Sunday, March 31- He Is Risen!
2024-03-31
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdtbHE6CAyw

Amen. There are times when we are searching for something, and that search sort of fills us with excitement and anticipation. It was a little before Christmas, and as maybe happens in your house, we get those catalogs in the mail, and our kids were looking through one specifically, and they had found this specific toy, and they had been saving their money up for it. And it turned out that this past year, it was one of those that was so popular, it was hard to keep in stock. And so it was probably three weeks before Christmas, and I was sitting and I was just kind of checking for fun. It was something I started doing kind of regularly to see if it was in stock in any Winchester stores, and it turned out that one of the stores in town had two of them in stock, and it was already past bedtime, but at that point, I was like, "Girls, let's go."

Like, "Get your shoes and let's roll out." And so here we embark on this after bedtime adventure. They've got their money, and we're heading into the store to find, and it wasn't a search of fear or frustration, or we've got to find this, but it was joy and anticipation because we knew that it was still in stock. In fact, I'm refreshing as we're walking into the store to make sure it was still there, and we find the last one on the shelf because in the last 15 minutes, somebody had came. In the last 15 minutes, somebody had came in and bought it, and it was a trip that was filled with joy. And part of the secret to that joy is that we knew what we would find before we even got there. Now, there are times, however, when searching for something fills us with anxiety, fear, and frustration. This past week, I had

to go get some lab work done, and I had scheduled an appointment for Thursday morning, and I thought I had everything planned out really, really well. And I said, "All right. I've got clothes laid out so that I made my appointment super early. I'm going to get up. I'm going to have enough time. I'll be able to drink a cup of coffee, sort of ease myself into the day. I don't need to worry about bringing a lot of stuff. I just need my wallet, my lab orders, and my car keys, and I'll be all set." So I went to bed early Wednesday night, because I was very, very tired. Woke up the next morning, got ready to go to the lab, and as I'm sitting there enjoying the moment, sort of dipping my toes into the water of the day in a very gentle way with my cup of coffee, I realized that I don't have my wallet with my insurance card, I don't have my lab orders, and I don't have keys for the car.

Now I know where they were, because I left them all on my desk downstairs in my office. The problem was, when I left the church on Wednesday night, normally I come over and lock it, but there was somebody here working and I just yelled down the hall, "Hey, can you lock the church when you're done?" They said, "Oh yeah, no problem." So here I am going, "You know what I don't have?" And I'm pretty sure they're probably in my office, my church keys, right? So I'm going through all these scenarios in my head. I've got an appointment. I've got to leave and have 20 minutes to get there. I've got to have lab orders. I've got to have a wallet. I've got to have insurance. And I'm running through all these scenarios going, "Are my church keys there? They're definitely not hanging on the hook we hung up so we wouldn't lose our keys." And I'm going, "Where are my keys? Did I leave them there? Are they at the house?"

I'm like, "I get one of the kids. I can get a window open. I can slide the kid through the window, right? Hopefully nobody calls the sheriff in the meantime." And I'm starting to get mad, and I'm anxious, and then I find my keys sitting right in the middle of the kitchen table, right? And so sometimes when we're searching, right, it's a search of panic, right? Of anxiety, of fear, of worry. This just isn't going to work. Some of us this morning, we're here, and we're seeking Jesus with excitement and anticipation, right? We know that we're going to find a tomb that is empty, filled with joy, and there's going to be good news to tell, but there are others of us who come, and we're searching for something, and we maybe don't know what it is, and we're filled with anxiety and fear and worry, right?

It's not everybody's story of finding this in joy. There are brothers and sisters in Christ this morning, Christians who are struggling. Maybe they're searching for answers or reassurance or help or direction, and that struggle has been going for a long time. And then maybe there are those here who are not in Christ, and maybe they're curious. Maybe you're searching. Maybe you're threatened to be here. I know that happened to me a lot as a child. There are things in this world that you've set your hope on, and you've found that they are disappointing, and you are struggling. And all of us, I think, in the hurts of this world are looking for something that will transform us, that will change things. All of us have felt this need that things need to be different, or something needs to be different, that something has to be transformed.

There has to be something else that can change my life. And I remember the very first time I had felt this. So I grew up in high school, and I was working for my family, and there are some ups and downs to working for your family. The upside is you're probably not going to get fired, right? What are you going to do? Fire me? I'm your son. There are some downsides as well, because when you show up late for work, you don't get reprimanded at work. It's just you went from having no curfew to having a curfew, because obviously you're staying out too late at night, and you can't get to work, right? And so there's some ups and downs for working with family, but by and large, it was a good experience. I remember my first Job in college, and it was a fast food job, and the work, it was the people.

