We’ve been working our way through the gospel of Mark in a series on discipleship, and we pause that rightly for Easter Sunday, and we’re going to be switching over to the gospel of Matthew, Matthew 28, as we consider the resurrection story of Jesus. We look to the ream God’s word, though, if you would please join with me in prayer. Holy God, blessed are you. In your son, Jesus, your light shines in our darkness. And the darkness cannot overcome it. Blessed are you, O God of light, we ask then that you would shine in our lives with this light of Christ, that we might give you praise through him, Lord, that you might continue to change us into his image and His likeness, he who lives and reigns with you in the Holy spirit now and forever. Amen. Beginning in verse one. 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, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.
The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who is crucified. He is not here. He has risen just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ‘ Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. ‘ Now I have told you. So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid, yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. ‘Greetings, ‘ he said. They came to him, classed his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me. ‘ The word of the Lord. Christianity stands completely unique among all religions, and certainly among those who have founders. Muhammad conquered Arabia, and then he died in peace in his 60s. He provided a written scripture for his militant adherence to follow. Siddharat Gautama or the Buddha, he also provided a large canon of readings and of teachings that his thousands of disciples were to follow and to adhere to.
He died, we’re told, at the ripe age of 80. Confucius, he’s considered the greatest sage of China, provided a large written canon for his thousands of disciples, and he died in peace in his 70s. Notice the pattern. Since the first century, there are actually dozens of Jewish would-be messias, and there are also hundreds of those who would have been religious founders. You have to look them up to know who they were and what they were about because they failed to launch. They’re just simply now an article, a list in historical records. They died as insurrectionists, false prophets, or simply in obscurity. If you go back just a little bit in our own history, many of you can remember Jim Jones, the People’s Temple. The mass suicide in 1978 was certainly worldwide news. Then David Koresh in the Branch Davidians. His final shootout with the FBI was in 1993. Three, Marshall-Applewhite, the Heaven’s Gate Movement. It came also to an end in 1997 with their mass suicide coinciding with the Halebach Comet. Hundreds of years from now or not even that long. No one’s going to know their name. Many of you now are, who are they?
They will fall into obscurity. Notice the pattern. So So how is it that this 33-year-old Jewish rabbi from the backwater of Judea, who died a criminal’s death with only a small amount of followers, how is he able to change the world. Jesus left no writings of his own. Fifty days after his death, there were only 120 of his followers gathered together in the upper room in Jerusalem. Jesus, this prophet of Nazareth, earth was put to death. But then a fantastical story arises about how he was resurrected and how he was taken up in heaven. How on earth did any of this get the traction that it did to become the greatest religion in the world? Today, there are over 2. 5 billion people who claim to be Christians. That’s 32% of everyone. How is this possible? Christianity stands utterly unique in both its founder and in its message. In Jesus, the redemption of the world begins. He intentionally, willingly took the path of defeat in order to trial. Life. That’s why he came. He came to give his life as a ransom, as an atonement, as a sacrifice. Because Jesus triumphed over sin and death in his death, we are called now to follow him in new life that he alone can provide us in his resurrection.
Unlike any other religion or their founders, Jesus comes not claiming that he had achieved an enlightened teaching that we should follow, that we should live by. He did not go into a cave or look into a hat and receive some angelic revelation from on high. No, Jesus had the audacity to say things like, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. He had the audacity to claim prerogatives that are God alone. Jesus doesn’t tell us, Go and read, go and do these steps, follow this code. He tells us to follow him, to put our trust in him, in who he is as a person. This isn’t the way of any major world religion. Certainly, there were some who did try to be like Jesus, who had these great visions of grandeour, but they all fill out the list of failed would be Messiah’s who we don’t even know. Let’s go and look up their names. Jesus comes, he tells us that he is good news. The good news about what? That he can take us out of our human death spiral and lift us up to a new and a living hope.
Well, what death spiral? Well, first, it’s literal. Literal death. We all die. For those who want to complain or fuss about the creation count in Genesis as being an elaborate fable or an ancient etiology, not a one of us has gotten past the Lord God’s edict. In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Though I just recently found out for a mere $200,000, a German cryonic startup company will freeze you, and they will bring you back to life once they figure out the not dying part. If you’re interested, it is tomorrow. Bio. But truth in advertising, no one has successfully revised following chiropreservation. Not a one. Human mortality rates still hover at a consistent 100% for the past and the foreseeable future. But the other death spiral that we are locked into as well is not just death, but it’s living. We struggle with living. We struggle with living with one another, with getting along and all the problems that surround us. You take something that seems relatively simple, like the problem of forgiveness. Then we realize how complicated and difficult it is. Now, of course, because of Jesus, we all think of forgiveness as an excellent human virtue.
