He Is Not in the Grave; Jesus Has Risen

The reading this morning comes to us from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, and beginning at verse 1. But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared, and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?"

"He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and on the third day rise." And they remembered His words, and returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the 11 and to the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

But Peter rose and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves, and he went home marvelling at what had happened. This is the word of the Lord. We find our text, verses 6 and 7 in chapter 24 of Luke: "He is not here, but has risen.

Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and on the third day rise." That's our text this morning. There are some differences in the gospel accounts on what happened before and after the resurrection. And this morning, together with Luke 24, I just want to read one other encounter and ask you, as I'm reading, to listen and to see the differences, the different emphasis that was placed by Mark on the same events that we've just heard Rob reading to us from the Gospel according to Luke. In Mark 16, we read the following words: "When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint Him.

And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, 'Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?' And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back. It was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed.

And he said to them, 'Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you to Galilee. There you will see Him just as He told you.'" And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

The text is the same. The text message that we chose is the same. When the angels say, "He has risen, he is not here." Some other changes we will look into and ask ourselves, why did Luke and John and Matthew and Mark have different encounters, had different emphasis, different focuses on what they wanted to convey to us about the message of the resurrection. Right in the beginning, I want to say, it's important that we read all the gospels, and they are not one saying something and the other saying something else.

They are telling a story which is an historical fact. If something were to happen at church today, anything, we would all be called as witnesses to what has happened here. And then your eyes and what you've seen and heard, and what you will give an account of might be different from mine, or from the next person sitting next to you. Someone might have heard something that someone else might not have heard, but in the end, we reconstruct the historical fact of Jesus' resurrection by looking at the different gospels. The gospels actually tell the story, and when you put it all together, you get the full story. So it is actually important to read all four gospels on this, and I will just refer to some of the differences so that we can put the story together of what really happened.

Like I said, today we will look at it as an historical fact, because when we look into the stories of the gospel that was told, it is a true life story. This morning, I want to say that right from Friday, you could see that people had different expectations of what was going to happen. And then when Jesus was crucified, people were astonished. People were without words. People were wondering and thinking, "What has just really happened?"

And we will look into it further on what the expectations of the ladies, of the women, were when they got to the tomb, and what really happened. It wasn't what they expected. They found something that they did not expect. And the same with Peter, when he heard the news and he ran to the tomb, he also faced something that he wasn't expecting. In the four gospels we get, and as we read Mark, you might have picked up on some of the differences between the two gospels.

The gospels talk about the women, but some give different names. We can assume that all of the women that were named were there. The number of the angels, we see differences there. We see that the one account speaks about one angel, and the other says there were two angels in the tomb. What has really happened?

Probably there were two angels, but only one spoke. To the one, it was important to say he was the spokesperson. To the other, it was important to say they were two. The very fact of the matter is what the angel said. That's God's message. That's our text verse. That is the truth, and that is what we hold on to. The resurrection is an historical event.

There were many witnesses, and I will refer to those witnesses who witnessed and who saw that our Lord Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, was walking with them, talking with them. Our story begins with the women. The story begins, and when you look into the New Testament, and when you look into the life of Jesus, everything has changed in His ministry. The way that society viewed women was very different before Jesus than after Jesus. In the gospels, we learn that Jesus actually looked, spoke and interacted with women in the same way as with men.

The women played an important role in the gospel and in the stories, and we see here that on this Saturday, the Sabbath, they couldn't do anything, but in their hearts, it was their expectation that they could do something just like Joseph from Arimathea did the right thing. They wanted to show their love for Jesus. So they waited on the Sabbath day, on the Saturday, because they could do no work or anything. This is the Old Testament commandments, until the sun sets. And then, after that, they went and they bought spices because they wanted to anoint the body of Jesus. And their expectation was that they needed to get to His body, and that they needed to make sure that they could counteract the odour of decay, because they wanted to show their respect and their love to Jesus, even after He had passed.

So that Sunday morning, they woke up and the first thing that was on their minds was, "Let's go. Let's go to the tomb." And two of them, according to Mark, not Luke, but according to Mark, there were two ladies talking to one another, saying, "What will we do with the big stone? How will we, as women, be able to roll away the stone to get into the grave, to be able to anoint the body of our Lord Jesus?" The official sealing of the tomb and posting of the guards, we don't read that in this encounter in Mark.

We don't read about that in the Gospel according to Luke. We read about that in the Book of Matthew, and I just want to make one reference to the Book of Matthew, when we read what was said in Matthew 27:62. It reads, "The next day, that is after the day of the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, 'Sir, we remember how that impostor said while he was still alive, "After three days, I will rise." Therefore, order the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples go and steal him away, and tell the people he has risen from the dead, and the last fraud will be worse than the first.' Pilate said to them, 'You have a guard of soldiers.

