Luke 24:1-12 | He Has Risen

If you have a Bible, go and grab it and turn to the book of Luke, chapter 24. We'll be looking at Luke's account of the resurrection. Normally, I prefer just going through whatever book we're currently preaching through. And in Christmas, I managed to finagle a way to include Ishmael into the Christmas story. And yet, I figured Jacob and Esau lying or Jacob lying to his dad and Esau not receiving a blessing wouldn't quite fit on Easter morning. So, here we are in Luke 24.

Let me read from verses 1 to 12. If you don't have a Bible, you can use a pew Bible that's in front of you. If this is your first time using a Bible, you can go and find Luke in the table of contents, and we'll be looking at the very end of the book. The big numbers are the chapter numbers, and the little numbers are the verse numbers. If you don't own a Bible, we would love for you to just keep that book, take that Bible home with you. We would love for you to have a copy of God's Word that you could read yourself. Again, we'll be looking at verses 1 to 12.

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They went in but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground.“Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men. “He is not here, but he has risen! Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, ‘It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day’?” And they remembered his words. Returning from the tomb, they reported all these things to the Eleven and to all the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them were telling the apostles these things. But these words seemed like nonsense to them, and they did not believe the women. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. When he stooped to look in, he saw only the linen cloths. So he went away, amazed at what had happened. — Luke 24:1-12 (CSB)

Let's pray. We pray this morning that you help us. If you don't help us, Lord, our hearts will be hard. We will think that the words that we meditate on this morning are nonsense. So we ask, Lord, that you would startle us with the good news of the Gospel afresh as we meditate on this good news of your resurrection. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Cycles of Life and Death

Life tends to go on. The rhythms of life are cyclical: you wake up, you work, you rest, then you sleep. Today is Sunday. Sundays turn into Mondays and so on. We are born, we grow, and we die. Our entire life seems to follow these cycles, these rhythms that are so intuitive to the way that we flow through this life that after a while, the current almost fades into the background. We roll down the stream of life, knowing its inevitable end, while still choosing to row our boat. We are born, we grow, then we die.

I wonder if life has felt cyclical to you, like every day feels like Groundhog Day. Wake up, rinse, and repeat. Whether it's coming to church on Sunday morning or especially on Resurrection Sunday, going through the motions of Monday through Saturday, going through motions of spring to whatever Sunday the next year happens to be Easter, only it starts all over again. Is this all we've been fated to do? To go through these rhythms of life until we stop suddenly on the day that we die?

One week before our passage begins, Jesus entered into Jerusalem before the praise of the crowds. And five days later, they cried out for his crucifixion. His supposed reign over the universe, this King of Kings and Lord of Lords, ends his life with death, a thud for the Messiah who was supposed to usher in this new kingdom. It looked like Jesus was just another drop in this stream of life and death. But something changed that Sunday morning, and that changes everything to do with how you and I can find hope, not just for today, but for the rest of our lives.

If you want to break out of this monotonous stream towards death, you have to do three things. You see these women as they approach the tomb in the midst of this darkness of death, do three things: first, they see; second, they remember; and third, they report. Let's start with point number one.

They See: The Empty Tomb's Reality

Read with me again from verse one. It says, “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb bringing the spices that they had prepared.” Our story begins right after Jesus’s crucifixion. Luke 23:55-56 tell us that the women who came from Galilee followed Jesus into Jerusalem and saw that he was placed into the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. And so what they do, as thoughtful people who cared about Jesus and by extension cared about his body, is that they prepare spices and perfumes because Jesus’s body needs to be embalmed.

These are standard rhythms that you go through when someone dies. I’m sure many of us have experienced those close to us go to be with the Lord, where grief and gratitude come into our heart at the same time—this kind of tornado of emotions, sadness and joy and concern. And one thing that people don’t talk about until you experience something like that for the first time is all the paperwork, all the stuff that you have to do, tasks to complete, arrangements for the funeral, planning the service, deciding what you’re going to do with the body. It’s no wonder that you have to take leave for bereavement, because you’re handed another full-time job. These women are no exception. They do the same thing with joy. They are following the standard rhythms that you do when someone passes away. They gather their spices and perfumes to be able to go and treat Jesus’s body with the dignity that they feel that he deserves.

