Easter Can Change Everything For You! Series

Easter Can Change Everything for You!

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 28:1-10

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared May 25, 2023)

MESSAGE:

*How are you doing this morning? By God’s grace we are able to be here today. And I’ve got to say: you look good. Some of us have on new clothes, and you look good. But how are you doing? Some of us here could honestly say they've never been better. But others came with trouble on our minds: Family trouble, work trouble, financial trouble, health trouble, spiritual trouble. It’s probably all here today.

*Some of us are even as low as the women in today's Scripture. These women went to the tomb that morning with broken hearts, -- about as low as a person can be. Most of us have stood by the grave of a loved one, so we know the sorrow they carried to the tomb that day. But Jesus was more than a loved one to these women. He was their Messiah, their King, their hope of salvation and deliverance. And now He was dead. So, they went to the tomb in the deepest despair, but the resurrection of Jesus Christ changed all of that!

*Easter changed everything for them, and God wants to give you a day like that today. God wants to give us the same things He gave on the original Easter Day.

1. FIRST: HE WANTS TO GIVE YOU TRUTH WORTH TRUSTING.

*I am talking about the sure truth that the angel gave those women in vs. 5-6. There he told them, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay."

*Jesus was crucified, and there was no doubt that He had died. At Jesus' trial before the Jewish rulers, He was found guilty of blasphemy for making Himself equal to God. Only that wasn't blasphemy, because Jesus Christ is the Almighty, eternal, only begotten Son of God. But the guilty conviction called for the death penalty, so the evil Jewish rulers turned Jesus over to the Roman Governor Pilate.

*They did that because under Roman occupation, the Jews did not have the authority to execute prisoners. If the Jews had performed the execution, Jesus would have been stoned, but the Romans executed prisoners on the cross. And that fulfilled a prophecy that was written by King David in Psalm 22:16. There, the Holy Spirit led David to write this about the coming Lord: "Dogs have surrounded Me; The assembly of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet."

*Church: That prophecy was written a thousand years before Jesus was born. And death by the cross didn't even exist when David wrote those words. The first recorded crucifixions in history didn't happen until 500 years later in the Persian Empire. But God knew about the cross from all eternity past, -- and He revealed it in His Word.

*That's why Jesus was turned over to Pilate. And before Jesus was crucified, the Roman governor had Him scourged. Jesus was horribly beaten with a vicious whip. Dr. Truman Davis studied this brutal beating, and concluded that it must have left Jesus just barely alive. The Lord was tied to a post and beaten at least 39 times with a whip laced with jagged bones and balls of lead. Over and over Jesus was hit full force on His bare shoulders, back and legs. At first, the heavy whip only cut through His skin. But as the blows continued, they cut deeper into the underlying tissue. By the end of the beating, the Lord's body was hideously torn and bleeding. Undoubtedly, Jesus was in critical condition before His crucifixion, so it's no wonder that He was not able to carry His cross.

*Then, when Jesus was crucified, spikes 5 to 7 inches long were driven through His wrists and feet. Lee Strobel explained that the spikes in the Lord's wrists crushed His median nerve. We call this nerve our funny bone, and the pain Jesus felt would be like squeezing our funny bone with a pair of pliers. Death by crucifixion was so painful that a new word was created to describe it. That word is "excruciating," which is Latin for "out of the cross."

*After Jesus' wrists and feet were nailed securely, He was hoisted to hang on the cross. Death from crucifixion was basically a slow death by suffocation. People on the cross could breathe in, but they could not breathe out, unless they pushed up with their feet. And of course, they did. It was excruciating pain, and it could go on for days.

*If the Romans wanted to speed up a death, they used a hammer to shatter the victim's shin bones, so he couldn't push up anymore. That's what the executioners did to the two other men who were crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus, He was already dead. This happened to fulfill a prophetic symbol or picture that goes all the way back to 1,400 years before Jesus was born. On the night before God set the Jews free from slavery in Egypt, the Lord instituted the Passover. That night, all of the firstborn in Egypt were killed. But the Jews and anyone with them were protected by the blood of an innocent lamb that was spread on the doorposts of their homes, just as Jesus' blood would be spread on the cross. (1)