened or are we basing our whole lives on a myth? Are we living in a “fool’s world” as Glenn Stevens put it?
I believe in looking at both sides of an argument, so I’ve read arguments for and against the resurrection. I’ve read plenty of theories about what else might of happened on that first Easter. We don’t have time to go over every single argument today, but we’ll cover a few of the basics. Let me just say though as far as I have discovered, it is a lot harder to believe Jesus didn’t rise from the dead than it is to believe He did! A lot of people dismiss the resurrection because it is impossible – it’s impossible for a man to say that He would die and rise again on the third day then actually do it. It’s impossible that this would fulfill prophecies made hundreds of years previously. The only way this could happen would be if this person were not just a man, but that He was something more than a man. That’s the key issue. If you are prepared to believe that there is a God and open to the evidence of His existence, I believe that the evidence for the resurrection wins hands down! If you are not prepared to acknowledge the existence of God, then you have no option but to ignore or reject anything that suggests you are wrong. That’s why we have so many other crackpot theories about what might have happened instead of what actually did happen.
I’m going to respond to a few crackpot theories very briefly…
Crackpot Theory 1 – Jesus didn’t really die in the first place!
You mean Roman soldiers couldn’t tell if someone was really dead? To be on the safe side, one of them thrust a spear into His side – not a gentle jab, but a killing thrust delivered by a professional soldier. The blood and water that flowed were evidence of the internal trauma Jesus suffered due to blood loss which led to His organs shutting down. After that, Jesus still hung on the cross for some time while arrangements were being made for His burial – it wasn’t the case of making a few calls on a mobile phone! He was then wrapped in layers of bandages and spices which would surely suffocate even a person who was in the best of health to start with, and left for a couple of days with no water, food or medical assistance of any kind. Then somehow He needs to move a 2 ton boulder, overpower a group of probably between 10 and 30 professional soldiers and make His escape!
Crackpot Theory 2 – Jesus’ followers looked in the wrong tomb
I’ll do this with…
Crackpot Theory 3 – Jesus’ followers stole his body
The rise of Christianity caused a huge storm in Jerusalem and across the Roman empire within only a few years of Jesus’ death. The Jewish and Roman authorities knew where Jesus was buried, and could have stopped the whole thing by simply producing His body. Even if His followers couldn’t find the real tomb, these people would have! But the fact was that they had the tomb but not His body, so they needed a story to cover that fact.
Matthew’s gospel tells us that the guards were paid to accuse the disciples of stealing the body while they were asleep.
It’s hard to imagine a whole group of men sleeping through a 2 ton boulder being rolled up a stone channel (how many men would it take to do that I wonder?). It’s hard to imagine that every single soldier would fall asleep when the mission was so critical to the political stability of the region, and such a gross failure of duty would almost certainly result in execution. It’s also hard to imagine the same guys who ran away in the garden of Gethsemane
Crackpot Theory 4 – The Resurrection Story was invented much later on, when the original witnesses had died off.
Lies have a way of being found out. If the disciples stole Jesus body or just claimed that they had seen Him after He had died, eventually someone would have let the truth slip. One of them would have changed their story under torture. One of them would have bragged to a grandchild about their daring raid on the tomb. One of them would have confessed out of a guilty conscience. None of those things happened, which has led many people to conclude that they were telling the truth. But what if they never claimed Jesus rose from the dead, but that part of the story was written in later on, after the first Apostles and Christians had died out?
We know from a large volume of ancient documents that the resurrection account was a vital part of the teaching of Christianity right from the beginning. Many of the apostles and early Christians were tortured and killed because of their hope in the resurrection. This affirms that they had either seen the resurrected Jesus themselves or trusted the testimony of those who had. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he tells them that many of those who saw Jesus after his resurrection were still alive.
We could list many other evidences for the resurrection of Jesus and against the alternative theories, but I want to close off today by bringing the focus back to us.
- What difference will the resurrection make for you?
- Will you acknowledge that Jesus is who He claimed to be?
- Will you trust that His death paid the penalty for your sins and that His resurrection proved the reality of life after death?
- Will you accept forgiveness and live with Christ as your King?
- Will your daily life demonstrate the reality that this is what you have decided?
You can’t claim to live by the teachings of Jesus if you deny His resurrection, but if you believe in Jesus as your risen Saviour you must live by what He taught.
Is your life demonstrating the truth of Easter?
[1]Tyndale House Publishers. (2004). Holy Bible : New Living Translation. "Text edition"--Spine. (2nd ed.) (Mt 27:57-28:15). Wheaton , Ill.
[2]Unless otherwise noted, all Scriptures are from The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Grand Rapids
[3] “Stevens uses 'God given capabilities' to steer economy” ABC News – www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/31/2861385.htm .