So Jesus dies on a Friday, the first day. They see the body buried and they prepare the spices and perfumes. You may remember that Jesus was crucified in the afternoon. You can imagine the logistics and the time that it takes to be able to pull that body off of the cross, be able to find a tomb and get the arrangement set, and then place the body inside the tomb. And they can’t work because the sun then goes down. And on Friday night, when the sun goes down, that begins the Sabbath. And in obedience to Old Testament law, they are not supposed to do anything. So they have time to prepare the spices and perfumes, but they don’t have time to go to the tomb and finish treating the body. And so they wait through Saturday, the second day. And now on the third day, on Sunday morning, the quickest moment that they could possibly get to the tomb and complete this work, they go to finish what they started on Friday.

But something astounding happens in verse two. Read with me. “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They went in but did not find the body of Jesus.” Or to be more precise, it’s not so much that something astounding happened as much as something astounding already happened. The women show up and the stone is already rolled away. They come in and they don’t see the body of Jesus. It says here that they didn’t just see, they didn’t just find, not find the body of Jesus. They searched. They examined this place. I mean, can you imagine coming into the tomb of someone you love only to find out that his body isn’t there? That’s insane. I’d imagine that you’d have some questions or that you’d like to have some kind of explanation.

If you’re visiting here this morning, you’re not a Christian, I wonder if you have some questions about the story of Jesus as a whole as well. But before you think about whether what the resurrection means, it’s worth considering whether or not it’s true. I mean, these women show up on Sunday morning. They’re able to go into the tomb and they’re able to look around themselves. They’re able to investigate this with their own eyes. And you and I can’t do that. There are still debates over which tomb exactly is the one that Jesus was buried in. I remember going and visiting Israel as I was a college student and going to a tomb that the Catholics claimed to be the place where Jesus rose from the dead. And right across the street, you have the Garden Tomb where you have people that aren’t Catholics claiming that Jesus rose from the dead there, which by the way, it definitely wasn’t that one.

We can’t go into that exact place and examine the exact evidence. And more importantly, it’s been like 2,000 years. You may not be able to enter the tomb yourself, but it doesn’t make the truth of his resurrection any less reliable. See, his resurrection is a reliable account from a historical perspective. For one, the crucifixion or the death of Jesus is widely reported to be true both by Christian and non-Christian historians in the first century. So, there’s a non-Christian Jewish historian named Josephus who lived in the first century, and this is what he wrote all the way back in the first century about this man called Jesus. He says, “And in this time there was a certain Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man, for he was a doer of incredible deeds, a teacher of men who receive truisms with pleasure. And he brought over many from amongst the Jews and many from amongst the Greeks. He was thought to be the Christ. And when Pilate had condemned him to the cross, at the accusation of the first men amongst us, those who at first were devoted to him did not cease to be so.” In other words, they didn’t stop devoting themselves to Jesus. “For on the third day, it seemed to them that he was alive again. Given that the divine prophets had spoken such things and thousands of other wonderful things about him, and up until now the tribe of the Christians who were named from him has not disappeared.”

This evidence of a historical Jesus and his crucifixion is not really up for debate. Not only that, the resurrection is also backed up by historical testimony. Now, I just want to be clear if you’re not a Christian and you may be used to kind of discerning truth from a modernist lens that you can’t guarantee a resurrection by the scientific method. You can’t Francis Bacon your way into believing that Jesus rose from the dead, mainly because it’s not a repeatable thing, right? You can’t have a hypothesis and try killing somebody and see if they rise from the dead using the same means that Jesus went through. This is not a repeatable thing. But that’s not the only way that we know that things happened, right? Just because Julius Caesar can’t show up in this building right now doesn’t mean that he didn’t exist.