That was not the case in the ancient world. Not at all. They did not think of forgiveness as a virtue, but saw it really as a weakness. What was required to forgive was that the person had to balance the scale somehow. If you could, you had to pay back in some way things to make it right with the person that was wronged. Revenge for a wrong was in many places highly commended. What we refer to today as honor killings has a long and storied history. Lots of groups of people saw that as a virtuous end. We see that actually highlighted in Islam. For them, salvation is a matter of tipping the scales of good and bad in your favor. In the broader Eastern religions, the whole concept of karma about balancing right and wrong, leaves out forgiveness. Reincarnation is just one very long attempt to get the scales moving in your favor. There’s no real forgiveness in any of these systems. Just paybacks. Now, we just assume the virtuousness of forgiveness. It’s just a part of how we think and how we live. Again, it doesn’t make it easy, but we assume you should do it.
And we do so because of Jesus, because of his complete victory over sin and death. Jesus triumphed with so complete and so glorious that has changed the actual way that we think about forgiveness and reconciliation. He is the reason for this. The apostle Paul goes so far as to tell us in 2 Corinthians 5, he said, Christ has died for all. And then a little further, we read, all of this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself, gave us this Ministry of Reconciliation. That now is a part of those who follow Jesus, a Ministry of Reconciliation. Ephesians 1, In Jesus, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our traspasses, according to the riches of his grace. And a little later, Christ Jesus, to You who were once far away, through him, you have now been brought near by his blood. The blood of Christ has brought us near to the Father. Colossians 1, And through Jesus to reconcile to himself all things by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Romans, which we heard a little earlier, Romans 5, Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
All of that is because of what Jesus has done. Forgiveness, reconciliation come to us. Now, I’m sure many of you have heard this question. Maybe you have thought it yourself. Why can’t God just forgive people without requiring anything from them? Why can’t he just say you’re forgiven? And that’d be the end of it. Sort of like when somebody accidentally bumps into you and they apologize for it and you, quite easily and quickly, you let it go without a thought. No problem. Quite easy to let go. But forgiveness is not that easy. There’s a lot of complexity to it when we just move in just a little ways. Someone in a very furious and violent rage crushes your hand with a baseball bath. That hand now is completely useless. Up the ante, you’re a concert pianist. Now what? An arsonist burns down your house, and they might Then after the fact, genuinely come to you and apologize and say, I’m truly sorry. But that doesn’t give you a place to live. What if you had children or family who died in the fire? What does that apology accomplish now? That revenge part starts to make a little more sense, doesn’t it?
Then you think about a holy God, a Holy and righteous God. Forgiveness for us is something difficult, but what of him? I appreciate Dietrich Bonhoffer speaking of forgiveness. He said, Forgiveness itself is a form of suffering. When I forgive, I have not only suffered a violation, but I also suppress the rightful claims of strict restitutive justice. The suffering the event and also the suffering in not requiring the justice. For a Holy God to forgive with no restitutive justice, it makes him unjust. And yet for a loving God to refuse to forgive makes him severe. Now, if we are not perfect and we struggle to truly forgive, what What of God in his great justice and in his great love? How are these things brought together? The only way that a set of cosmic scales of justice for rights is that the penalty of our sin must be paid. It is a man-made problem that only God can fix. Enter the God man, Jesus Christ. His life alone has the infinite worth to right our wrongs. How are we able to let go of our right to justice when someone else has truly wronged us? The how is answered through the power of the resurrection of Christ.
It is in his resurrection that we celebrate this day all that he has accomplished because the tomb is empty. We celebrate the one who came to be defeated in order to triumph. Completely counterintuitive. The greatest act of hatred and injustice put the Lord of glory to death. And then when the women came, they were dejected. They were filled with grief to the tomb. But the tomb is empty. How overwhelming that must have been. We hear the comfort of the angels say to them, Do not be afraid, for I know that you’re looking for Jesus who was crucified. He’s not here. He is risen just as he said, ‘Come and see the place where he lay. ‘ It’s empty. It’s gone. Jesus willingly came to suffer to die, and the Father vindicated him by raising him from the dead. In the Jewish Encyclopedia, under the heading of Jesus of Nazareth, it says this, There appears to be no evidence of any Jewish conception of a Messiah suffering through and for his people. The very form of Jesus’ punishment would disprove those claims in Jewish eyes. No Messiah that Jews could recognize could suffer such a death, for he that is hanged is accursed by God and insult to God.
How far in his own mind, Jesus Jesus substituted another conception of Messiah, how far he regarded himself as fulfilling that idea still remained among the most obscure of historical problems. It didn’t make any sense. This Jewish view doesn’t stand alone. It’s the view of all peoples. The cross of Christ is counterintuitive to all of us. The one with all glory and all power, he surrenders it so that the weak and the shameful might be lifted up. The very best of humanity put Jesus to death, but death could not hold the truly innocent one. On the third day, according to scriptures, the tomb was empty. That’s the good news that Jesus, he lifts our hopes. There’s really no other way to explain how a group of red tag followers could to take this message and turn the world upside down. A legend, a myth, that’s not worth dying for. All of these, those followers of Him, disciples would go on and they would suffer greatly for speaking about Jesus. They did not die in peace. They did not start great schools of sages. You see the apostle Sheil, that’s what these windows are, and many of them just show you the way that we’re told they died.