And I remember dreading going to work and hating every minute of it, not the work, just the environment. And I'm thinking two things. One is like, I could be happy if I had a different job, or I could be happy if I just was able to retire in this moment, right? Most of us do this with parts of our lives, right? If I could just have this job, or if I could retire now, or if I could move to this place, or if I could do this thing, or if this relationship was to happen, or maybe if this relationship was to go away, if I could accomplish this, if this one change would happen in my life, then what would happen is I would be happy. Life would be good. If I could change this one thing, it would transform my life.

And so we go through life almost on this treadmill of transformation, trying one thing after another to try to find the one thing that will finally satisfy our soul, that will bring us joy and peace and hope and happiness. And what happens is every time we get the thing we thought we wanted, it's not as good as we thought. So we try something else, constantly searching for something that can transform us. And so we come this morning to Luke 24, and in this text, as we seek transformation, I think we will find it in Jesus. Right? Resurrection Sunday is this wonderful moment where we move from sorrow to joy, from brokenness to being healed. And there are so many good reasons for us to put our hope in the Word of God. And we could talk about so many. We could talk about the history and how archaeology has continually confirmed the truth of the Word of God.

We could talk about how the Bible is put together in such a wonderful way that it's unlike any other book in its consistency and its goodness. But I want you to see transformation this morning. Because for me, that's what makes the difference from facts to reality is, does it work? Does it transform me? And we see it in the first century. You know, Jesus wasn't the only one to claim to be a Messiah. There were Messiahs popping up throughout the first century. And they would come and they would proclaim, they would build the following, Rome would kill them, and their movement would disappear. But Jesus doesn't just come and proclaim and build a movement. He transforms. Because He dies, He rises again, and you find this testimony of the church standing firm. Not disappearing, not fading away, but growing stronger because of the truth of the gospel. And not just for the disciples. Not just for the first century.

But for us, and in our hearts, as we run that race as fast as we can away from God, indifferent to the cost of our sin, God looks upon us in our helpless brokenness. And He loves us first. And He comes to save us. And we see that the transformation isn't just written about here, but it happens in the very depths of our life. I want us to see that Jesus is the one who transforms. We're going to start with an early morning journey in Luke chapter 24, verse 1. On that first day of the week at early dawn, they went to the tomb taking spices that they had prepared. And so we begin with this group of women walking to the tomb of Jesus very early in the morning. And we know who, from verse 10, who's in this group. It's Mary Magdalene.

It's Joanna. It's Mary, the mother of James. And then there's some other women along with them. And what's remarkable about this group is they have been faithfully following Jesus for much of his ministry, right? They are not new to following Jesus, working with Jesus, serving Jesus as he ministers. In Luke chapter 8, verse 2, we find that they have been transformed by Jesus. They've been healed both physically and spiritually by Jesus. They have followed and supported Jesus. Not just simply following along, looking and excited by the miracles, but they've been actively participating in the ministry of Jesus. These women in John 19 have been at the cross. And as far as we know, these women are the only followers of Jesus apart from the apostle John who watched Jesus die on the cross. Right? The rest of the disciples ran in fear. And we learn in Luke 23 that they follow Joseph of Arimathea to this tomb where Jesus is laid on Friday night.

And since Friday, they have planned and prepared, and they gathered what they needed to give Jesus a proper burial, and it's early. And it's that moment early in the morning, the word means deep dawn or twilight, where you have the purple sky turns from darkness to purple to orange to light. And for me, it's that moment where the dawn begins to break that always signals to me that there is hope and that there is a new day. But for these women in this moment, there is no hope. They've seen Jesus arrested, beaten, crucified, and buried. And as they approach their destination, what we're going to find is surprise after surprise. Luke 24:2, "And they found the stone had been rolled away from the tomb." Now, think about this in our context. If you've been away from your house for a while,

and you come home and you pull into your driveway, or in our case, you pull into your parking lot, and you look at the front door of your house, and your door of your house is standing wide open. For me, immediately, I'm going, alright, did I remember? Like, I was trying to get my coffee and keep the dogs inside. Did I shut the door? I'm pretty sure I shut the door. Was I the last one out, or was it Rachel, or was it the kids? Did we remember to shut the door? And instantly, pulling into the parking lot, seeing my front door wide open after being gone, especially for hours, and I'm going, "What's going on here?" Now, imagine that it's not just the front door of your house, but it is the grave that you are going to, this tomb, and they come.

