“He Is Not Here, For He Has Risen”
Matthew 28:6
OPENING JOKE: A little girl was asked by her Sunday school teacher, “What is today?” “Easter” she said confidently. “What happened on Easter”, asked the teacher? She replied, “Jesus came out of the tomb…and if He sees His shadow He goes back in for seven weeks!”
INTRODUCTION: We are here this morning to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ
The resurrection is the cornerstone of our faith – our faith is predicated on the belief that Jesus Christ not only died on the cross but that He rose from the dead
If it were not a reality, there would be no Christian faith
The first sermon ever preached at Pentecost was preached by Peter and it was a sermon on ‘The Resurrection’
Acts 2 :22-24 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.”
In every place Paul preached, he preached the resurrection
In every epistle the resurrection is the key point in the claims held within
Quote: If Christ’s bones were still in Jerusalem, there would be no hope for anyone in the world – but His body is not there, He is alive, having been resurrected from the dead
Jesus’ resurrection is the Bible’s greatest miracle and history’s greatest fact
There are three things I want you to meditate on today as we celebrate the resurrection of Christ
I. Jesus rose bodily from the grave
a. When the believers first came to Jesus’ tomb, His body was missing
i. It had not been stolen as the Jewish leaders asserted
1. This would have been impossible because of the guard set at the tomb by Pilate
2. Matthew 27 tells us that he placed a seal on the tomb and guards to protect it
3. There was no way the disciple’s who wouldn’t stand next to Jesus at His crucifixion would risk their lives simply to steal His dead body
ii. His body was not stolen, God had raised Him from the dead
b. It was not just Jesus’ influence, His Spirit or His energy that rose, but His actual glorified body
i. When Jesus met with His disciples after His resurrection, He met them in bodily form
ii. Many new-age religions and mysticisms try to say that Jesus did not rise bodily, but He rose only spiritually
iii. But listen to Jesus’ own words in Luke’s Gospel
iv. Luke 24:39 “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."”
c. Jesus rose from the grave as not just a Spirit, not just a force, not just an energy, but as a glorified body of flesh and bone
II. Jesus rose eternally from the grave
a. Jesus was not the first person to be resurrected from the dead
i. Elijah and Elisha saw people raised from the dead
ii. Paul raised the young man from the dead who fell out of a window
iii. Jesus also raised others from the dead Himself
1. Jairus’ daughter
2. The widow’s son at Nain
3. Lazarus at Bethany
b. What separates Christ’s resurrection is that all of these others eventually died again
i. He is called the ‘first fruit’ of the resurrection
ii. I Corinthians 15:20 “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”
iii. This is not because He was the first to be raised, but because He was the first to be raised ‘eternally’
c. Jesus came forth from the grave, “alive forevermore”
III. Jesus rose victoriously from the grave
a. When Jesus walked out of that tomb death and the grave lost their sting
i. I Corinthians 15:55 “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?"”
b. The Bibles says that He came forth from the grave with the keys of death and hell in His hands
i. Revelation 1:18 “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.”
ii. The grave could not hold Him
iii. Death could not harm Him
iv. The stone could not darken the Light of the world
c. Illustration: “England Defeated” During the “Battle of Waterloo” there was a man who was set at a post in England’s Winchester Cathedral anxiously awaiting the signal as to whether or not his country had won the war. As the lighted signal began to shine, fog began rolling through. The watchman read the signal which said, “England defeated”. He signaled the news to the other watchmen and it spread along the countryside and all were devastated by the tragedy. Then the fog lifted. And the watchman discovered the true signal said, “England defeated the enemy” Joy and happiness overflowed because England had won!
i. On Good Friday it seemed the message was "Christ defeated"
ii. But three days later we discover that the message had not been receive in full.
iii. The resurrection reverses what we initially thought and declares "Christ defeated the enemy”
CONCLUSION: I would like to close with a story…
Illustration: “Philip’s Empty Egg” A young boy named Philip with Down’s syndrome attended a Sunday school class. While the other kids didn’t mock his problem, they also did not include him either. One week before Easter, the teacher gave all of the children plastic eggs and instructed them to go home and fill the eggs with something that represented Easter.
The next week all of the children gave their eggs and the teacher opened them one by one and they discussed how each thing represented Easter. One had a flower petal, another had a leaf and so on all representing spring and new life.
The teacher then came to an empty egg. Assuming it was Philip’s, she put it aside thinking he must not have understood the project. Philip objected saying, “Why won’t you talk about my egg?” The teacher said, “But Philip, your egg is empty.” To which he replied, “So was the tomb”
Philip became accepted by his classmates that day. A few months later Philip died from a simple infection that most kids would have just shrugged off. Inside his casket were 19 empty plastic Easter eggs, one from every child in his class.
The greatest fact of history is that empty tomb
Too often we get caught up in the celebrations of Easter and we forget what it is we are celebrating
Quote: We are not just celebrating the coming of spring, but the resurrection of our King
He died for our sins and was raised to life for our justification
Because He lives, we can face tomorrow
His resurrection guarantees our own resurrection when He comes again
As believers, death can never harm us because Jesus has conquered it victoriously and eternally!
We should want to stand on rooftops this morning and cry out about the resurrection of our Lord
Illustration: “Not Want to Shout” British minister W.E. Sangster contracted an incurable disease that slowly caused his muscles to waste away, his voice to fail and his throat to become unable to swallow. He continued in ministry, right up until the point where his voice had gone and he could barely hold a pen. On Easter morning, just a few weeks before he died, he wrote in a letter to his daughter: "It is terrible to wake up Easter morning and have no voice with which to shout "He is risen!" - but it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout
Jesus Christ is risen today! Hallelujah! Amen!