They all died violent deaths in obscure places other than John, who was unable to be killed after boiling him in oil. He died at a ripe old age in exile after being severely persecuted. The rest of them died. Terrible death. Because they simply told people about what they witnessed. He said, I thought he was dead, too. But I went to the tomb and it was empty. And then he appeared to me and I saw him. I saw the risen Jesus. Jesus appeared to some 500 others who were eyewitnesses of these events. And he just simply told people this Jesus who died has now been raised to new life. And we didn’t understand it at the time, but afterwards, all All of what he said came true. We’re just telling you about it. The God man, the mediator, whose death could actually accomplish real and objective forgiveness. He’s not simply a great exemplar, an example that we need to follow. If that were the case, that would be terrible news. Because who can do this? Who can forgive like this? Who can live like this on on their own? To make it worse, we’re even forcibly told by Jesus in Matthew 6, But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
That’s heavy. How do we absorb the cost of forgiveness? How do we suffer the injustice of real wrongs that are done to us? How, indeed? It’s because Jesus has truly set us free. He has liberated us. And in the power of his liberation, we can and we must release others. Christianity has always said it’s a supernatural faith. The power to do this does not come from within you or I. It comes from the Holy spirit abiding in those who are trusting in Christ. By no means is this dependent even upon the power of my own faith. It’s not dependent upon the power of my faith, but the object of my faith, who is Jesus, the risen Lord. It is his power. It is his might, not mine. Again, that’s why it’s good news. I can’t do this. You can’t do this. Ten years ago, then 21-year-old Dylan Roof, young white kid, he came into a prayer meeting of the Black Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina. I don’t know many of you know this story. He came in and Pastor Pinkney, he welcomed him, gave him a Bible, and offered him a chair next to his.
And they sat in a circle, about 12 of them in this Bible study. And he sat there for almost an hour with them. And then as they finished, they stood up to pray, and they closed their eyes. He took out a gun and he started shooting the members of this church who had so warmly welcomed him. He killed nine of them. He was hoping to start a race war. At his bond hearing, the relatives of those who were slain were able to speak directly to Dylan. And one by one, those who chose to speak, they did not do so in outburst of anger. Instead, while he remained very impassive, they offered him forgiveness and said that they were praying for his soul, even as they describe the pain of their loss. Nadine Collier, she was the daughter of seven-year-old Etha Lance. She looked him in the eye and said, I forgive you. You took something very precious away from me. I will never talk to her again. I will never, ever hold her again. But I forgive you and have mercy on your soul. The sister of Dupaine-Middleton, she said, I acknowledge that I am very angry, but one thing that Dupaine always enjoyed in our family is she taught me that we are the family that love built.
We have no room for hating, so we have to forgive. I pray God on your soul. And repeatedly, those were the types of things that were said. That is the power of the resurrection. It’s what it looks like. We know lots of these kinds of stories. Many of you can remember the school shooting in Amish, the Amish community, all these little girls were shot. And the family of the man who shot them, how they extended love and forgiveness to that family and forgiveness to their dead son. We know lots of these types of things. The reason is because that is what Jesus looks like as he changes the world, that he changes us. It’s real. It’s not a gimmick. It’s not a fake. The power to forgive flows out of who he is and what he has done. Now, of course, does that mean in such horrible circumstances that our forgiveness is instantaneous? No, it’s not. Often not. As Bonhoffer said, forgiveness itself is a form of suffering. If you belong to Jesus, forgiveness This might not be instantaneous, but it must be inevitable. It must be inevitable if you belong to Jesus. Because Jesus is the one who has set you free.
And in the power of that freedom of what he has done, of what he has accomplished, the atonement for our sins, the sacrifice that has been offered, it is paid justice has been paid. And we now are liberated by him and no longer held by the shackles of sin and death. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, he said, If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. But Jesus has been raised from the dead. And through him, we have been reconciled to the Father. Through him, we have been commanded to live in the power of his resurrection. And it is so visibly demonstrated in how we go and either accept forgiveness from others or extend to them our confession, not holding them liable for their wrong, not seeking revenge for where we have been hurt. Because the one who came in order to be defeated did so so that he could be raised in triumph. Brothers and sisters, Jesus has truly changed the world. Pray with me. Father, we do praise you. We thank you that indeed you raised your son from the dead and you have made us to share in his victory.
And Lord Jesus, we greet you who are risen in our triumphant savior. We follow you, you who have called us to yourself, you who have conquered sin, you have caused us to live, you have conquered the evil one, you have buried our sins in your tomb, you have rescued us from the bondage of sin and death. We thank you, Holy spirit, that you lead us into all truth as it is in the risen Lord. You indwell our hearts, you incite us to worship. Lord, we ask then that you would roll the stones which block us from the full and abundant living, that you would crush the oppressor, that you would free us from the bondage of this world, from the bondage of our sin. Lord, that you would undo our selfishness, that you would put to death our vain ambitions. May your peace prevail in our hearts. Blessed be you, Father, Son, and spirit, one God who has brought life and immortality to life through the good news. And blessed be your glorious name now forever. Amen. Please.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.