And I imagine they're not just sort of dragging their feet, but I imagine they're not running either. They're purposely walking, carrying these spices, filled with grief, and they get there, and the tomb is wide open. They don't know what to do with what is happening. And then we're going to see surprise number two. Look at verse three. They went in. They did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. Now, this is something that we probably don't have a lot of context for. This surprise of expecting a body and not finding it, it's not something probably that we have thought about or maybe experienced. And I've done, in my time here at College Park, I've done like 80-plus funerals. And out of those 80-plus funerals, five of them took place here. Most funerals that I do take place in a funeral home. Five of them took place in this church.

Two of them had a casket during the service, but one of them was unique. And the gentleman, the charter member of our church who passed away, didn't want his visitation at the funeral home. He wanted it here at the church. So the night before the funeral, when we have the visitation, the funeral comes, and they carry the casket in up the front steps. They bring it to the front of the church, and there's a visitation that lasts for hours. And as it begins to wind down, the funeral director comes to me and goes, "Hey, I've got some paperwork for you to sign." And I'm like, "I don't think that I need to sign any paperwork." No, because the funeral's here. Like, we're not going to take the casket out and bring it back. You're going to take legal possession of this body overnight.

And I'm going, "They did not teach me about this in Bible college." Like, nobody warned me that I'm going to be responsible overnight for this. And don't they realize, like, everybody in town has a key to the church. Like, there's like 30 copies floating around. And so I sign the paperwork, make sure every door is locked, and then I go around again to make sure, because I'm not coming home to a door that's wide open, right? First thing I do when I wake up in the morning is I get my keys and I come in and make sure that this body that I was responsible for was still there. And as you would expect, of course it was. Now imagine my surprise. Go out for coffee, come back. Front doors of the church are blown off the church, and I walk in and the casket's empty.

I told Greg this morning, I would have had an aneurysm and died right there, right? I have no context for this. Walking in and the body is gone. That's what happens to these women. They've seen Jesus crucified. They've seen him die. They've seen him taken off the cross. They've seen him wrapped in a hundred pounds of spices and tightly bound in these funeral rags. They've seen him put into the tomb. They've seen this massive stone rolled in front of the door. They've seen Roman soldiers stand in front of the door, and they show up, and the doors open, and there is no Jesus. And then, if they weren't close to having a heart attack already, surprise number three. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel, and they were frightened,

and they bowed their faces to the ground, and the men said, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?" Let's throw in some angels to this surprise, because, you know, why not? Doors open, bodies gone, here's some angels. Let's make it that much more surprising. But I want you to hear these words. Why do you seek the living among the dead? It's a world-transforming question. You're looking in the wrong place. Imagine these women saying, "Don't you understand we are in the right place? We've seen him crucified, we've seen him buried, we've seen the stone rolled in front of the door, and now you're telling me we're looking in the wrong place?" And in Luke 24, beginning in verse 6, "He is not here, he is risen." "Remember what 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 they returned from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven and all the rest." I don't think angels are allowed to roll their eyes, but I sure would have been, right? He's not here, why do you seek the living among the dead? And they're going, "Don't you know he died?" And then, "Did you not hear what he said?" Not just like once or twice, but repeatedly, that he would be buried, he would rise on the third day. This is something that he has told you. But the angels, they're not snarky, they're not rude, they're not mean, they're not seeking to embarrass these women. They're seeking to change where their eyes are fixed. Why do you seek the living among the dead? Remember what he told you, and in this we find a diagnosis of our heart.

Where are we looking? The angels are directing these women from sorrow to joy, and from their feelings to the word of God. And in your discouragement and in your struggles, in your heartbreak, those moments of deep abiding loss, where is it that you are looking? What the angel says is you're looking in the wrong place. You're looking in exactly the place where he is not. And to us, the question is, as we run on this treadmill of trying to change something to fix our life, is why are we looking in the grave when there is something that will bring us to life? And what the angel says is it has to be based on the truth of God. What are you basing your life upon? It's so easy, for me at least, to base it on how I feel in the moment, right?

