MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX
A. If you would, please open your Bibles to the 28th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew & follow along as I read the first 10 verses of that chapter.
"After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene & the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven &, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone & sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, & his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook & became like dead men.
"The angel said to the women, `Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen, just as He said. Come & see the place where He lay. Then go quickly & tell His disciples: `He has risen from the dead & is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him.’ Now I have told you.’
"So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, & ran to tell His disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. `Greetings,’ He said. They came to Him, clasped His feet & worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, `Do not be afraid. Go & tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.’"
B. Now before we go on, I want you to note the number of times that the word "afraid" appears in that passage.
Vs. 4 says "the guards were so afraid..." In vs. 5, "The angel said to the women, `Do not be afraid.’" In vs. 8, as the women hurried from the tomb, they were "afraid yet filled with joy." Finally, in vs. 10, "Jesus said to them, `Do not be afraid.’"
Did you count them? Four times the word "afraid" appears in that passage. Now keeping that in mind, turn to the first chapter of the Book of Revelation, & listen as I read vs’s 17 & 18, where the apostle John sees Jesus.
"When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead. Then He placed His right hand on me & said: `Do not be afraid. I am the First & the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, & behold I am alive for ever & ever! And I hold the keys of death & Hades.’"
ILL. Do you know what a "black hole" is in astronomy? Of course, I realize that those of you who are fans of Star Trek do. Roughly speaking, a black hole is an spot in the vastness of space which astronomers tell us acts like a giant vacuum or whirlpool sucking everything around it into the hole.
Well, up until recently, the only black holes that had been found were in galaxies millions of light years away from the earth. But 6 years ago astronomers made the startling announcement that a black hole had been found nearby in our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Headlines proclaimed that inevitably our sun & all the planets around it will be sucked right into it & everything will be gone.
Does that news bother you? How do you feel about it?
APPL. Well, I have mixed emotions. First of all it explains some things. Now I know where all my socks that never return from the dryer are going. And now I know why my wife’s glasses are constantly disappearing.
But think about it. If someday we’re going to be sucked up into this black hole, then why are we out here sweating & worrying & making plans for the future? Why even bother, if sometime soon the black hole of the universe is going to swallow us all up? Well, I have an answer for that.
C. But do you think maybe the women felt like they were in some kind of a black hole when they made their way to the tomb on that Easter morn? And how about the apostles who were hiding behind locked doors? They had invested their lives. They had believed with all their heart that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the one they should follow.
They had believed in His cause so completely that they left homes & families & security to follow Him. Then suddenly the black hole had come & Jesus was taken from them.
And the word that describes the emotion that gripped them is the word "fear." "Will I be next? Will they come after me, too? What happens tomorrow? With Jesus gone, what do I do, where do I go?"
APPL. Maybe some of you are experiencing a black hole this morning. Maybe it has taken away a loved one, a spouse, or a child, or a parent. Or maybe it has taken away your job & your security, & you’re not sure what you’re going to do next. So you wonder, "Why continue on?"
But the message of Easter is that even if a black hole comes into our lives, there is a something more wonderful beyond it.
PROP. And the passage that I read from Revelation gives 4 reasons why Christians need not be afraid. So if you’re a Christian this morning, if Jesus Christ is your Lord & Savior, then this passage says that you do not need to be afraid. And here are the reasons.
I. POWER OF THE GENTLE TOUCH
A. #1, you do not need to be afraid because of the power of the gentle touch of Jesus. Let me read vs. 17 again. John says, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead."
Now you need to remember that one day all of us are going to see what John saw. One day, maybe not too long from now, you & I will stand & look into the face of the Lord. And that will be such an awesome sight that I’m convinced we’ll react in the same way John reacted.
Then notice what happens. John says that while he was lying before Him as a dead person, "He placed His right hand on me & said: `Do not be afraid.’"
