April 17 Sermon: Death Vanquished

Contemplate these questions as we look at Job 19:23-27 and John 20:1-17:

1. How does the unexpected nature of the resurrection impact the perspective of Mary and the disciples as they approach the tomb? How does this unexpected event challenge our understanding of the finality of death?

2. What are some of the common objections and alternative explanations that people have proposed to explain the empty tomb? How does the bodily resurrection of Jesus refute these objections and affirm the victory over death?

3. How does the bodily resurrection of Jesus address the two major challenges faced by humanity—sin and death? What significance does this truth hold for believers in terms of their hope and the way they live their lives in obedience to God?

Transcript:

It is in joy and in hope that we gather this morning. While every Lord’s Day is to be a celebration of the resurrection hope that we have in the Lord Jesus there is something about the celebration of Easter that brings out in us the joy of the hope we have in Christ. There are many reasons for this, I am sure. Some years when we celebrate Easter, not this one most certainly, we have the feeling of new life that comes from the bright colors of spring beginning to burst forth. Maybe it is the fact that we are finally making our way out into the world after a feeling of being in hibernation during the winter months. As I was contemplating this idea I decided to review the different accounts of the resurrection in the gospels but when I started doing this I realized that the key to understanding the joy and hope we find goes further back into the story. At first, I just went back as far as the obvious part of the story that precedes the resurrection. As we consider the crucifixion and the death of Jesus on Good Friday it is obvious why we have joy. With our remembrance of the institution of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday and then the betrayal and crucifixion on Friday we are left in a state of hopelessness, aren’t we? Of course, we know the story and we know that it doesn’t end there but there is an extreme gravity to what we remembered just a few days ago and now, instead of a place of despair we proclaim he is risen and we have the despondency and misery of the cross replaced with the hope of the empty tomb.

‌But then my thoughts, kept going, as thoughts tend to do, and I thought back through the story of the Bible, and I made my way all the way back to Genesis and the fall. The feelings of sorrow and discouragement ultimately go all the way back to the garden. The specter of death is over the entire story. Of course, as we have seen so many times in our time in scripture together, there is always hope in the work of God, but when we think about every story, we know that it ends with the curse hanging over it. Even though we trust in the hope that God brings it seems as though death is the actually the one who has the upper hand. As inspiring as the story of Abraham is, it ends with his death. Jacob grew in faith and in trusting the Lord, but his story ends with him on the verge of death asking for his bones to be transported to the land of his people. David is the great king and a type pointing to the messiah but like the rest of humanity he breathes his last.

‌This is the story of humanity. We come to the end of our days and we hope for a good long life with loved ones who will carry on our legacy but we know that ultimately our days come to an end. Death comes for us. And people have written about this desperate situation throughout the ages and the attempted solutions to the problem have been too numerous to count. Some religions teach that the suffering we endure is simply an illusion and you need to work past that and strive to ascend to a higher plain. Others offer consolation in the hope of a spiritual, ethereal existence somewhere in the beyond. In all the attempts at insights into how to deal with the problem of death one thing doesn’t change. Death is ultimately the victor. Death has the final word. It’s just something you have to deal with. That is, until you come face to face with the Christian story and the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus. Suddenly, we find the true answer to the ultimate woe of humanity and that answer is the one who has the final word and is victorious over death. Instead of conceding to death, Christ wins victory not only for himself, but as our covenant head he is victorious over death for his people.

‌That is the ultimate story of hope, and it not only wipes away the despair that comes from the story of the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus but it also decimates the despair that the curse brought on humanity. And so, we gather today not to celebrate the joy that comes from Jesus rising from the dead but from the truth that every person that he has brought to himself will have the same victory over death. Death not only does not have the last word for Jesus. Death also does not have the last word for us. If ever there was a reason for joy, this is it. Thanks be to God for his wonderful gift. Death does not have the last word. The gospel is the last word and it is a word from God that brings the people of God hope.

‌And so, we come to our scripture passages this morning and we dwell upon that hope that we have in the resurrection of Jesus.

‌We will be considering the ramifications and extent of the resurrection of Jesus by looking at both our Old Testament passage in Job and New Testament passage in the gospel of John.

‌As we do this, I want us to come away from here today considering three important truths about the resurrection.

