Word of Salvation – Vol. 22 No. 26 – March 1976

 

The Resurrection Dispels The Gloom

 

Sermon by Rev. Fred Vanderbom on Luke 24:1-9

(Easter Sermon)

Scripture Readings: Matt.28:1-10; 1Cor.15:1-11

Psalter Hymnal: 233:5,6; 356; 359

 

Sadness, gloom, broken people: words like these are the only way you could describe the mood among Jesus’ friends and family after the events of Good Friday.

God’s people had been looking forward to the Messiah for so many hundreds of years.  “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”

“This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!”

“You are the Christ, the anointed One of God, the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”

But things had gone terribly wrong.

The religious leaders had their own set ideas about what the Messiah should say and do.  They refused to accept the Lord as the one Israel needed and longed for.

And now the Lord God himself had pulled back from Jesus.

It had always seemed that the Lord God was behind Jesus, backing him up in the things he said, with signs and miracles and amazing wisdom and knowledge.

But on Friday, Jesus had gone to a shameful and bitter death, and God had done nothing to save Jesus.  They thought he was the hope of Israel, but now he was a lost hope.  The whole thing was a tremendous tragedy, a terrible disappointment.  The only thing the friends and family of Jesus can do now is to mourn.

And so at the end of Luke chapter 23 and at the start of chapter 24, we find the friends of Jesus doing the sorts of things that unbelievers do at the time of a funeral.  Have you ever been involved in the funeral of a non- Christian in a non-Christian setting?  Usually the talk is fatalistic, “I suppose it has to be this way.”  Not much comfort when Fate instead of Father decides what happens.  You get a lot of insincere talk.  No matter how much of a rogue the deceased was, the talk is about how he was “really a good guy”; or “she really meant very well!”  Quite different from thanking God for his grace and mercy shown during a life now past.  You buy some flowers and you try to say some nice things to try to gloss over the blackness and the meaninglessness of a life cut off.  The relatives reject the message of the Gospel, and tell each other, “Never mind, I suppose we’ll get over it.”

There is no joy, no hope, nothing of comfort at a funeral without the Gospel.

This is how it is with Jesus’ friends.

Jesus has gone.

So (verse 1): “On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had prepared.”  They had been hoping that things with Jesus would end differently.  But now it’s a non- Christian funeral.  The women still love Jesus, they think nice thoughts about him, even sincere nice thoughts.  So, they take some spices to the grave; their way of sending a wreath of flowers.  It’s the only thing they can do now.  It’ll help to soften the ugly memories they have of the crucifixion.  It will help a little to make up for their disappointment.  It’s all they can do.

Isn’t it sad when we see these women trying to cover up in this way?  There seems to be nothing in them to take away their despair and broken hopes.  Jesus’ promises, his power have gone, they are forgotten now.  These friends of Jesus try to cover up his death instead of facing it.

1Corinthians 15 calls death “the last enemy”,

It is the enemy at the end of the road, the one we can’t avoid.

Nobody can run away from death forever, it will always be there, waiting, some time.  But we can face that last enemy in one of two ways.  We can face up to death with the promises of Jesus, the sword of the Bible.  That way death is swallowed up in victory.  Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

Or we can try to COVER UP the last enemy when he comes.  The unbelievers we have talked about try to cover up death.  “I suppose it’ll all be for the best somehow.”  “She had a good life; pity it had to end this way.”  “Fond memories, forever in our thoughts, …at rest.  Pretty flowers, soft recorded music in the funeral parlour.  All to cover up the fact of death, and what it really means.

This is how these friends of Jesus treat his death too, at the end of chapter 23 and the opening verses of our text.

“Spices and ointments” – well-meant signs of their affection for the dead Saviour.  But basically only to cover up their dashed hopes, their broken hearts, their frustration, their complete lack of understanding and total despair.

For these women and the others, it was a funeral without the Gospel, a funeral in gloom.

*  *  *  *  *

This is the FIRST thing we come across in our text – it’s a PICTURE OF GLOOM.

But the second thing Luke tells us is not gloomy at all!

Verses 2 & 3 – “And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, and when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.”

For a moment there is confusion.  The women who have come to the grave to pay their last respects find Jesus’ body gone.  The only thing left of Jesus, his dead body, has disappeared.

Verse 4 tells us they were “perplexed” about this: more frustration, disappointment.

But the Lord God does not leave them perplexed for long.  He comes to speak to them, right in their trouble and confusion.

Verse 4: “Behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel.”

What do these angels say?

First, they ask the women a question.

To bring them to their senses, to prepare the ground for the facts.  “Why are you looking for the Lord of life in a graveyard, ladies?”

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

“Have you forgotten all about what the Lord Jesus said?”

“Remember Luke 9:22: The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

“And what about that time in Luke 18:33: They will scourge him and kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”

What a poor way to show your respect and affection for a man you have come to know is the Christ, the Son of the living God!

Remember the things he said, the things he did, the faith which started to grow in you!  Why then the tears, the spices and perfumes and ointments, the sad little trips to the grave?  Have you forgotten that he is the resurrection and the life?

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?”

“Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee…….?”

Then, after the questions and the reminders, the Easter FACT, the Good News.

Verse 6, “He is not here, he is risen!”

Isn’t this what the message of the whole Bible is about?

Jesus the Christ has broken the power of death.

He has crushed the head of the Serpent Satan, broken his back.  Death, which was always the end, no longer is the end of things.