Just because other events happen along the timeline of history and we lack the ability to jump into a time machine and go back and personally verify things with our own eyes doesn’t mean that those things didn’t happen. The reason why we know that Julius Caesar existed is on the basis of what we call historical evidence or testimonies, recorded facts, and impacts in the world. And Jesus hits every single mark of reliable historical testimony. In fact, this is how Paul writes about it in 1 Corinthians 15.

For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. — 1 Corinthians 15:3-6 (CSB)

You see the way that Paul here is talking about this testimony of the resurrection, it doesn’t read like myth, doesn’t read like legend. He doesn’t start spiritualizing this idea of the resurrection. We’re not talking about some vague resurrection that’s happening at the heart level. Paul is saying this happened. Not only did this happen, people saw it. Not only did people see it, a bunch of people saw it at the same time. This is not something where one or two people are colluding together about how they’re going to spin this story to the public. Jesus appeared to over 500 people at the same time when Paul wrote this letter. And that testimony has been consistent with the testimony of all Christians throughout the first several hundred years.

Do you realize how difficult it would be to coordinate a lie at this scale with this many people, most of whom abandoned Jesus at the point of his crucifixion only to just weeks later be willing to become martyrs and die for the sake of this testimony that Jesus rose from the dead? Think about the hundreds of Christians that get slain in the Colosseum, Peter being hung upside down on a cross, and not one of them said that they were lying about Jesus rising from the dead. Some of them may even deny Jesus Christ as Lord, that was a huge drama that happened in the first couple centuries. And yet none of them denied that Jesus actually rose. They don’t question this kind of testimony.

I’m not saying that the resurrection isn’t a big pill to swallow. It’s like those giant vitamin C pills that my mom would give me that feel lodged into the throat. Sometimes you need a big gulp of water to be able to take something like that down. But if you examine the actual historical evidence, it is incredible and credible news. It actually happened. In fact, the quote that I just read you from Josephus is different than the one that I read you two years ago on Easter Sunday. And the reason why I did was because in the last two years, not only have we further confirmed that Josephus actually wrote those things, there were sections on the resurrection that we thought Josephus might not have read or written down himself that in recent historical work have been confirmed to actually come from him. It’s amazing stuff if you look into the archaeology.

By all measurable historical evidence, the tomb is actually empty. This actually happened. And you’re going to have to see the empty tomb and reckon with its validity and its implications. If you have questions about that, let me just encourage you to go and look. “The Case for Easter” by Lee Strobel is on sale on Kindle right now. You could go and buy it. You could purchase “Person of Interest” by J. Warner Wallace and investigate what it looks like to actually verify whether or not this testimony is reliable and true. That’s exactly what these women do. They are looking in. They are looking around. And you know who’s not there? Jesus. He is not there. And as they’re wondering about where he possibly could be, they receive their answer in our second point.

They Remember: The Necessity of His Resurrection

Look at verse four. “While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground.” The women are pondering over what this could possibly mean. And suddenly, these men show up wearing dazzling clothes. I mean, can you imagine how scary this would be? You’re in a cemetery. You’re in a tomb. You go to the grave of someone that you love. You find out that the body is missing. And then suddenly there are two men right next to you. Not only two men, but two men in dazzling clothes. They are shining. And if this happened to you, you would probably think exactly what they thought. “It is time for me to enter this tomb and meet my end,” right? “I am going to die.” And they seem to think so as well. They are so terrified, they bow down to the ground before these men. They think that they have met the Grim Reaper, who has come to take them home.

But the men respond in the second half of verse 5. They say, “Why are you looking for the living amongst the dead?” asked the men. “He is not here, but he has risen! Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, ‘It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and rise on the third day’?” And they remembered his words. I love that question: “Why are you looking for the living amongst the dead?” Jesus didn’t just disappear. He changed categories. He is living. And they remind these women of what Jesus said would happen. In other words, this plan to rise from the dead wasn’t a contingency plan in case Jesus’s effort to reign didn’t work out. It was something that had been spoken about far beforehand.

