Introduction
Read Luke 24:1-9
Easter! What a glorious day for Christians. It means everything to us. In fact we worship on the first day of the week, Sunday, every week because Jesus came out of the tomb on that day. I hope none of us takes for granted what Christ’s resurrection means. I hope that we have experienced His new life and will experience our own resurrection because He conquered death for us.
We are so accustomed to Easter rolling around every year. Yet have you ever thought what it might have been like for the disciples to experience the death of the One they gave up everything to follow? They had no idea that He would rise from the grave. Try to visualize one of those disciples coming to meet with us here at our Sonrise service.
Monologue
“What good does faith do me now?” I remember thinking that when Jesus was arrested and tried on that Thursday night so long ago. “If a good man like Jesus has to go through all this, what kind of a just God is there? Maybe the unbelievers are right.”
My name is Matthew. I’ve come back to tell you about the week many have come to call holy. I was a tax collector before I became a follower of Jesus. Everything was going so well until that Thursday of the longest weekend in the world. When it dawned that Thursday we had no idea what we were in for.
Thursday
Jesus celebrated Passover with us as He had done a couple times before. During the supper Jesus boldly proclaimed that one of us would betray Him. Now others had become disenchanted with Him and had left following Him. But we were the ones who stayed on with Him. Certainly it couldn’t be one of us. I still had some doubts about whether He was The Messiah, but there was no way I could betray Him. And yet I wasn’t fully sure of that. Later I was told that the Lord identified Judas as the betrayer. I did notice he left suddenly, but I just thought our treasurer had been given some instructions by Jesus to attend to.
Toward the end of the supper Jesus instituted His own touch on the time-honored feast by telling us that the bread and cup were actually referring to Him. The bread referred to His body and the cup referred to His blood that would open up a new covenant with God. If that wasn’t strange enough, He then predicted that all of us would deny Him. “Not me,” said Peter. “Even if all the rest deny you, I never will”, he continued. Funny I was thinking the same thing. Then Jesus’ words astounded all of us; “Before the cock crows, you will deny Me three times.” “Never,” said Peter defiantly, Never.”
We had moved from John Mark’s house through the Kidron Valley and arrived at the Garden of Gethsemane, exhausted by the night’s activities, with apprehension of what was to come. Jesus asked us all to pray with Him. Three of our group were invited to go with Him further into the garden. The rest of us settled down to pray and that is the last thing I remember until a loud commotion woke me up. When Jesus specifically asked us to pray with Him I fell asleep. Only later would I realize how much He and I needed that neglected prayer.
Then Judas arrived. He kissed Jesus to identify Him to the guards and stepped back while the soldiers started to arrest the Lord. Peter slashed at the soldier’s face, but caught only a piece of his ear as the soldier ducked. “Put away the sword,” Jesus said. “All who take the sword, die by the sword.” And then He turned to the soldiers and said, “You don’t need swords and clubs to take me.” That did not deter their harsh treatment of Him. As soon as they grabbed Him, I found myself running away. I didn’t stop until I just couldn’t run any more. Even then I was looking behind to see if I had been followed.
How can you keep faith in a man who will say something like that? If He could call down a legion of angels, why didn’t He do it? What good does faith do, if the best man who ever lived can be treated this way? It was a sad, confusing time for me. It got worse.
Peter later told us how he went to the courtyard of Caiaphas, the high priest, where Jesus was tried. Jesus was confronted by Caiaphas, who said, “Tell us if You are the Messiah, the Son of God.” “So you say,” was the crisp reply. Tearing at his garments, Caiaphas cried, “Blasphemy! We need no other witnesses! He is guilty and must die.” They all agreed. They spat at His face and beat Him. Yet it wasn’t over for Jesus. He would be hauled from one egotistic leader to another for trial.
While this first trial was going on Peter was pointed out by two different slave girls as being a follower of Jesus and he denied it. Finally when several others made the third accusation, Peter lost it and began to curse saying, “I don’t know the man!” Immediately a rooster crowed near by just as Jesus was led away to His next trial. Peter says he will never forget the look of pity he received from our Lord. It was one of the few moments when blabbermouth was speechless.
Friday
Where was I during all of this? Well, I sure wasn’t sleeping, that’s for sure. I might have taken a quick snooze in the garden, but every part of me was on alert. I couldn’t risk falling asleep and being found by the soldiers. If they took our leader, they would be after us next. I had to stay awake. I had to keep moving. All night long I moved from one dark alley to another. Several times I thought I was being watched, which brought on another quick exit. And all along my mind was racing with unsettling questions about Jesus, about my safety, about the future, and about Jesus claims.
