The Wonder of Easter
Luke 24:1-12
Isn’t it amazing!?! Isn’t it amazing!?! It’s just amazing! The love of Christ the Son of God displayed for all the world to see. Coming as a baby, leaving the wonders of heaven and being able to side by side with God His Father. Born in a manger, being brought up the son of a carpenter. Being baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit coming down to rest on Him and God the Father speaking from heaven telling the whole world that this is His Son in whom He is well pleased. It’s amazing!
All the miracles He performed during His ministry. Feeding the 5,000 with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish, walking on water, calming the seas and the wind. It’s amazing, even the water and the wind obey Him. He made the blind to see, He made the lame to walk, He raised the dead. It’s amazing! He cast out demons and when He did they told the world around them that He is the Son of God.
His compassion is amazing. His sacrifice, allowing Himself to be arrested, allowing Himself to go through a trial and not even a legal trial, allowing Himself to be put before the Jewish leaders and the people all the while they are yelling at the top of their lungs, “Crucify Him, crucify Him, crucify Him. It’s amazing!
Allowing Himself to be chained to a pole and allowing the Roman soldiers whip Him with the cat o nine tails as they tear open His flesh. Allowing the soldiers to weave a crown out of a branch of thorns and put it on His head and allowing them to put a scarlet robe on Him and mock Him and spit on Him, calling Him the King of the Jews.
Isn’t it amazing! He willingly carried the cross (as far as He physically could) that He would be crucified on. He allowed the soldiers to take His arms and spread them out on the cross and put nails through His hands. He allowed the soldiers to take His feat, put them together on the cross and drive a nail through them and into the wood of the cross.
Isn’t it amazing the things He said on the cross, “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” And He said this over and over again. “My God, my God why have You forsaken Me?” “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” “It is finished.” It’s amazing Jesus gave up His life! But what for?
That’s what the disciple must have been thinking? For what? Why did He do all of this? Why did Jesus make us His disciples, teach us all that he taught us, and do all the things He did. For what? You see what is extremely amazing about all of this is that the disciples just didn’t get it, they just didn’t understand it! And they wondered what it was all about.
ILLUS: They were kind of like this 3rd string quarterback. Even if you aren’t a sports fan I think you’ll appreciate this story about a college football team whose starting quarterback had just been injured. Their #2 quarterback was sick, and hadn’t even dressed out for the game. All the coach had left was a 3rd-string freshman who had been a quarterback in high school, but who was just being used on the college team as a punter.
To make matters worse, they were backed up on their own 3-yard line. It was a desperate situation, and the coach’s only thought was somehow to get a little farther from their goal line to give them room to punt out of danger.
Sending in the 3rd-string quarterback, the coach said, “Son, I want you to hand off to the big fullback Kowaski for the next two plays, let him run right into the middle of the line and get us a few yards of breathing room. Then I want you to punt.”
The young quarterback did as he was instructed. On the first play he handed off to Kowaski, but almost miraculously Kowaski found a hole off tackle and ran for 50 yards. The young quarterback called the same play again, and once more, miracle of miracles, the hole opened again and Kowaski gained another 45 yards. The fans went crazy. In two plays they had gone 95 yards, and the ball was on their opponent’s 2-yard line. It was first down and goal to go!
Confidently the team lined up once again. The young quarterback received the snap, stepped back and to everyone’s amazement, punted the ball into the end zone. As his stunned teammates came off the field, the coach angrily grabbed the young quarterback and demanded, “What in the world were you thinking about when you called that last play?” The quarterback answered, “I was thinking what a dumb coach we have.” (Melvin Newland - Sermon Central)
You see there are times in life when we just don’t grasp the situation we are in and the disciples, they were no different. Told over and over again what would happen, but still they didn’t understand the situation
Jesus had been telling them for some time now all that would happen. And yes, early on in His ministry He did tell them metaphorically.
In John 2:18-19, “Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
Did the disciples or the others around Him at that time understand that He was talking about Himself. I think it is pretty clear that they didn’t. Today, we can look back on that scripture and know clearly that He was telling them that He had the authority to do the things He did because He Himself would rise on the third day after being put to death.
We also have to remember that Jesus at times taught very plainly and other times He taught using parables. So the disciples may have had a hard time telling between the two types of teaching. Yet it’s still amazing that they didn’t understand.
ILLUS: Have you ever been around someone who is very subtle? Someone who you can’t tell whether or not he or she is joking with you. Maria has an uncle who is that way, her uncle Donnie. I think he has a pretty good sense of humor but you have to rewind conversations with him in your mind to get the jokes because they are so subtle.
When he is talking with you might think some of the things he is saying are funny but he tells them with such a straight face and in such a way that you are not sure whether you should laugh or not because he might be serious.
The disciples had a hard time understanding some of Jesus’ teaching, figuring out whether Jesus was teaching them plainly or in parables.
Some of the times they did understand, but the mixing of the two could have, and seems to have kept them guessing. So when Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” I can certainly understand why they didn’t get that.
But what about the other times when they didn’t get it? Why didn’t they? It’s seems that He told them plainly enough.
Mt. 16:21, “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
I’m not sure about you, but it doesn’t get anymore plain then that. You’ve got to wonder, what’s up with the disciples, are they slow or something, what is it that kept them from understanding?
It wasn’t long after this that Jesus again tells them in Mt. 20:17-19, Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
It just doesn’t get much more plain and straight forward than that, does it? Let’s break down what He said, “We are going” That certainly means that Jesus and the disciple, they surely understood that. “To Jerusalem” clearly no question about that. “The Son of Man” well Jesus had referred to Himself with that terminology several times before so you would think they understood that, maybe this is the part they didn’t understand, that He was talking about Himself. Seems doubtful though.