That’s awesome power clothed in gentleness. We’re not used to seeing power like that. We see power as being harsh. We see dictators & rulers misusing power & abusing & manipulating people. But in Him we see unlimited power clothed in gentleness. So He reaches down & touches the trembling John & He says, "Do not be afraid."
B. As we look at the New Testament, time & time again it shows Jesus with people who are lonely & tired & rejected, people who are depressed & stressed out in life. He looks at them & sees them as sheep without a shepherd, & it tells us that He reached out & touched them. There is something about His touch that brought assurance & erased fear.
Sometimes He touched those whom no one else would dare touch. Mark tells us in his gospel that one time a leper came to Jesus. Lepers were untouchable. But Jesus touched him.
I’ve always felt it was His touch as much as the power that flowed from Him that healed the leper. Just to be touched for the first time in weeks or months by another person, to know that someone cared enough to reach out & touch a person branded "untouchable" must have been healing in itself.
Suddenly the leper is well & his skin is whole again. He stands tall & straight again because of the power of the gentle touch.
SUM. So, if you’re a Christian, if Jesus Christ is your Lord & Savior, you need not be afraid. Because the power of all the universe is clothed in the mantle of the gentleness of Jesus, our Savior & our Lord.
II. LIFE COMES FROM DEATH
A. The second reason that you need not be afraid is that life comes from death. Notice what Jesus says in vs. 18. He says, "I am the Living One; I was dead, & behold I am alive for ever & ever!"
Three things come from that little portion of a verse. First of all, Jesus says, "I am the Living One!"
We need to realize that Jesus lived a life just like the lives we live. He went to parties, & He laughed, & He cried, & sometimes He was lonely. He needed friends & they weren’t always there, so sometimes He felt rejected. He got tired & hungry & thirsty just like we do. He tasted the things of life that you & I taste. He was tempted as we are tempted.
So as you go through the Mondays, Tuesdays, & Wednesdays of life, He understands. He knows exactly what you’re experiencing. He knows the pressures & the emotions that go through your heart & your nerves everyday because He experienced that, too.
B. Not only did He experience life, He also experienced death. Many Bible translations translate the phrase "I was dead" as, "I became dead." And maybe that’s the best translation.
For even as God deliberately chose to enter this world & thus "became flesh," so also He chose to sacrifice Himself upon the cross & thus "became dead." He experienced the pain & the loneliness & the agony of death itself. "I am the Living One," He said, "I became dead."
C. Then He says, "But now `I am alive for ever & ever.’" Don’t leave out the "for ever & ever." The Roman soldiers cannot touch Him again. They cannot drive nails into His hands & feet again. Pilate cannot issue his verdict again. There can no longer be any mockery. Jesus is alive forever & ever.
Listen to the exciting words of Romans 6:9-10. It says, "For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again, death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God."
So we don’t have to be afraid this morning, because all power is in the hands of a gentle Savior. And because out of His death comes life.
SUM. The Bible teaches that your body & mine is like a seed that we plant in a garden, all shriveled & dead. But when the sun & the rains come, it produces a new life. So we don’t need to be afraid of death.
III. HE IS THE FIRST & THE LAST
A. Thirdly, we don’t need to be afraid because of what He says in the last part of vs. 17. He says, "I am the First & the Last."
Now think about that. He says, "I am the First." The apostle John wrote, "In the beginning was the Word, & the Word was with God, & the Word was God." He’s talking about Jesus! Then he says, "Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made" [John 1:1,3].
At the dawn of creation, as the world was without form & void, there was Jesus. His hands began to form & fashion this world. Dry land emerged & soon vegetation began to grow. Lakes & streams were formed & fish began to swim. Animals began to roam the forests.
Finally, as the culmination of His creative act, He takes dust & forms the body of a man. He breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, & Adam becomes a living soul. Then soon, Eve is standing there beside him.
Jesus was there, right at the very beginning.