‌The first thing I want to draw out is the unexpected nature of the resurrection. As I mentioned as I opened the curse comes for us all and it is final. Not only is the resurrection unexpected for ordinary folks like you and I but clearly the resurrection wasn’t even on the radar for the disciples and close friends of Jesus.

‌Secondly, we see that the tomb is empty. Now this is pretty obvious, but it is important that we stop and consider the objections to the story and think through them as we embrace the truth of the resurrection story and consider the result of this for us as the people of God.

‌Finally, we find the clear truth that the resurrection was a bodily resurrection. If the tomb is empty then obviously the resurrection is a bodily resurrection but this is an important detail that we need to understand the significance of the event we remember and celebrate today.

‌And so, we dig into this idea of the unexpected nature of the resurrection.

‌‌We find this in the activity of Mary as our passage begins for today. She is headed for the tomb of Jesus. She has taken the Sabbath off and is now headed to where they have placed the body of Jesus. Little does she know that not only is this the most pivotal day in history, but she doesn’t even know she is a part of anything other than sorrow. Mary, the other women, and the disciples head to the garden of Joseph of Arimathea not because they are going to celebrate the resurrection of their Lord and inaugurate a new economy for all of human history. They are headed there to do what people normally do in a time of loss. They are people who are grieving the loss of their loved one. They are doing what every other person who has lost a loved one does, and they feel that same sense of despair and hopelessness and loss.

‌And we can understand the gloom with which she approaches the garden tomb. None of us are immune from the sting of the curse. We have all been in a line of cars following a funeral coach and had to leave the body of a loved one to be placed in the ground. Regardless of how much hope has been offered in the funeral service the feeling of leaving the cemetery is one of loss and anguish. That’s how Mary felt that Sunday morning and then she arrives at the tomb in the morning and the stone is missing and there is more indication for us that she did not expect the resurrection. She goes to Peter and John and tells them he is gone.

‌No one is expecting resurrection, because it is unexpected. And even when the tomb is empty notice what Mary has to say about it all. This reinforces her not expecting the resurrection. Naturally, she assumes that someone took him, and they have laid him somewhere.

‌And as we continue to consider the ramifications of Easter it is important that we remember what Mary thinks has happened as we move on to our second point and consider that the tomb is empty.

‌‌Now, as I mentioned while I was lining out my points this is a no-brainer of a point, but it is important to consider. The tomb is in fact empty. Jesus is not there when Mary arrives and when Peter and John arrive.

‌Throughout history there have been attempts to explain why the tomb is empty other than the truth of the resurrection.

‌One excuse given is that the disciples stole the body and crafted a great big ruse to convince people that Jesus had rose from the dead. There are several issues with this idea. First, the accounts of the gospel give us an indication that the disciples didn’t understand that Jesus needed to suffer and die and rise again. If they were building this whole thing out of whole cloth, would they make themselves out to be the dolts that they are in the gospels? Seriously, if you were Peter would you have yourself looking as bad as he does in the gospel of Mark? Evidence points to Peter being the one who helped Mark write his gospel and he doesn’t look good. If you were making this all up, you would have the disciples going to the garden expecting the tomb to be empty because they had faith in the words of their Lord and so now you should believe what you are telling them. That’s probably how the story would go if they stole the body and made it up.

‌And another strike against his idea that the disciples took the body and made it all up is the fact that the majority of the disciples were martyred for their proclamation of Jesus being resurrected. Are we really expected to believe that they stole the body and made up the story about the resurrection and then, under torture and threat of death they refused to admit that they made up the story? Instead, these men who would have known whether or not the story was true were imprisoned and martyred and did not disavow the truth of the resurrection.

‌Another attempt to explain away the truth of the resurrection is the idea that Jesus didn’t actually die, he was just badly injured and almost dead and in the garden tomb he got to feeling better and walked out of the grave on his own accord. This is patently absurd on many levels. First, Jesus was executed by the most awful form of punishment in human history. Hanging on the cross after being bruised and battered, he would have been unable to hold himself up and would have suffocated to death. While we like to assume that we are smarter and more informed than anyone who has ever lived, they knew when someone had suffocated to death. And the account of the death of Jesus also includes them putting a sword in his side and blood and water flowing out. He was dead and on top of it all the ones overseeing the execution of Jesus were experts in what they did. The Roman soldiers are not taking their chances with what would be done to them if they allowed a rabbi from Galilee to come off a cross without being dead. Jesus was dead that Friday afternoon and his lifeless corpse was placed in the tomb. Period.

