"tomb Visitors On Resurrection Sunday"

TOMB VISITORS ON RESURRECTION MORNING

Matthew 28: 1-8, 9-10; John 20:1-9, 11-18

Greenmount and O’Leary Churches of Christ April 04, 2021

Video Link: https://youtu.be/vJykUX0tKMI

INTRODUCTION:

1.) This morning I want us to go back in time over 2,000 years to the scene of a graveyard.

2.) This is not just any graveyard, for the body of Jesus had been buried there a few days before.

3.) Yet as we come to the graveyard it is rather scary because:

I THERE WAS A VIOLENT EARTHQUAKE. (Matthew 28:1-4)

1.) This was not just a regular earthquake.

A.) It was caused by an angel of the Lord coming from heaven to earth.

B.) Just a couple of days earlier there was another earthquake, and it was also a very violent earthquake.

2.) Usually there is no mention of an earthquake because of an angelic visit in Scripture.

A.) But this was a special occasion, and it seems the angel of the Lord was the cause of this violent earthquake that came.

B.) This was a day the greatness of which can only compare to that day when the trumpet of the Lord will sound and Jesus’ return.

ba.) On this day Jesus by his own power conquered death and the grave.

bb.) In the Old and New Testaments there are a few accounts of resurrections.

C.) As great as those workings of God had been this was different.

ca.) Jesus by means of his own voice and power, in the depths of death and the grave orchestrated his own resurrection.

ca.) Perhaps that was the cause of the earthquake.

E.) The earth could not help but to shake as the voice of Jesus reverberated through the depths of Hades, commanding his own lifeless body to come back to life.

F.)) On Resurrection morning there a violent earthquake but two days earlier there was another violent earthquake the moment that Jesus died.

B.) .) When Jesus declared: “It is finished” and closed his eyes in death the bodies of many of the saints who had recently died came back to life.

ba.) Matthew 27:51-53

.01) It was not the general resurrection of all the dead, but of many of the saints who had recently died.

bb.) At that time there was not a resurrection of all people but only of the Godly.

bc.) The wicked of that day remained in their graves and will remain there until the trumpet of the Lord shall sound.

bd.) Try to picture and imagine the scene of this passage of Scripture in our world today.

bda.) You go down to the arena or to the grocery store and there as you walk around you meet fifty or a hundred of the Godly people from this community who have died in the last year or two.

bdb.) Would you be somewhat shaken up?

bdc.) I know I certainly would be.

bdd.) In fact, there is a very real possibility you would need to plan a few more funerals, as the shock of that encounter might give a heart attack.

3.) After the resurrection of Jesus these saints of God came into the city of Jerusalem and walked around and were seen by many people.

A.) It was a resurrection of those who had placed their hope in God and were looking for the Messiah.

aa.) As ridiculous and far-fetched as that may sound it was exactly the scene that happened in Jerusalem when Jesus rose from the dead.

B.) That morning just as the rumours were spreading that Jesus had been raised from the dead, people were seeing Godly people who had died in the previous months walking along the street or coming back to the homes where they once had lived.

C.) This was a big, day and one which will only be surpassed when the trumpet sounds and all the dead will be again raised to life.

eaa.) The resurrection of Christ reminds us that Jesus was the first fruits of the resurrection, and we too will one day also be raised from the dead.

eab.) The resurrection of those people of God that day is a reminder, and a guarantee that one day all will rise from the dead because of Jesus the Christ.

4.) Well let us get back to our Scripture and see more on the angel.

A.) “He went to the tomb” (28:2b.)

aa.) The angels are servants and messengers of God.

aaa.) The angel went directly to the tomb as he had a mission to carry out.

B.) “He rolled the stone away” (28:2c.)

ba.) This statement, and the next one or two in regards to this angel may perhaps have been things which the women who had come to the tomb had witnessed, and so passed on to the apostles.

bb.) Part of the mission of this angel was to roll back the stone which had covered and sealed the tomb.