B. But not only is He the First, He is also the Last, the period at the end of the sentence, the final word in the chapter. And as history moves towards its culmination. That last voice you hear. That last face you see. The last presence you will experience is the one who is last. He is First & He is Last.
IV. HE HOLDS THE KEYS TO DEATH & HADES
A. Finally, we need not fear because the resurrected Lord says, "I hold the keys of death & Hades." See that picture if you can. Imagine Jesus standing there in all His glory, holding a ring of keys. There is more than one key, for He holds the keys of both Hades & death.
The word "Hades" means "the abode of the dead." There is only one set of keys, & Jesus holds that set. If you look closely you will notice that those keys are still shiny & new. Only on rare occasions have they been used.
ILL. Once as Jesus was going to a place to teach the multitudes, a man by the name of Jairus came to Him, & told Him that his little daughter was sick. Little girls often have the unique ability of wrapping their daddies around their little fingers, & I’m sure this little girl had done that. She was 12 years old the Bible tells us, & he loved her, & now she was very sick. So he came to Jesus in desperation saying, "My daughter is sick. Please come & heal her!"
As Jesus begins to make His way through the crowd to go to the sickbed of that little girl, the Bible tells us that a woman with an issue of blood reached out & touched His garment & was instantly healed. So Jesus stopped to talk with her.
But that delay was just long enough to set up a "good news, bad news" situation. The woman was well & her family was rejoicing, but then the news came that the little girl was dead.
Now her daddy’s heart must have been broken into a thousand pieces. But Jesus keeps going. Finally, He enters her room & sees the little girl whose body is now ashen, & He picks up her limp hand & says, "Princess, wake up." Once again He has taken out those keys & thrown open the door of death & Hades. And the little girl sits up, blinks her eyes, smiles a big smile, & hugs her daddy once again.
ILL. It happened again as Jesus was entering the city of Nain. He met a funeral procession. The Bible tells us that a widow was about to bury her only son. She was now all alone in this world. Jesus could never watch something like that without doing something.
While the Bible doesn’t say that He wept with her, I’m convinced He did. And as He comforted her, He walked over to the coffin & said, "Son, get up." Once again Jesus took the keys of death & Hades & threw open the door, & the boy sat up & greeted his mother & death had been defeated.
ILL. It happened again when word came that Lazarus, one of His best friends was sick, & then he was dead. As Jesus stands before his tomb with Mary & Martha & all of their friends & family, John says, "Jesus wept." The finality of death. The closing of the door & the locking of the latches. The separation. And Jesus weeps.
Then He speaks with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!" And once again He uses the keys & unlocks the latches & throws open the door of death & Hades, & Lazarus is alive again.
ILL. It happens one more time. They take the body of Jesus down from the cross. His friends carry His body & put it in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. A stone is rolled into place & the Roman government says, "Put the seal of Rome on that tomb. Have soldiers guard it, & make it as secure as you can."
There is a touch of humor there, if you can catch it. Here is a part of the most powerful army in the world, & it thinks it can stand against the forces of God. "Make it as secure as you can."
The thing they didn’t realize was that the one inside had the keys to death & Hades. And early in the morning on the first day of the week, He took out those keys one more time & unlocked the latches. And as the women were coming, wondering how they were going to roll away the stone, Jesus had already rolled it away. Death had already been defeated. Jesus was alive, & alive forevermore!
CONCL. I said at the beginning of this sermon that if you are a Christian this passage of Scripture gives you 4 good reasons not to be afraid. If you are a Christian this morning, you need not be afraid.
But if you’re not a Christian then you have every reason to be afraid. I have no words of hope for you if you turn your back on Jesus Christ. Death will have the final say.
But hear this word of hope, the invitation is still open. Jesus still invites. He urges you to come while there is still time, & confess His name, & accept Him as the Lord & Savior of your life. You can know His gentle touch. You can know the life that springs from His death. You can know that He is the First & the Last, & He has the only set of keys that can unlock your grave & give you everlasting life.
