Sermon for 3/14/2010
Matthew 27:45-53
Introduction:
A. Excuse me Matthew; can you give us more information? Matthew’s brief description here with this last miracle (vs. 52-53) reminds me of a situation from my own life. Crystal and I had gotten engaged without anyone knowing about it. Of course, Crystal soon told everyone she knew. Crystal was playing piano at a church on the other side of town and didn’t really know many at the church where I was preaching. How was I going to tell the church? I came up with a plan. I did not given an annoucement. Nothing was out of the ordinary. I prayed a sermon and just inserted on little phrase “My fiancé and I were watching this movie” to see if anyone noticed. After the service I was shaking everyone out and after half the people had left, one little elderly woman said, "Did I hear this right, Your fiance? Are you engaged to be married?" Those who lingered longer wanted the full story. Those who take off like a shot after the service probably still don't know I got married (and they also weren't paying attention). If you are not paying attention here you will miss the wonder of this miracle.
B. Others say that this is outlandish and cannot be true. However, it flows naturally from the account. Matthew is the only one to record this but that doesn’t mean it is not true. Maybe one of the copiers put this on several years later just to see if anyone was paying attention. Earliest manuscripts of Matthew contain these two verses. No footnotes here.
WBTU:
A. Have many questions:
1. Who? Many holy people. Who were they? Any famous ones or just ordinary? How many were there? How far back in time, just a year or several years?
2. When? We know that the tombs of these holy people were opened from the earthquake but did they rise at the moment of Jesus’ death or at Jesus’ resurrection.
3. How long did they stay alive? Did they just stay alive for a few hours? Did they just go back to their old lives? If they only stayed alive for a few hours or a few days, did they have another funeral? Did they go back to their tomb and lie down and die again? Did the Lord take them up without another death?
4. What did the bodies look like? Were they fully restored, or decayed? What sort of resurrections were these? How did their return from the dead affect them?
5. What did they say to their relatives and friends? Did they speak of Christ or did they know about the spiritual significance of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus? What was the reaction of those who saw them? Disbelief? Panic? Happiness? How many people saw them?
6. Why?
7. Some Biblical facts but a lot of things to speculate about.
B. We will try to answer a few of these questions this morning.
C. Two parts to this miracle.
Thesis: Let’s talk about the two parts of this miracle and try to answer some of these questions.
For instances:
1. The tombs broke open (Vs. 52)
B. Misunderstanding here. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary argues that a full stop (period) should be placed, not after “split” (vs. 51), but after “broke open” (vs. 52). Remember, we talked about the curtain tearing, the earthquake and now the tombs breaking open. This happened at the moment of Jesus’ death. The resurrections did not take place until Jesus’ resurrection. The Commentary goes on to say, “Matthew does not intend his readers to think that these “holy people” were resurrected when Jesus died and then waited in their tombs until Easter Sunday (played cards to pass the time) before showing themselves.”
C. The way the New Living Translation says it clears it up, “and tombs opened. The bodies of many godly men and women who had died were raised from the dead after Jesus resurrection. They left the cemetery, went into the holy city of Jerusalem, and appeared to many people.”
D. Imagine the scene. Jesus dies; there is an earthquake and the tombs brake open. Jesus died at 3 pm on Friday. On an ordinary day the people would come and put rocks or at least cover over the entrances to these tombs. This is no ordinary day. This is Preparation Day, the day before the Sabbath (Saturday), and not just any Sabbath, the Sabbath surrounding the Passover Celebration. No work can be done on the Sabbath. In the Jewish mind, Sabbath began at sundown on Friday night. Important to get Jesus’ body down from the cross because of this before sundown. If not the body would have to hang there until Sunday. (Luke 23:52 NIV) Going to Pilate, (Joseph of Arimathea) asked for Jesus' body. (Luke 23:53 NIV) Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. (Luke 23:54 NIV) It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin. (Luke 23:55 NIV) The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. (Luke 23:56 NIV) Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. (Luke 24:1 NIV) On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
E. As Joseph and others went through those graveyards they would see into the tombs and notice all of the dead bodies. Not just Friday night but all day Saturday as well.
