Responses to the Resurrection

“Responses to the Resurrection”
(Matthew 28:1-17)
Easter Sunday 2015

Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD

Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson

•I invite you to join me this morning in Matthew’s Gospel, the 28th chapter (page 672; YouVersion).

It is Easter Sunday so we are hitting the pause button on our series in the Book of James in order to focus on a passage of Scripture that teaches explicitly on the resurrection of Christ.

There are over a hundred references in the New Testament to the resurrection and it is a theme found throughout the entirety of the New Testament. We have the Gospel accounts themselves, such as the one we’ll read in a moment here in the 28th chapter of Matthew. And then we have the Book of Acts which is largely a book about the early church’s proclaiming the resurrection of Christ. Then we have the epistles, letters written based on the fact of the resurrection and then finally the Book of Revelation tells us of the now risen Christ reigning from heaven, and so the entire New Testament proclaims the truth of the resurrection.

In Matthew 28 we have an historical narrative of the facts from 2,000 years ago. Matthew writes about what took place on that first Easter morning.

•Please stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

1 Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it.
3 His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.
4 And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.
5 But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.
6 He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
7 And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.”
8 So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.
9 And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him.
10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.”

•Pray.
Introduction:

Two news stories from the past week got my attention. The first from Wednesday as sources reported that Japan’s Misao Okawa, the world’s oldest woman, passed away in a nursing home in western Japan. She was born in 1898. She died Wednesday at the age of 117 years old. Ironically, Misao Okawa had recently described her life as “rather short.” 117 years old.

Then, from yesterday’s edition of the Washington Post, a story headlined as: “The Human Upgrade.” The subtext reads, “Tech titans’ latest project: Defy death.” Then, the introductory text, “For centuries, explorers have searched the world for the fountain of youth. Today’s billionaires believe they can create it, using technology and data.”

The story is about Peter Theil, the man who co-founded PayPal, who is collaborating with other technology executives, wealthy persons such as the men who founded the companies of Google, Facebook, and eBay. These men are using their billions in an effort to use technology to reverse the effects of disease and death.

According to the writers of the Washington Post article:

The entrepreneurs are driven by a certitude that rebuilding, regenerating and reprogramming patients’ organs, limbs, cells and DNA will enable people to live longer and better. The work they are funding includes hunting for the secrets of living organisms with insanely long lives, engineering microscopic nanobots that can fix your body from the inside out, figuring out how to reprogram the DNA you were born with, and exploring ways to digitize your brain based on the theory that your mind could live long after your body expires.

Sounds a bit like Huxley’s Brave New World, doesn’t it? The story gives an interesting quote from Larry Ellison, founder of the software company Oracle:

Larry Ellison has proclaimed his wish to live forever and donated more than $430 million to anti-aging research. “Death has never made any sense to me,” he told his biographer, Mike Wilson. “How can a person be there and then just vanish, just not be there?”

Well, on the one hand I applaud this work to donate money for medical research in an effort to fight disease and extend human lifespans. I also think it is pretty magnanimous for these entrepreneurs to donate as much money as they are to these efforts. On the other hand, the idea that through technological advancement that we can somehow stop the death process altogether is an altogether different matter.

Death is not so much technological as it is theological. The reason human beings die—and the reason all life ends—is ultimately not for lack of medical research and technology, but because of an inherent problem called sin. The Bible teaches in Genesis chapter 3 that sin entered into the world through our first parents, Adam and Eve. Paul puts it this way in Romans 5:12, “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

The only way to solve the death problem is to solve the sin problem. So again the answer is ultimately not technological, but theological. And man cannot solve the sin problem. God must do it.

The resurrection is God’s solving the death problem by solving the sin problem. This is why our study of the resurrection is so important. Aside from its factual place in history as a real event occurring in real space and time, the resurrection is clearly a relevant doctrine given man’s pursuit of eternal life any way he can hope to find it. These technological titans evince the inherent desire within God’s image-bearers that surely there is more to life than some 80 years—or, in the unusual case of Misao Okawa—117 years.

Yes, there is more to life than the relatively short number of years we live on this planet. Life can be eternal if we embrace the truth of the resurrection. Life can be eternal if we respond correctly to the fact of Christ’s resurrection.

I want to talk about different responses to the resurrection. Responses to the resurrection. Matthew records at least three different responses to the empty tomb here in Chapter 28. There are at least these three different ways of responding to the truth of the resurrection. And I believe that these responses of different persons 2,000 years ago has remained largely unchanged. We have not changed much as human beings and so I think we may look around and note these same three responses.