Death is still the last enemy and the enemy we cannot avoid, but it has changed.  No longer the punishment for our sins: Jesus has taken care of that.  Death is still a fact of a sinful world, but after Easter it can be the gate to life too.

Luke opens his story of Easter Day, Luke 24, with a picture of gloom and sadness.  A group of broken-hearted people, going to pay their last respects to a man they had thought was the Saviour they needed and longed for.  Their memories of this man were short, and the funeral was a funeral without the Gospel.

But the Lord God sends his word to the women, and later to the other friends and family.  God’s message gets rid of the gloom, it reminds them of the things Jesus had said so often, but which they had forgotten.

As a result of the Easter fact, the spices and ointments are suddenly forgotten Things change: the joy and comfort of what the messengers tell them make the funeral gear totally meaningless: the spices and ointments are simply forgotten.

Spices, perfume, ointments: the frills and trappings people used in New Testament times to gloss over the ugliness of death.  Just like our expensive flowers, recorded music, and elaborate funeral arrangements.  The women probably just dumped the whole lot in the cave.  Forgotten and meaningless just like the grave-cloths and bandages lying in the cave too.

Verses 8 & 9: “They remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.”

If the word “GLOOM” sums up the first part of our text, the verses we have just been looking at now can be summed up in the word “COMFORT”.

Comfort for the women who had thought that their hopes were dashed.  Comfort in the message for us: “He is not here, he is risen!”  Comfort for each one of us in the face of death, “Remember how he told you, that the Son of Man must be crucified, and on the third day rise.”

Do WE remember what the Lord Jesus said about death, and about his resurrection and ours?  Do we believe his promise, “He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live!” (John 11:25)?

If we believe what Jesus said, then our funeral will not be a funeral- without-the-Gospel.  Even the funerals of other people which we may have to attend will never be funerals-without-the-Gospel

This is what we see LAST of all in our text. These people in our text were CHANGED by what they saw.

From Easter on, life would be different; funerals for them would be different.  They could not keep quiet about what happened on the first Easter morning.

The first picture of these verses at the start of Luke 24 is one of GLOOM.

Then we get this totally unexpected, revolutionary message of COMFORT: “He is risen!”  Finally, we see the women go around to SHARE THIS COMFORT.

The women go back to tell the others.

They hunt up those scared and timid disciples, people who had also forgotten what Jesus had said.  The disciples are also sitting around, moping and gloomy.  The women go to tell the disciples and the others what the messengers have told them.  No doubt they also went back over what Jesus had said before the Friday, words which had sat there at the back of their minds, forgotten, but still there: “on the third day….!”

Verses 10 and 11 are interesting.  “Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.  But these words seemed to them like an idle tale, and they did not believe them.”

In the days of the New Testament, it was a custom not to trust the word of women very much.  Verse 11 shows that the disciples didn’t at first think much of the Good News of Easter.  And in 1Corinthians 15, Paul gives us a list of the people who saw Jesus alive after the resurrection; have we ever noticed that Paul leaves the women of our text OUT?  We may be glad that women’s place in society is a little better today.  As Christians we need to be careful that we don’t drag and bump along behind in such things.  Another interesting point in verse 11 is the expression “idle tale” or “idle talk”.  By these words, Luke meant “mad raving”.

When the disciples first heard of the resurrection from the women, they reacted in a way that many people do today when they hear the Gospel.  It sounded like sheer MADNESS, the uncontrolled talk of people with high fever.  The women wanted to share the joy and comfort of the Easter message, but even the disciples and friends of Jesus did not want or expect the Lord to rise.

The risen, living Lord Jesus is A FACT!

Not wishful thinking, not a smooth story worked out by a few schemers.  The resurrection was never expected, it sounded like a fairy tale, it was put down to a bad case of flu.  The women should have spent the day tucked into their beds.  It is this fact, this reaction of the followers of Jesus, that is probably the strongest and most convincing single pointer to the resurrection being a fact.  The Easter good news was not the product of people who ALREADY BELIEVED a person could rise or who EXPECTED Jesus the Christ to rise.

The Easter gospel was not the result of something strange happening, and then people rushing in to say Jesus was alive and believing their own story.  The words of the women “seemed to them an idle tale”.

In spite of all that Jesus had said beforehand, the women and the disciples had no hope, no faith, no expectation that his promises would be fulfilled.  The men could only laugh at what the women said.  They too were recovering from a funeral without the light of the Gospel.

Congregation, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is clearly not a nice story which people worked out together to calm their upset feelings.  The resurrection is a reality, a historical fact.  Something people had to be convinced about, something they found that no matter how much they tried, they could not explain it away.  They COULD NOT get away from the fact that Jesus was alive again, that life and death were now two radically different things from what they stood for earlier.

Where do WE stand on this?

We too must face the fact of Jesus’ resurrection.  Read the Gospels, read the arguments, go back over what happened, study the reactions of those involved.

People who have sincerely faced up to the resurrection recognise that Jesus IS Lord.  He has changed the gloom of life and the gloom of death.  He has brought comfort and joy instead of hopelessness and elaborate funerals.

He PROMISED to rise again on the third day, and he DID.

He ALSO promised that he would return a second time one day.

His people, those who know him and honour him, LOOK FORWARD to that day.  They hold onto the comfort that both in life and death, we are his.

Can YOU say that about yourself too?

Don’t reject God’s answer for this gloomy, groaning world!