‌The tomb is empty, and this is has ramifications for you and I. If the tomb is empty, we have to deal with it. It not only means that a man was resurrected from the dead on the third day. It confirms beyond a doubt who Jesus is. Notice, I did not say who Jesus was. The empty tomb confirms that he is God and then when he speaks, we should not only listen, but believe and obey. The empty tomb not only establishes the authority that Jesus has over our lives and all of creation but for us it means that we have the sure and certain hope of eternal life and the resurrection of our bodies. Which is what we will be considering as we move on to our third and final point as we discuss the fact that Jesus rose bodily from the grave.

‌​This follows naturally from our point about the tomb being empty but once again those who teach falsely against the Christian faith assert that the resurrection was not an actual, physical resurrection. They assert that when the disciples spoke of resurrection, they really meant that Jesus resurrected spiritually. But the tomb is empty, and the Mary is able to touch him and just a few verses on in the gospel of John, Jesus eats fish and breathes on his disciples, and challenges Thomas to touch him. The bodily resurrection of Jesus is vital to our understanding of the faith and we know this. Stop for a moment and think about what we confess in the Apostles’ Creed. We confess the resurrection of the body, not the eternality of the soul. We believe that at the end of history, when Jesus delivers his kingdom to his Father, we all will rise.

‌And this is important for you and I because, once again, we don’t want to have a God who is held in bondage by death. If Jesus did not rise bodily, death has the final word, and Jesus is not victorious over the grave. If Jesus did not rise bodily, then all of creation will not be restored at the end of history. But Jesus did rise from the dead and so we know that he has victory. We will rise. Your loved ones who have gone before and are in the presence of God are awaiting the final resurrection and the victory that Christ has won over sin, death, hell, and the devil.

‌And this is unbelievably good news for you and I because we know what the purpose of the cross was. It was for the Messiah to bear the wrath of God in our very own flesh. Imagine if the story was that God the Son took on our human flesh and the scribes and Pharisees and Romans executed him, and he stayed dead and only rose spiritually to go to a higher plain. What confidence could we have in a savior who could not defeat the bonds of death? How could we possibly have assurance that our sins are forgiven if we were trusting in a God so weak that he could not come back to life and instead rotted in the grave until he returned to dust.

‌But we do not serve a savior who could be held by death and so, we have hope, and this hope is proclaimed by Job who had faith that he served a God who would raise him bodily as well.

‌‌Looking forward, Job understands that his Redeemer lives and that he will stand upon the earth but his hope is not just that the Redeemer will stand. Notice what he says, “after my skin has been destroyed in his flesh, he shall see God.”

‌I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to serve a God who cannot restore me after my skin has been destroyed. There is nothing to worship about a God who can be defeated by death. There is nothing to adore in a God who would have the power to create heaven and earth but would not raise his people on the last day. What kind of a savior would he be if he could take on God’s wrath for my sin and yours, but he could only be raised spiritually.

‌But we know that our Redeemer does in fact live. He has been raised bodily from the grave after lying in the tomb. It was unexpected but it is the good news that we need. My friends this is the gospel that God, in Christ has reconciled us to himself. Not by waving his hand and saying we’re good but by leaving the glory of heaven to take on our flesh in this fallen world and to suffer for our sake and to be our substitutes, and to rise again to defeat death. The gospel is true, and it takes care of the two biggest problems you and I have. We are sinners and we are going to die.

‌But death has been vanquished and because of this sorrow has been banished and so has our sin.

‌And so, the consequence of this truth and our application as we step from here into the world is that in the truth of the forgiveness of our sins and the salvation we have in Christ, we are called to walk in newness of life.

‌The call on our lives is to serve God and to seek him in holiness. We do this not because we are hoping to score points with God and get on his good side but because he is the Lord of Heaven and Earth, and he has won victory for us. He has rescued us from sin and death and so we are called to turn from our sin and follow him in obedience. As we face the temptations of this world may the glorious truth of all that he has done for us cause you and I to turn from sin and serve him in joy knowing that he has given us hope. He is risen indeed. May we rise from here today and love and serve him.