Jesus, in fact, goes as far as to say that it was necessary that he be betrayed and be crucified and to rise. That’s something that he needs to do. Why did Jesus need to die and to rise? Because you and I have a need. Because death is not supposed to be in the rhythms of life. It entered into the world because of our sin, because of our rebellion against the holy God, disobeying his commands. And as a result, we have been cursed to live in this rhythm, this cycle of living and dying. All of us are trapped in this pattern. We are born. We grow, and then we die. And all of us need a Savior. And Jesus is the only one who can meet that need.

Because Jesus, truly God and truly man, is the only one who could do a work that none of us could do. He accomplishes redemption by being betrayed and dying on the cross and rising on the third day, that on the cross, Jesus would pay for all of our sins for all who would believe in him, and he would rise on the third day confirming his victory over sin and death forever. Every step of Jesus’s plan is absolutely necessary. This is part of Jesus’s intention. In the Gospel of John, Jesus keeps talking about how he came to fulfill his Father’s will, how this hour was coming. He was fixated, focused on his death because a crucifixion would redeem or pay this penalty of sin, this debt that you and I owe.

All of us know that there is something deeply wrong with this world, that it doesn’t work the way it should. Whenever we encounter death face to face, there is a twist in our gut that is right in recognizing that there is something wrong. When people die, there’s something wrong when life comes to an end, when pain, sickness, sorrow grip our hearts, and all that flows downstream from sin. Let me ask you, if you’re here this morning, how do you know that you’re going to be right with God? How do you know that you’re going to be able to stand righteous before him? If we’ve been cursed with this kind of sin that sends us to our inevitable death, what hope do you have when you stand before the judge of all of creation?

We have a deeper problem than just our inevitable death. We have a sin problem. Our death flows downstream from our disobedience against a holy God. And that’s why Jesus said he needs to do what Jesus did. Because when Jesus dies on the cross, he pays that penalty that you and I owe in full. He bears the burden of sin on his shoulders. And in so doing, he completely redeems all of us who place our trust in him and pays that penalty in full in such a way that you don’t have to bear any kind of weight for your sin ever again. And in case you have any doubts about whether or not the crucifixion redeems you or pays that penalty, he rises from the dead because the resurrection ratifies or confirms this payment and the eradication of sin forever.

And what better proof that sin has been completely paid for than to see the man emerge victorious over the direct result of sin itself? Jesus tramples death under his feet. He emerges from the tomb because the tomb has no hold on him, because death has no effect on him anymore. You see, this is the difference between Jesus’s resurrection and all other resurrections that happen in Scripture. Jesus doesn’t get saved from death. Jesus conquers death itself. He slays death through his death, and he emerges victorious over the grave. It’s in Christ’s work alone that you and I can find true hope.

I’m not asking you to merely reason this morning. I’m not asking you to just examine the evidence or ponder its implications. But if Jesus actually rose from the dead, like if he actually did it and he talked about it, it’s probably best that you listen to what he said he was going to do, to remember his words: that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Do you remember his words that “all the Father gives to me comes to me? Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out”? Do you remember his words that he would be betrayed, that he would be crucified for your sins, and rise from the dead on the third day? Have you turned from your sin and trusted in this Savior? You can. And if you do, you will be forgiven today. You can trust in this Savior. And if you remember and repent, God will forgive you your sin and help you walk in everlasting life. That promise is given to you right now. And when that good news overwhelms your heart, when it actually sticks, then it overflows. And we have to tell someone. That brings us to our third point.

They Report: Sharing the Unbelievable Truth

Look at verse nine. “Returning from the tomb, they reported all these things to the Eleven and to the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them were telling the apostles these things. But these words seemed like nonsense to them and they did not believe the women. Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. And when he stooped to look in, he saw only the linen cloths. So he went away amazed at what had happened.” These women sprint back from the tomb, report all of these things to all of Jesus’s followers. I mean, you could just imagine how excited they would be to share this news as they excitedly tell these followers of Christ about the best news that could possibly happen. These people look at these women and say, “You’re crazy.”