If you are a note taker, you may jot these down. The first response to the resurrection is to respond with delight. We read of this a moment ago as we read of these women who were the first to see the empty tomb. Let’s look again at these introductory verses of Chapter 28.

Some Respond with Delight (1-10)

We are told in verse 1:

The guards, placed there to guard the tomb in an effort to keep anyone from stealing the body, these guards shook for fear of the angel of the Lord. It really is quite a scene! This angel of the Lord comes down from heaven, rolls back the stone from the door of the tomb and sits on it.

Matthew tells us in verse 3 that the angel’s face “was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.” So no surprise, verse 4, “And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men.”

This seems to be the consistent reaction to those who encounter angels in the New Testament. Our culture is awash with the love of angels and stories of angels and the impression that angels are cute little white winged creatures that are sort of soft and cuddly. It’s instructive that when we read about angels in the New Testament we get a different picture altogether. These angels often evoked fear in those to whom they appeared. They are, after all, heavenly beings and we would expect to have a sense of fear and wonder if ever we encountered one.

In his parallel account, Mark tells us that the women were worried about how they were going to move the stone away from the tomb in order to get inside and apply spices to the body of Jesus. Mark tells us that the stone was very large and of course Matthew tells us at the end of chapter 27 that a guard had been set there to secure the tomb and that the tomb was sealed.

So the angel comes down and removes the stone and sits on it.

Vainly they watch his bed, Jesus my Savior,
Vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord!

And already we get the impression that if there is to be an answer to the death problem then it is going to have to come down from above. Heaven intervenes. An angel of the Lord comes down to open death’s door. Vainly they seal the dead, but God comes down. God intervenes and death becomes life.

The same is necessary for us today. We are born dead in trespasses and sins. If we are to have life we need divine intervention. We need God to come down and give us life. We need to be rescued from the grave of our sin and shame.

Heaven came down and glory filled my soul!

5 But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid (like the guards, they too were initially full of fear), for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.
6 He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
7 And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.”

Now verses 8 and 9 are especially important to our study this morning:

8 So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear (we’ve noted that already) and (what else?) great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.
9 And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him.

See the joy of these women?! They respond to the resurrection correctly. There is the expected fear and wonder and there is this “Great joy.” They believed what they saw.

And I love what Matthew describes in verse 9, that “as they wen to tell His disciples (about the empty tomb), behold, Jesus met them, saying, ‘Rejoice!’ So they came and (note this) held Him by the feet and worshiped Him.”

Now, by the way, note that Jesus accepts their worship which means, among other things, that Jesus considered Himself equally divine as God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He accepts the acknowledgement of this act of worship. He is not merely a good moral teacher; He is God.

The women “held him by the feet and worshiped Him.” They respond to the resurrection with great delight. You can embrace God Himself by embracing Jesus. The One True God takes on flesh so that men and women can come to Him and hold Him. You can hold God as you hold Jesus. Wow.

Well, we must move on, verse 10:

10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.”

Now, we’re talking about different responses to the resurrection. The first response is to respond with delight. The second response is to respond with denial.

Some Respond with Denial (11-15)

What we have in verses 11-15 is a conspiracy to deny the truth of the resurrection. It is a deception crafted in an effort to squelch the truth of the empty tomb.

11 Now while they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened.

Imagine that conversation! Some of these guards appearing before the chief priests. The chief priests are like, “So how did it go last night?” And they’re like, “Well, not too bad—I mean except for the part about the tomb being empty.” What?!

Matthew tells us in verse 11 that the guards “reported to the chief priests all the things that had happened.” So they told about the great earthquake and they told about the angel of the Lord and how the angel moved the stone and then sat on it. They told about the angel’s face looking like lightning and his clothes being as white as snow. And they told about how they themselves—these tough, crusty, Roman soldiers—how they had shook with fear and become like dead men. They told “all the things” that had happened.

The soldiers certainly have no reason to lie. They failed to secure the tomb. To fail in one’s duty as a soldier was a failure typically punishable by execution.

Now you’d think that the chief priests—the chief priests!—these are religious people; you’d think that the chief priests would be like, “Well, maybe we got it wrong about this Jesus of Nazareth being the Messiah,” but no. They respond to the truth with denial. Verse 12:

12 When they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers,
13 saying, “Tell them, ‘His disciples came at night and stole Him away while we slept.’
14 And if this comes to the governor’s ears, we will appease him and make you secure.”
15 So they took the money and did as they were instructed; and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.