F. Death and all of its decay and corruption was on display. Death is horrible.
G. Garrison Keillor told the story of the time that his mother and father took him to the city to visit an aunt who was lonely and alone after the death of her husband of 55 years. He describes how she looked to him at 10 years of age. Her dress was stained with food spots, her rouge was heavy on one side, her lipstick was crooked, and her fake pearls did not go with her dress. She sat at the table as they ate together. The aunt began to cry. “I have nothing left to live for. I might as well die.” She started to cry as she kept chewing her food. “I’ll bet that if I died tomorrow, no one would even come to my funeral, not even you folks.” Garrison, seeking to be helpful at 10 years of age, said, “Oh, I’d come. I’d be glad to come to your funeral.” Reflecting on her outburst, Garrison concludes as he things back 40 years to that day: “Every tear that poor woman cried, we will cry also before we leave this world and give in to the one death we owe.”
G. (1 Cor 15:55-57 NIV) “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
H. Physical death will continue until the Lord returns and takes us home to heaven. However, the sting has been taken out of death. A boy and his father were driving down a country road on a beautiful spring afternoon, when a bumblebee flew in the car window. The little boy, who was allergic to bee stings, was terrified. The father quickly reached out, grabbed the bee, squeezed it in his hand, and then released it. The boy grew frantic as it buzzed by him. Once again the father reached out his hand, but this time pointed to his palm. There stuck in his skin was the stinger of the bee. “Do you see this?” he asked. “You don’t need to be afraid anymore. I’ve taken the sting for you.” We don’t need to fear death anymore. Christ has taken the sting for us.
I. (2 Cor 5:21 NIV) God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
J. (Rom 4:8 NIV) Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."
H. How do I not have my sins counted against me? Plan of salvation.
2. Raised to life (Vs. 52)
A. We see something different about Jesus resurrection and the resurrection of these holy ones. Jesus didn’t need his tomb to be opened to come out. (Mat 28:2 NIV) There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. This was done for the benefit of mankind so they could see that Jesus was gone. (Mat 28:6 NIV) He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
B. It does not say that Jesus came out of the tomb. Why? Because he already was out of the tomb.
B. In his resurrected state, Jesus could walk through walls, appear and disappear. Jesus had a glorified body, these people did not.
C. We have three stories of people being raised from the dead in the gospels: the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus. These people in Matthew 27:52-53 were just like them.
D. (John 11:38 NIV) Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. (John 11:39 NIV) "Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days."(John 11:40 NIV) Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"(John 11:41 NIV) So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. (John 11:42 NIV) I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."(John 11:43 NIV) When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"(John 11:44 NIV) The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." What we see Lazarus doing after his resurrection is the same things these people would be doing.
E. Their death's were recent, probably less than a year. Two stages in a Jewish burial. First they were laid on a slab, wrapped in cloth with spices. The tomb was a cave, not a hole in the ground. It would have a movable door; the family and friends would in due course lay other bodies on other shelves in the same cave. Then, a year or more later, when all the flesh had decomposed, relatives or friends would return to collect the bones and place them in an ossuary, a small box, which would then be stored away in the recesses within the same cave or somewhere else. These people were only in the first stage of the two stage burial process.
E. We shouldn’t call this a resurrection. No, Lazarus and the others were revived. Those saints of Calvary rose from their graves, but only in their natural revived bodies. They died again. They are still waiting for their true resurrection bodies until that moment when we are all raised up by Christ.
F. A few years ago, a letter appeared in the national news that was sent to a deceased person by the Indiana Department of Social Services. It said, “Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.” Well, here are a few who have seen a change in their circumstances but only for a limited time. (Phil 3:21 NIV) who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
Conclusion and invitation:
1 Corinthians 15:22-26; 51-54