Jesus as I was to learn later, remained silent in the face of so many accusers. The Roman authority, Pilate, was convinced of His innocence, but Jesus would not speak up on His own behalf. Just a few words would have surely meant His release. Yet with no response from the Lord and the building cry of the religious leaders and the people for His crucifixion, Pilate gave in to the pressure. Jesus was led away to become the play toy of the soldiers. They whipped Him, ripping through His skin with pieces of bone and stone at the end of the flogging whip. He was led along the path, like a lamb going to the slaughter, carrying the cross on which he was to be crucified.
By this time in the morning it was tougher for me to hide so I joined a loud mob heading out of the city. In their midst I should be safe. When the crowd suddenly stopped, my curiosity got the best of me and so I pushed my self ahead to see what was going on. As I pushed one more person out of the way, I was face to face with a bloody mass of human flesh underneath the huge cross. Never had I witnessed such a horrible sight as this. The man tried to get up but fell under the weight. A guard was approaching and I quickly moved behind the man in back of me. Then the soldier pointed in my direction and I ducked down and began to crawl back into the crowd. I could hear that deep voice say, “You there, come and carry His cross!” I stopped, stood up, up on my toes, just in time to see the man I had been hiding behind just a moment before step forward and pick up the cross. And then the tortured man slowing rose. He turned and looked in my direction. He even smiled. It was Jesus. And I was on the run again, pushing and shoving to get away.
“What good does it do to believe?” I said to myself in the hurry to get away. “We left everything and followed Him. Now look at Him. I would never had recognized Him if I hadn’t been with Him for 3 years. This man can not be the Messiah.” My feelings were mixed, since I had great pity for the man dressed in a mock scarlet robe and crowned with thorns. I was so confused by His apparent weakness that I felt betrayed, then guilty because He was suffering so much. I wanted to take His place and die for Him. Suddenly I quit running. I had slept when He asked me to pray. I had run when He was arrested. And here I was running again. Safe or not – Messiah or not – I was going back – enough running – and enough running away. I turned around and began to run as fast as I could back to Jesus. I knew where crucifixions were carried out so I took the shortest route I knew to get there. Out of breath, I approached Golgotha.
Seeing the crowd and the soldiers sparked my petrifying fear again, so I moved into the crowd but still on the fringe. I could see them driving large nails through the hands and feet of Jesus. They dropped His cross into the hole which had been dug in the ground; a hole which surely went all the way to hell. There I watched Him die the agonizing, suffocating death of crucifixion. He constantly pushed off with His feet in order to relieve the pain in His hands. Then He would struggle to shift the weight back to His hands to relieve the pain of His feet. Each time He would push up with His feet He had to take a breath because when He shifted back to His hands it would crush His lungs forcing the air out of His body. Back and forth. Back and forth.
For 6 bloody hours.
Here was the man who had saved me from my selfishness and He couldn’t save Himself. “What good does it do to believe in God now?” I asked myself. It was so hard to watch. It was so hard trying to understand. It was so hard to hear all the evil things said to Him. Occasionally Jesus would speak, interrupting my mixed thoughts. By the time I realized it was Him speaking, I missed what He said. The moments turned into hours. Then as I once more looked in His direction, He let out a guttural cry, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” or “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” “God too?”, I thought. The rest of us had and now God has forsaken Him as well? “What’s going on?”, I spoke out loud. With that, several, including one soldier, looked my way. Oh no, here we go again and I was on the run. But then I heard my Lord’s voice again. I stopped and turned to see Him look up, mutter something and then His head dropped to His chest. There was no more pushing up to breath. There was no movement at all. The Master was dead!
This man who had loved so much…this man who changed so many…this man before whom the young, the old, and the sinners had felt such dignity…this man who had healed and even brought people back from the dead was now Himself a dead man.
It was more than my mind and my heart could grasp. I felt like I was going to heave up my insides. Nothing was left…no hope…no plans…no faith…nothing.
One of the soldiers looked up at Jesus limp body and said, “Surely this was the Son of God.” But I wasn’t sure anymore. I looked over to the women, Mary Magdalene and the others, and felt deeply for their grief. I couldn’t help them. I couldn’t help myself.
Joseph, a rich Jew and a member of the Sanhedrin Court, which condemned Jesus, asked permission to bury Jesus in his own cave, just outside Jerusalem. Poor Joseph, he wanted to become a disciple for so long, but he hesitated because of his position, for fear of what people might say. He was a decent man, but so cautious that opportunity had now passed him by. Now when Jesus was dead, he didn’t care about caution and decided to give up his own resting place to the Lord. A large stone was rolled in front of the grave, which had been dug into the side of the hill. No way out.
Saturday
“No way out”…that phrase monopolized my thoughts the Saturday after Jesus’ death. That’s how my life had been before Jesus called me. “Follow Me,” he said. “Why would I do a thing like that?” I reasoned. I was wealthy. I had power. I knew the right people, important people. The other Jews despised me. They called me a traitor, and worse, because I went to work for the Roman government as a tax collector. The fools. When you are occupied by a foreign power, the smart thing to do is to cooperate with them…go to work for them. You’ve got to be practical! There was no way out!