So you have the reality of the resurrection but the response is denial. The Jewish leaders deny the truth in an effort to preserve their religious leadership and power. And the Roman soldiers deny what they had plainly seen with their own eyes in order to protect their jobs and their lives.

It’s fascinating, isn’t it? I mean, think about this: The very fact that these folks conspired together to counter the truth of the resurrection argues for the authenticity of the empty tomb.

The tomb must have been empty or the Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers would have never made up this counter argument. The tomb was empty so they had to explain why. There would be no need for this fabrication if the tomb were not empty.

But they responded with denial. People today respond similarly. Man hasn’t changed. Matthew writes in verse 15 that this particular deception, this particular denial, was “commonly reported among the Jews until this day,” that is up to the very day that Matthew wrote his gospel. And this denial continues in our day.

It’s simply a fact that the tomb was empty. I mean you’ve got the early church proclaiming the truth of the resurrection all through the Book of Acts. Disciples died for their faith in Christ and their belief that Christ had risen. No disciple dies for what he knows to be untrue. If the unbelieving religious leaders or the Romans knew were the body of Jesus was, they would have dragged it through the streets of Jerusalem, putting an end to the preaching of the resurrection. But such was not the case. The tomb was empty, hence the need for the counter story.

Some respond to the resurrection with delight. Some respond to the resurrection with denial. Thirdly:

Some Respond with Doubt (16-17)

16 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.
17 When they saw Him (and this would be the larger number of disciples, the 11 plus many others who gathered together), they worshiped Him; but some doubted.

Some doubted. I have always been struck by those words given they describe people who had witnessed the resurrected Christ. Some doubted.

These are people who had seen Jesus in His resurrected body. They knew Jesus had been crucified. They knew He had died. They knew He had been buried in a tomb belonging to a wealthy fellow named Joseph, a trusted man from Arimithea. They knew all of this and had the distinct privilege of seeing Jesus now in a glorified body, standing before Him as one who had risen from the dead—and they doubted.

Take special note of this. You who say that you would believe God if only He were to perform some kind of miracle. Non-Christians often say this: “Oh, I would believe God if He performed a miracle!” Even Christians: “God, give me a sign to show me You are real. Do a miracle, God!”

Here is the resurrected Jesus Christ, whose appearance causes some to respond in fear and wonder and joy and awe—and in others—doubt.

Miracles in and of themselves do not guarantee one will believe. Some of you think if only God would appear to you or write out a message for you in the sky and then you would believe or then you would have peace. It isn’t so.

2 Corinthians 5:7, “We walk by faith, not by sight.”

We walk by faith, not by sight. Yet it is not a blind faith. The Christian faith is a faith based upon fact.

The whole point of these eye-witness accounts in the gospels is to show that this really happened 2,000 years ago. The resurrection is the fact that got Christianity started, if you like. The fact of the empty tomb. He is risen; He is risen indeed.

This fact of the resurrection is a truth that must be embraced. Every one of us will respond to the truth of the resurrection in delight, or denial, or doubt.

You doubt the resurrection or deny the resurrection you have no hope for eternal life. You are stuck with the problem of death because of the problem of sin. Your only hope is found in the vain hopes of men such as those we mentioned earlier at the beginning of our message, those who hope that the answer to death is found in advancing technology.

But if you agree that the answer to death and the answer to sin is not technological, but theological, then you are in a position to receive the Good News and you will respond to the resurrection with delight.

For the Christian, the resurrection means that death is not the end.

1 Peter 1:3-4:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,

Here is the motivation to get through the difficult and dark days. I don’t care whether you live to be 17 or 117 like Misao Okawa! Our lives are but a snap of the finger when compared to eternity.

What could matter more than making sure on this Easter Sunday that you and your family are saved? Not by being good. You can’t be saved by being good. You can’t try harder. You can’t earn your way into heaven, buy your way into heaven, hope your way into heaven. The only way in is through faith in Jesus Christ, the Christ of the resurrection, Jesus who lived for you and died for you, taking the punishment of your sin upon Himself, riding from the dead that you might be saved. You’ve got to believe that. It’s not automatic. You are saved only by grace through faith in Christ alone.

How do you respond to the resurrection?

Do you know that you have eternal life?

What do you see when you look at Jesus on this Easter Sunday morning?

It all comes down to verse 17:

17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.

•Stand for prayer.

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