Go, make it as secure as you can.' So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard." It was important to Matthew to note that, to give that through to us. So, again, they didn't expect to encounter that. They didn't expect to see that. All they had was the love in their hearts with this loving act of going to the tomb and realising there might be some obstacles, but we are going in anyway.

When they got to the tomb, the stone had already been removed, a very large stone taken away for them. They entered into the tomb curiously, and according to the Gospel of Mark, a young man was sitting to their right. According to Luke, there were two men. The angels of God were sitting there, and the angel's message, the spokesperson from God, this young man with the white robe, the angel spoke to them and said to them, "Jesus is not here. He has risen."

The women didn't expect that. They were going there to bring their love and to show their love, and they met the angels. Things changed. Their expectation was changed. They met a divine messenger, and they were overwhelmed with what had just happened.

The angel then said to them, "Don't be alarmed." He picked up on it that they were alarmed. "Jesus, the man of Nazareth, who was crucified, has risen." And when you look into the original text, into the Greek, it says He was raised. Literally, He was raised by God.

This is an act of God. It is only by the power of God that He was resurrected. And the angel's message, and I feel this is where we need to understand, in our text, the angel's message is: the risen one is also the crucified one. There is no doubt. It is a historical fact.

What has happened, the angel gives the message through that our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, who died on the cross for our sins, who paid the price of sin, and who died for us so that we can live. He is the one that was resurrected. It is an historical fact. And if you allow me, I just want to read a passage without preaching on it, but just to give it through to each and every one of us who has seen and encountered Jesus after He was resurrected. Paul interprets these events, and when he speaks to people, he lets them know this is everyone that are witnesses and that are testifying to the fact that Jesus was risen from the dead.

In 1 Corinthians 15:3, we read, "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared, and listen to this list, that he appeared to Cephas, that he then appeared to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of them who are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me." Paul says, "For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain." We see so many people have been touched by Jesus, the resurrected one, the risen one, the one who was resurrected by God through the powerful working of our God. And then, when we go back to the women, we see that they were given a task.

When we go back to the disciples, we see that they were given a task. So the angel wanted them to understand that the crucified one is also the one that was risen. One more time, let's look at the women and how their expectations changed to a life of anticipation. There is a difference between living your life with expectations. We might have great expectations for ourselves, but then our expectations might not come true.

And what has happened right through all of the events with the crucifixion and with the resurrection is that the expectations people had were met by something completely different through the work of our God and Father, through the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, through His words, through His deeds, their expectations were exceeded. No, it is better to live with anticipation on what the Lord will do in your life in the future. It is better to understand that God is already in the future, that He has already laid out the plan for your life, and for the life of your children, and for us as His children, and with anticipation, wait what the Lord will be doing. One of my friends, my good lifelong friend, made this remark. He sends on every Monday, he sends a text to a few friends, and he made this distinction.

And he said, "My wife has just recently been diagnosed with cancer. We wait in anticipation of what God will do, saying we are completely under the will of God. We don't have any expectation. We are completely waiting to see, patiently waiting, what the Lord will do in our lives. Please pray for us."

That's different. That's so different than having an expectation and asking God to make your expectation come true. When the women first heard, they were given a task, and this is my point, the disciples were given a task, the women were given a task, and we are given a task. The women's task was simply go back to the disciples and tell them that Jesus is no longer in the grave. They ran, they were trembling, they were afraid.

And in the original text, part of the word to be frightened, to be afraid, means to be respectful of what has just happened. They had just had a divine encounter with an angel, with two angels in the tomb, one angel actually speaking to them. They were trembling, but they knew they had the truth, and they were running with the truth to the disciples, and they told them what had happened. The same thing then happens to Peter, and Peter runs to the tomb, and in the Book of John, we read that the other disciple, John, was also running with him, and he actually ran faster than Peter, but when they got to the tomb, Peter was the one who just straight away got in. And this is what we bring back from the starting of the historical facts of the resurrection.

Peter then was, like Rob has read, marvelled by what he saw. He was astonished. He was standing in awe, not understanding at that point. He was expecting to find the body of Jesus, and he didn't, because our Lord was risen. Our Lord is no longer in the grave.

And then I want to make reference to the Book of John by just reading to us what the disciples were told to do. In John 20, I'm just going to read verses 19 to 21. We read the following: "On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.'" And this is what I want to read about the disciples. They were tasked.

