Title: Solving the Death Problem
Text: Matthew 28:1-10
Thesis: Jesus solves the death problem! In his resurrection he conquered sin and death and gives us resurrection hope.
Introduction
I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but Google, Inc. has rolled out an independent company called Calico. Calico stands for California Life Company. The company continues to generate excitement among geneticists and biotech experts.
They initially pulled together four heavy hitters from high-ranking research positions: Hal Barron was chief medical officer at Roche (Rosh: Genetic and Gnome Research); Dr. Robert Cohen a senior oncologist from Genentech; Dr. Cynthia Kenyon, a molecular biologist who discovered a genetic mutation that can double the life span of a round worm; and David Botstein, director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Interactive Genomics at Princeton University.
One of the scientists, Dr. Kenyon, gives us a peek into what they are up to in her paper on anti-aging (presented on TED) in which she tells of how she has discovered that “we just don’t wear out, like cars of an old shoe. In fact, aging is subject to control by genes – and specifically by hormones.” (Calico Company, Wikipedia)
The plan is to focus on “biologics that promote tissue regeneration, extend the upper limit of human lifespan, and help seniors feel healthier.” The goal is to prevent aging. The genius of Calico is that extending life is about as high as it gets on the human scale of desires.
People who want to know are asking, “Can Google’s Calico solve the problem of death?”
The Grim Reaper is our cultural personification of death. Dark humor often portrays the Grim Reaper lurking around. This week I read about a scientific study that determined the Grim Reaper walks at a pace of 2 mph. The study results indicate that if we walk 3 mph or faster, we can outrun the Grim Reaper. So maybe the key to dodging death is to simply out run the Grim Reaper. (Essentially the study found that people who walk faster live longer.)
Meanwhile, we all get it. Life is good it is fleeting. Unless we are alive at the time of Christ’s return, death is inevitable. The bible says in Hebrews 9:27 that, “each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment…” Hence, death ominously looms before us. Few of us are anxious to get on that, as the blues singers put it,“slow train a comin’.”
The biblical account tells us that Christ died and was buried. That is where we begin this morning. Jesus is dead. He was crucified; he is dead and in his grave.
I. Where is Jesus?
Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb. Matthew 28:1
Every Gospel account tells of how the women, both Mary and the other Mary were sitting across from the tomb and watching. They had witnessed the horrific cruelty Jesus experienced. They had watched him die. They had sat across from the tomb as Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea who had become a follower of Christ, wrapped his body in a long sheet of linen cloth and placed Jesus in his own newly carved out tomb. Then it says he rolled a great stone across the entrance. It is in the context of suffering and death that the two Mary(s) came early on Sunday morning with spices to properly prepare Jesus’ body for burial.
What they expected to find inside that tomb was a corpse. They were familiar all too familiar with death. The average life span in the Roman Empire at that time was between 45 and 47 years of age. People died. And when Jesus died, they fully expected to find Jesus’ body wrapped in a linen cloth and lying on a stone slab inside that tomb.
Occasionally you hear of a mortuary horror story. Last year in Seattle, Washington, two men died. One was cremated for a memorial service and the other prepared for an open casket funeral. However… at the viewing the man in the casket was not the man who was supposed to be in the casket. He was wearing the right man’s clothes. He was wearing the right man’s wedding ring. And he had a picture of the right man’s wife in the casket with him…but he was the wrong man.
When that family went to the funeral home they expected to find their loved one. And when Mary and Mary went to the tomb they expected to find Jesus.
And that is when what was a rather ordinary part of life was disrupted by the extraordinary.
Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled the stone aside and sat on it. His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him and the fell into a dead faint. Matthew 28:2-4
Using our idiom we would say, “And when they saw the angel they fainted dead away.” They had a vasovagal syncope… they were frightened. Their blood pressure dropped and their hearts could not pump enough blood to their brains and they fainted dead away.
The angel knew what happened and he warned the women, “Don’t be afraid! I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. [But] he isn’t here!” Matthew 28:5
The question, “Where is Jesus?” suddenly becomes, “Where is Jesus now?” Death is a problem.
II. Where Jesus isn’t?
“He is not here; for he was risen from the dead. Come and see where his body was lying.” Matthew 28:6
It may have gone like this:
• The women asked, “Where is Jesus?”
