Resurrection Wonder

Introduction:

A. This week as I prepared for this sermon, I received an email from Tim Woodroof with an article he had written several years ago called “Resurrection Wonder.”

1. I was so inspired by the article that I turned it into this sermon.

B. The story is told of a man who stopped a woman and her dog who were coming out of a movie theater.

1. The man said to her, “I'm sorry to bother you, but I was amazed that your dog seemed to get into the movie so much. He cried at the right spots, moved nervously at the scary spots, and laughed like crazy at the funny parts. Don't you find that unusual?”

2. “Yes” the woman replied, “I find it very unusual. Especially considering that he hated the book!”

C. Let me ask you: Is there any wonder in your life, any amazement and awe?

1. Do you have room for anything that knocks your socks off and drives you to your knees and makes you bow your head?

2. What stuns you? What leaves you speechless?

3. What induces mouth-gaping, eye-widening, stomach-flopping wonder in you?

4. Anything at all?

D. Today, We live in a world with little room for wonder.

1. We’ve explained, manipulated, mastered, and test-tubed all the wonder out of our lives.

2. Instead of watching for moon-rise, we turn on light bulbs.

3. Instead of enduring sun and snow, we reach for thermostats.

4. Instead of yielding to the eternal rhythms of night and day and seasons, we impose Daylight Savings Time.

E. We’ve bridged rivers and tamed deserts and turned forests into cities.

1. The world is just an airport away.

2. The most distant person can be reached by dialing ten digits.

3. Anything we want to know is a mere mouse-click away.

F. We don’t fear disease like we used to—we irradicate it, chemotherapy it, laproscopically excise it.

1. We don’t gaze up stupified at the stars—we name and measure and classify and analyze them – and we send probes to investigate the planets.

2. We don’t quake in terror at the power of nature—we predict it, track it, issue storm warnings about it, we build buildings that are quake-proof, fire-proof, and tornado-proof.

G. There isn’t much room for wonder in our world anywhere.

1. Except, perhaps, to marvel at ourselves and what we can do and think.

2. Yes, human kind is quite often in awe of itself.

I. What about the Resurrection? How did Jesus’ disciples react to the resurrection?

A. The disciples shouldn’t have been surprised on that Resurrection morning.

1. While Jesus was among them, He talked about resurrection all the time.

2. Jesus said things like:

a. I’m going to call out and the dead will come to life. (Jn 5:25)

b. I can give new life to anyone I please. (Jn 5:21)

c. I am the Resurrection and the Life. (Jn 11:25)

B. According to the gospels, he exercised power over death during his ministry.

1. There was a girl, the daughter of Jairus, whom he raised to life again.

2. There was a widow who lost her only son … Jesus resurrected him.

3. There was Lazarus, Jesus’ close friend—he was dead and buried four days—but Jesus called him from the tomb.

C. In fact, so characteristic was the power of life in the ministry of Jesus that when John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask if Jesus were really the Messiah, Jesus answered with his actions:

1. Go and report: the blind see … the lame walk … the lepers are cleansed … the deaf hear … and the dead are raised to life again. (Lk 7:22)

D. When Jesus sent his disciples on a preaching-tour, he even gave them power to raise the dead!

1. Jesus said to them, “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.” (Mt 10:8)

E. Everywhere we turn in the gospels, we see Jesus talking about resurrection or causing resurrection. 1. So the idea of the dead living again shouldn’t have been a new concept for the disciples.

F. But it goes even deeper than that.

1. Jesus told his disciples that he would rise from the dead.

2. He told them four times in Matthew—explicitly, without parable or roundaboutness—“I will be raised on the third day.”

3. They asked him about this statement. They wondered what he meant. They talked about it among themselves.

G. You’d think they might have figured it out.

1. You’d think they might have cracked the code or solved the riddle.

2. The disciples shouldn’t have been surprised by Resurrection morning.

3. They should have been camped out in front of that tomb, counting the hours, ready to be amazed rather than being overcome by despair.