I mean, it seems crazy, right? To talk about someone rising from the dead. I mean, regardless of whether or not Jesus talked about it, it would totally sound like nonsense. And yet these women can’t help but share it and talk about it because there’s nothing else that they could possibly do. They’re using their words to communicate something that is beyond all comprehension. The resurrection changes everything. You know, these women aren’t sharing because they were the most qualified. I mean, their testimony wouldn’t even stand up in court. Even if they had legions of women all testifying to this resurrection at that point of history, their testimony would not be considered valid. They also didn’t share because they thought that this news would come off as reasonable to those who heard, where they’re like, “Wow, you sound so steady and calm talking about this resurrection thing. I assume you’re onto something.”

The reason why these women shared this good news was because it actually happened, because it’s true. You see, our evangelism overflows from our enthusiasm. If you are enthralled by the Gospel, you will share it with those around you. It has nothing to do with the level of reception from those who hear as much as you need to tell other people about this amazing news. It doesn’t matter whether or not they think you’re crazy. Because if Jesus actually rose from the dead, that is like the craziest news you could possibly share to anyone. And it’s the best news. I mean, you should expect that kind of opposition.

These disciples followed Jesus for years, and they think that these women are nuts. Everyone except for one, Peter. I don’t know what overcame Peter that day. I do know that he loved his Lord. And this news was too good not for him to go and see for himself. He runs to the tomb. He looked and he saw only linen cloths. He goes away amazed. I mean, Peter goes and he looks for himself. He examines. He discovers the truth. He sees and he remembers. In Acts chapter 2, he reports this good news of the resurrection of Christ to thousands of people, proclaiming this amazing good news.

The Everlasting Sabbath and New Life

What about you? Because remembering the resurrection isn’t just another rhythm that we have the privilege of celebrating every Sunday. This isn’t just about another cycle. The resurrection is the most significant, life-altering news anyone could possibly hear, or it is a fact that pierces into the very fabric of our mundane patterns of life. It is a dam that stops everything, that changes everything. Without remembering, you and I will find ourselves bewildered by this dying world. We will be terrified by a universe that we weren’t designed to fully comprehend. But friends, remember, remember that Jesus rose from the dead. Remember that he was betrayed and was crucified and rose on the third day, just as he said.

I love that Jesus rose from the dead on Sunday morning. This permanent altering, this act, this timing was so significant. It changed the time that Christians would gather forever in worship of God, permanently onto Sunday, the day after the Sabbath, that these women prepared their spices and had to wait because they didn’t work. Because the Old Testament commands refrained them from being able to go to the body and do the work that they needed to do. And then on Sunday morning, as they go to the tomb to work on Christ’s body, they find out that there is no work left to be done because Jesus rose from the dead. It’s almost as though the Sabbath didn’t stop on Saturday. It’s like this weekly cycle that was woven into the fabric. These rhythms of Israelite life were completely disrupted because Jesus’s resurrection brings them into his eternal Sabbath, his eternal rest.

The rhythms of this broken world have been interrupted by what Jesus has done. I wonder if you’re tired this morning, if you’re sick of having to get up and do it again. If this world starts to feel more dull and disappointing and desecrated to you, Jesus promises you a new life, a life that goes on, that will never end. It doesn’t cycle with birth and work and death over and over, a life that actually changes the way that we approach every day of the rest of our lives. I mean, that’s why we celebrate Resurrection Sunday. If you allow me to be a little sassy, that’s the reason why we celebrate this every week and not just on April 5th or whatever day it will be next year. Because this good news has completely changed, not just one Sunday of the year, but every week for the rest of our lives.

Do you see that resurrected Jesus? Have you remembered what he’s done for you? Then friends, take comfort in the rest that Jesus provides and take that and go tell others about this good news: that Jesus is not here, he’s risen, and he’s coming soon. Let’s pray. Lord, we pray that you would help us to remember this kind of good news in the face of disappointments, of the darkness of our own sin, even in the face of death itself. We thank you, Lord, that you have given the conclusive answer to all of our world and our hearts’ problems and given us everlasting certainty in this resurrection life of Christ. Pray, Lord, if anyone here doesn’t trust in that promise, that they would turn from their sin and trust in you. Pray that you would help all of us to be reminded of this good news and to take it to those who desperately need to hear. Pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.