• The angel answered, “He is not here.”
• Then the women ask, “Why not?”
• The angel then answered, “Because he has risen from the dead.”
• The women then asked, “Then, where is Jesus now? If he isn’t here, where is he?”
There is a new fantasy drama television series playing on ABC right now. It’s called “Resurrection.” The storyline is set in Arcadia, Mississippi and something very strange is happening. In the first segment an 8-year old boy wakes up in a rice paddy in China. The foliage where is wakes up is fanned out as if he had made snow angel. Somehow they figure out he is from the United States and he is returned to the states where they discover his name is Jacob… Jacob was written on the inside collar of his shirt. Jacob remembers he lived in Arcadia, Mississippi so an immigration agent returns him to Arcadia where he points out his home. Upon ringing the door bell Jacob’s father, Henry, answers the door and discovers Jacob… just as he was 32 years ago when, as an 8 year-old boy, he drowned in the river.
Of course it is crazy but most of us wonder about our loved ones. Where is he now? How old is he? What does he look like? What is it like where he is? Will I ever see him again?
When Bonnie and I walk through the little cemetery in southwest Decatur County, Kansas we note the names on the markers… and we reflect on our memories of old friends buried there. Then we stand at Patrick’s grave and we read the marker, “Patrick S. Newton - May 6, 1969 – March 15, 1993.” Then we go around and read the etching on the back of the marker, “Son of Monty and Bonnie – Brother of Lorri and Corky.”
Where is he now? We are certain that his earthly remains, so to speak, are in that marked grave. We know where we have laid our loved ones to rest and we are certain that their earthly remains are secure in those places.
But the bible says the grave is where Jesus isn’t!
So the question remained in the minds of the women, “Where is he now?”
III. Where is Jesus now?
[As they left the grave] Jesus met them and greeted them. Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.” Matthew 28:9-10
The text tells us that Jesus has gone on ahead of us and that he will meet us there… not Galilee for us but heaven.
What that empty tomb means to us today is this: neither we nor our loved ones are trapped in graves.
We might like the idea of being more healthy and living longer but the problem of aging and either accidental or natural death is not solved by scientific research. It is solved by the empty tomb. It is the resurrected Christ and the empty tomb that give us a real and lasting future.
I believe that God’s Word is true. God’s Word says “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Then the spirit of the Christian lives on… leaving the earthly body at the time of death to enter the presence of God.
When I die you may think you have me all bottled up in a beautiful brass urn or sealed in the finest solid bronze casket made…but you will be mistaken.
The Scriptures teach us in I Thessalonians 4 that when Christ comes again he will bring with him, the living souls of all those who have died in Christ. “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven and with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God… those who have died in Christ will experience a bodily resurrection from their graves and then those who are still living will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord. Then we will be with the Lord forever.”
Conclusion
On Sunday, June 18, 1815 England was at war with France… it was the Battle of Waterloo. The battle took place in present day Belgium which was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Duke of Wellington led the British army and Napoleon Bonaparte led the French army. Gebhard Von Blucher was leading a Prussian army that had come to join with the British forces in combat against the French.
The people at home in England were anxiously awaiting news of the outcome of the battle of Waterloo. A signalman was placed on top of Winchester Cathedral to keep an outlook on the sea. When he received a message he was to pass it on to another man on a hill. That man was to pass it on to another, and on and on. In that way the outcome of the battle was relayed finally to London and then across all of Britain.
At last a ship was sited through the fog which lay thick on the English Channel. The signalman on board the ship sent the first word - Wellington. The next word was defeated. Then the fog closed in and the ship could no longer be seen. “Wellington Defeated!” The tragic news was sent across England and deep gloom hung over the nation. After a few hours the fog lifted and the signal came again –Wellington defeated the enemy! Now the full message raced across Britain again and the nations gloom was overcome by joy.
When Jesus died that cruel death on the cross on The Place of the Skull his mother, his family, his friends and followers felt the deep pall of gloom… evil and death had won. All their hopes had died with him… But when the fog lifted on Easter morning the full message came through: “Jesus is not here! He has risen from the dead and has gone on before you.”