No way out! That’s how I felt about my job. After I agreed to do it, I had all kinds of doubts that I shared with no one. I didn’t like what I was doing, but there was no way to stop. No place to go. No way out. If I quit, the Jews wouldn’t accept me. Certainly the Romans would have no place for a quitter. So, you see, there was no way out.
Yet, one day this prophet named Jesus, about whom everyone was talking, passed by my tax booth, looked at me and said, “Follow Me.” And I did. Why would a man leave everything…job, family, home, security…and follow Jesus? Because Jesus had the glance that knows. His eyes were great canyons of understanding and compassion. No one ever looked at me like this man. No one. He should have condemned me. Instead He invited me…encouraged me…befriended me. He knew my secret…so long kept inside. I was lonely all the way to my bones. I longed to be loved. Befriended. He provided the way out of the hell of loneliness and self hate.
On that Saturday after Jesus died I remembered how He had provided a way out for me. Why then didn’t He provide a way out for Himself? Why hadn’t He called on angels to slay the miserable Romans? Why didn’t He overpower them like He had overpowered so many demons in the 3 years we had been together? Why didn’t He put those pompous Pharisees and priests in their place like He had done so often before? Why was there no way out for this man who provided a way out for so many losers and nobodies and sinners like me? Why did He have to die like a nobody?
The priests secretly knew He was somebody, somebody important, and somebody who could overthrow their system and upset the status quo. They knew. That’s why they insisted that a guard be placed by Jesus’ tomb on Saturday. Pilate, tired of their games, told them to use their own guards. They did, thus assuring that it was the end of Jesus and that there would be no way out, even if someone should try to steal the body. That was a laugh. We were so despondent about Jesus’ cruel death and so afraid we‘d be next that we could not have stolen a piece of bread from a blind lady. The seal was put on the great stone in front of the grave. The guard was placed. No way out!
Sunday
Early Sunday morning several of the women went to the grave to embalm the body of Jesus according to Jewish custom. They saw the stone rolled away. They heard the voice of a young man dressed in white while the trembling guards looked on like dead men. He said, “You must not be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus who was nailed to the cross. He is not here. He is risen, just as he told you He would be. Come here and see the place where He was laying. Now, go, quickly, and tell His disciples.
The women ran, only half believing what they had heard. It was impossible. Yet, they heard it and they saw the empty tomb where Jesus had been placed. Suddenly, from behind a tree, a man appeared. Jesus stepped in front of them and said, “Good morning. Peace be with you.”
They fell at His feet and grabbed a hold. They worshiped Him. They couldn’t speak. They couldn’t cry. They couldn’t laugh. “Don’t be afraid,” He said, “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.” And then He was gone. They got to their feet and ran to tell us the news, the good news.
Meanwhile, the soldiers had returned to the city and told the chief priest everything. “There was no way out,” they said, “yet He is gone.” The priests paid the guards a large sum of money to lie and tell everyone that the disciples had stolen the body while the soldiers were asleep.
We didn’t believe the women. You can’t take someone else’s word for a thing like this. “If it were only true,” I thought…”but no…there is no way out.” By this time I was hiding out with the other disciples, so I said out loud, “Do you really believe there is life after death?” Then Jesus appeared to us.
Still doubting, we were confronted by the Lord who had conquered death. “Peace be with you.” He was alive! My mind could not comprehend what my eyes were seeing and my ears were hearing.
Later, He said, “I have been given all authority in heaven and earth. Go then to people everywhere and make them My disciples. I want you to baptize them in the name of God and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I will be with you always.
It finally dawned on me. He had taught us to pray, “For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” Death did not stop that. There was a way out of death. Jesus had found it. No, He created it. He was the Lord of heaven and earth. His was the kingdom, the power, and glory forever.
That is why I am here today. To tell you that it is true.
• Maybe you are mourning a loved one. Has it dawned on you?
• Maybe you are suffering. Has it dawned on you?
• You who doubt, has it dawned on you?
• You might believe there is no way out of your problem. Has it dawned on you?
Has it dawned on you? Jesus is the way out of death.
Has it dawned on you? There is new life now. Jesus is the way.
Has it dawned on you? The One who conquered death can conquer any problem.
Has it dawned on you? Jesus is alive. In Jerusalem, in Galilee, and in China Grove!!!
This is Easter the day of dawning.
You need never again say, “It never dawned on me.” Let Jesus bring a new dawn to your life.
The Lord is risen! He lives! He wants to live in you.
Adapted from “It Dawned on Me” in You Can’t Start a Car With a Cross by Ron Lavin