He said He would “be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.” Not hard to understand, they certainly knew who they were, they certainly knew what it was to be betrayed.
He told them, “They will condemn him to death”, the Gentiles would mock him, flog him, and crucify him. Again, not hard to comprehend. Then He said, “On the third day he will be raised to life!”
You break it down, which you would think the disciples did over and over in their minds and they had to get what Jesus was talking about. Didn’t they? They surely knew Jesus wasn’t telling them this as a parable, they sure knew this was straight forward.
As much as we break that down and try to figure it out in our own mind why they didn’t get it? (pulling them aside, made it serious)
What must it have been like for the disciples as each day the go closer and closer to Jerusalem? They know what Jesus told them and yes they even confronted Jesus about what He told them. Look at Mt. 16:22 just after Jesus told them what would happen to Him, Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
It seems at least Peter got it, I would assume that the rest of the disciples got it too. But what happened? It seems that what happened, is that life happened. It seems that the disciples, like the rest of us do, they got caught up in everything that was going on around them. They didn’t get that this world is just their temporary home and that heaven is their true home.
They got caught up in the excitement, the miracles, the crowds, they got caught up in the world and with worldly things.
It’s amazing that the disciple didn’t get it, that they didn’t understand it all, why Jesus had to go through all of those things that He went through and then to die on the cross. It’s amazing! But is it really?
Don’t we do the same things that the disciples did? Don’t we get caught up in the world, the excitement, the wonders, the crowds, and maybe even the pier pressure of what the world thinks we should do.
Before many of us became Christians the world had it’s grasp on us. We went its way without a second thought. It was the world, its morals, its laws that defined they way we lived our lives.
For many of us Jesus has come into our lives, as He came into the disciples lives. We see who He is as the disciples also saw who He was. We know of His miracles, we know that He walked on water, we know that He calmed the seas and He made the winds stop. We know that He made the blind to see and the lame to walk again. We know that He raised the dead.
But still the world has its grasp on us. At church on Sunday and maybe even Wednesday, but the world dictates what we do the others days of the week, and if the world infringes on our Sundays or our Wednesdays then more times than not it is the world that wins. You see it’s amazing, we still haven’t understood it yet either.
Jesus had purposed to tell the disciple what would happen, but they didn’t understand and neither do we many times.
John 13:7 & 19, Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”... “I am telling you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe that I am He.
John 2:22, After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
As Jesus was talking with the two on the road to Emmaus it says...
Luke 24:25-27, He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
Then when He appeared to His disciples
Luke 24:44-45, He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
It’s amazing that they didn’t understand all that had happened. Even as the women go to the tomb early on Sunday morning, they find it opened and angels there to tell them that the Christ has risen.
The women go back to Peter and the rest of the disciples and tell them what the angels had told them. Peter and John run back to the tomb as fast as they could and see the empty tomb for themselves. They see the tomb open, they see the linens that Jesus had been rapped in lying there but His body not in them. And the Scriptures say in Luke 24:12 that Peter went away, “...wondering to himself what had happened.”
The women, Peter and the rest of the disciples, even after the resurrection, still didn’t understand! They still didn’t grasp the magnitude of who Jesus is and what He did for them.
Isn’t that where we live our lives, or at least for much of it? Caught between understanding and a lack of it. Caught between a strong everyday commitment to God and our commitment to the world. Caught between sole worship of God and our worship of worldly idols of money, and pleasure, of activities and material possessions. Caught between power and pride.
When will we be truly caught up in the compassion, the love, the mercy, and the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. When will we grasp who Jesus really is and what He has done for us.
We are like the disciple more than we really know. Shown over and over again who Jesus is, but still not yet understanding.
It wasn’t until the disciples saw Jesus (Luke 24:44-45) after the resurrection that they truly know who He is and what He did for them.
And it’s not until after the ascension of Jesus and the coming down of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost that you see the disciples preaching bolding and willing to give their lives for the cause of Christ. That’s when they truly got it, that’s when the truly understood it all.
Before the resurrection Jesus was with them, they saw Him, they touched Him, they ate with Him, they were taught by Him, and witnessed His miracles, but Jesus wasn’t IN them. They only knew worldly ways and worldly thoughts and worldly solutions.
Even after they saw Jesus after His resurrection and understand who He is and what He did for them, but they didn’t act upon what they knew until He was IN them through the Holy Spirit.
They saw the compassion of Jesus, they saw the miracles of Jesus, they saw the love, mercy, and grace of Jesus, but He wasn’t IN them. Once Jesus was IN them and they became the body of Christ on earth there was nothing that would stop them from spreading God’s message of reconciliation to the lost world around them.
Folks, it’s only through the resurrection of Jesus that He can be IN us too. But there are many people in the world who haven’t yet believed.
There are many who do know Jesus, who do believe in Jesus, who have been immersed in Christ, but who quench His presence inside of them as He tries to lead them to obedience.
Kind of like the disciples, being with Jesus, but not truly grasping who He really is and what He has really done for them. They wonder and question as they go through life if they truly are saved or not. Living between heaven and hell.
And then there are those who truly get it. They know the resurrected Jesus and He lives strong in them. They pour out their compassion and love, their mercy and grace, which is only through the power of Christ inside of them. They know that this world is there temporary home and that the Heavenly Kingdom of God is their place of eternal residence.
It’s amazing, we think, that the disciple didn’t understand who Jesus is and what he did for us. But is it really that hard to comprehend their misunderstanding when we go through the same stages of life as they did in coming to true worship and obedience to God and our Savior Jesus Christ?
It’s Easter Sunday and we celebrate the Savior has risen, if you accept Him and let Him live fully inside of you everything changes! Will you accept the resurrected Jesus today?
Let’s pray!