Jesus said to them, "As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you." That is their task. And then if we look at one short, brief message of Peter speaking to the people after the Lord has met them and instructed them, we read in Acts 3:14-15 what Peter says. It says, "But you denied the holy and righteous one, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the author of life. Isn't that beautiful?

When Peter is speaking, he calls Jesus the author of life, whom God has raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses." So Peter did that. After Jesus appeared to him, he took it upon him and he spoke to people about that, and Paul did the same in Romans 4:23-25. We read the following words:

"But the words, 'it was counted to him,' were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in Him, who were raised from the dead, Jesus, our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." So Paul and Peter both were getting into it. They were preaching, they were telling the world what the Lord has done for us. That brings us to where we are at today.

What is the message of Easter for us as Christians, for people who have been reconciled with our Father in heaven, as people who sit around the Lord's table, we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and personal Saviour, and on Friday, we saw it is very personal, this relationship we are having with our Father in heaven. Today, I want to say, maybe we can come before the Lord, and we can put, when we think about the cross, our expectations for our lives at the foot of the cross, and just leave our expectations right there. And this morning, decide to live a life of anticipation, a life of patiently waiting to see what the Lord will be doing in our lives. But never to forget that we are here to serve God and to serve one another. This is the command we need to abide in His love.

We need to be in His love, and we need to understand that to be in His love, and to walk and to dwell in His building, to walk and to dwell in a life of anticipation, it means to be reckoning with Him. It means to, like the woman, be afraid, meaning to be respectfully talking to our God, respectfully looking into the world, bringing the love of Jesus which He has preached into the world, and never to forget that the power of our message, and the centre and the core of our faith, and living a life of faith, rests on the resurrection. And with this, I would like to close. This is one of my favourite verses in the Bible, one that I sort of think, wow, this can be the summary of the word of God. It's Paul again who speaks in 1 Corinthians 15:17. He says the following: "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.

All of what I have preached, all of what I have said, if you believe in all of that, but if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. If you don't believe in the resurrection, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope, and remember Friday's message, we said we are not without hope, we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied." With this verse, I want to finish by saying, the truth and the power of the resurrection is what we believe in, what we are standing up for. There were so many witnesses.

It was an historical fact, and so many people witnessed to that, and it was documented in different ways. But everyone said, like the angel, "Our Lord is no longer here. He is not in the grave. He conquered death. He has risen through the power of God the Father in heaven."

Our faith rests on the belief that our Lord Jesus Christ was risen from the dead, and therefore, we have hope, hope eternal, and we can live our life in anticipation of what our God will do in future and into all of eternity when He comes back on that day to bring us together, for us to be with our loved ones who have passed already. There's a plan for that. God holds everything in His hands. All of our sufferings, everything is in His hands, and He has a plan for me, for you, and for everyone who believes in Him, because He sent His only son, not so that we would perish, but so that we can be saved. Let us take the Gospel, the good news, into the lives and hearts of people we meet.

And may we also say, like the first person who entered through the doors that I was welcoming this morning said, "He has risen." May we say that to each other, may we show that to the world, and may we testify to the fact that our Lord was risen, and He lives forever. He is now at the right hand of God the Father. Amen. Father God, thank you so much for Your word.

Lord, thank you for calling people who could testify to what You have done, people who were close to You, who could give us their encounter. Lord, and when we look into Your death, and when we are thanking you this morning for what You have done on that cross, we also want to thank You for the fact that You died and that You took our sin and our death upon You. Lord, and we know through the facts of what happened around the cross that that meant in that very moment that You were separated from Your Father for the first time, so that we don't have to encounter that, so that we don't have to spend eternity in hell, that is where God is not. And Father, thank you so much for after giving us the perfect offering, Your son to die for us, for His body to be broken and for His blood to have been spilled for us, that You have resurrected Him, that You, through Your powerful work, brought Him back to life according to Your plan, that His ministry wasn't over after the stone was rolled away, but that He appeared to so many people with the good news.

Thank you that we have the good news in our hearts. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that You are there, and that You are here, and that You are in tomorrow. And, Father, thank you that we know it is not only for our future where we live a life of anticipation, of waiting patiently what You're going to do for us, but also into all eternity, because You have promised us that one day we will be with You in heaven. And we thank You for that, for Your grace and for Your mercy like Paul did after coming to the truth, after persecuting the church, finding Jesus, and turning around. And we know that one day we will be with You as You have planned for us into all eternity.

We honour You for that, we thank You for that, we praise You for that, and we worship You for that. In Jesus' name only. Amen.