Emotions are important. They're God-given, but they should never replace truth as the driving factor of our lives. And maybe you've seen this video clip. It's of a dog standing by the front door, and the voice with the dog says, "Well, my mom says it doesn't love me anymore, and she's going to give me up for adoption, and I can't live here anymore." And in the background, you hear the mom say, "That's not what I said." And the dog goes, "Yeah, well, what did you say?" I said you couldn't have a second dinner, right? In that moment, the emotions, we've all experienced it. Something goes wrong, and immediately our world falls apart. You said you don't love me? All I said was you couldn't have two dinners. And we approach not just life in this way,

we approach spiritual things in this way, that in those moments of struggle, it's easy to neglect the truth for how we feel. And so maybe this morning you're gazing into the tomb of disappointment or dissatisfaction or discontentment, and you're seeking something to fix the brokenness of your soul, death. Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life." And maybe you're thirsty, you're spiritually hungry for something, and you've been trying to satisfy it. And if you've ever been really thirsty, what you want is water. Imagine being thirsty and saying, "You know what? There's some salted peanuts. I'll eat those." And then there's some chips, and maybe that'll fix my thirst. Maybe I'll just lick this salt block and see if it'll help. If you are searching in your life for something to satisfy your soul, other than Jesus, who is the living water,

who brings to you the water that will take away your thirst. You're looking in the wrong place. Maybe you're tired and broken. Jesus says, "Come to me, all you who weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I want you to see that Jesus transforms. Luke 24:2 says this, "They found the stone rolled away from the tomb." The Gospel of John gives some more details as to what happened. These women, including Mary Magdalene, they get to the tomb, they find the stone rolled away. And if you go to the Gospel of John, Mary Magdalene comes to this tomb early with these women. And when she saw the stone had been taken away from the tomb, she ran back to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They've taken the Lord out of the tomb.

We don't know where they have laid him." And so she sees the open tomb and immediately runs back to the disciples. And this excitement happens with a race to the tomb, back and forth. But I want to direct your attention to Mary Magdalene. We learn in Luke chapter 8, verse 2, that she was a woman with whom Jesus had cast out seven demons. There's no socially acceptable demon possession. She has a past filled with brokenness, and Jesus has transformed her into life. She's been faithful throughout his ministry, but in this moment of uncertainty, her world falls apart. And after Eve's, after the women go back, after Peter and John go back, we find in the Gospel of John that she's still at the tomb. And Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb.

Those two angels that we saw before, they're still there. She saw the angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and one at the feet. And one of them said, "Woman, why are you weeping?" And she said to them, "And you can hear the sorrow in her voice. They have taken away the Lord, and I do not know where they have laid this, laid him." And having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. And Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? To whom are you seeking, supposing him to be the gardener?" She said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."

She meets two angels. And I don't know how she knows if that Jesus is behind her. Maybe the angels kind of go, "Hey, behind you." She turns around, and through her tears, she just sees a person standing there, thanking him to be the gardener. She says, "Where is Jesus?" Listen to the words of Jesus. "Jesus said to her, 'Mary,' and she turned to him in Aramaic, 'Rabboni,' which means 'teacher,' and Jesus said, 'Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go to the brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' And Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord.' And he had said these things to her." This wonderful moment, in the midst of her grief and brokenness,

where she can't even make a person out because of the tears falling from her face, she sees Jesus, and the only way she knows it's him, because her eyes are so clouded with tears, is that he says in the voice that is so familiar to her, "Mary." And she realizes it is Jesus. And she just throws herself upon Jesus, the one whom she has followed, the one who has saved her in her brokenness, the one that has healed her hurts, the one that she thought was gone. And what Jesus will say, say, "Mary, you can't hold on to me." I think maybe in part, it's kind of like if you've ever gotten a big bear hug from somebody who's much bigger than you, you're like, "I can't breathe." Maybe a little bit of that. Or maybe as kids, when we didn't want somebody to leave,

we would latch on to their leg and sit on their foot. And Jesus says, "Mary, I have things to do." What I want you to see about Mary is that Jesus transforms her. And in her moment of deepest brokenness, he comes to her in comfort. And third, he gives her work to do. He says, "You, Mary Magdalene, the woman with seven demons, you get to proclaim the good news of the gospel to the disciples first. And I want you to see that Jesus transforms broken lives." Where are we looking? What are we trusting? We see that Jesus can change and transform us. Wherever you are, there is hope. Those things that we trust apart from Jesus turn to dust and disappear. And Jesus, when he comes to us, he doesn't just transform us and say, "Great, glad you're here."

But he comes close to us in our brokenness, and he gives us a mission to serve him. Would you pray with me? Father in heaven, I thank you for Jesus, and I thank you for grace, and I thank you for hope. And I thank you that the tomb is empty and there is good news to tell. And I thank you that you transform us and you save us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.