The Promise Of New Life In Glory

No one slept well that night in Jerusalem

• Caiaphas, the high priest, tossed and turned

• Everything was going according to plan, they had received permission from Pilate to kill him, and those arrogant Romans had even done their dirty work for them

• Everything seemed to be falling into place until that unusual darkness came at midday and interrupted the slaying of the lambs for the Passover feast

• Then that crazy man Judas came storming into the temple and threw the 30 pieces of silver onto the temple floor

• But that was nothing compared to the shock of the earthquake that shook Jerusalem around 3:00pm and there were reports that some of the dead had risen from their tombs and walked into the city

• But the most unusual occurrence as he tossed in his bed trying to put the disturbing events of the day behind him was the report that the temple veil had been rent from top to bottom

• He even witnessed the event himself as he was there organising the sacrifice of the Passover lambs

• What did that mean?

• He put the events out of his head and smugly consoled himself that at least that upstart from Galilee was out of the way and despite what had happened that day, things could now get back to normal

Just a few blocks down the road, Pilate too tossed and turned

• The ramblings of his superstitious wife about her crazy dream warning him off this innocent man rattled around and around his head

• Normally, the decision to end someone’s life didn’t phase him, it rarely caused him any loss of sleep

• But this time, it was different, he was filled with doubts and even some regret

• He shouldn’t have caved into the Jews request as he knew they only wanted to get rid of Jesus for political reasons

• He would show them next time they came asking for some favor

On the other side of town the scene was pretty much the same

• Mary, the mother of Jesus, quietly sobbed as she tried to get the horrifying impression of her son being crucified out of her mind

• Some of the other ladies sat around trying to console her

• The disciples sat a safe distance away with their heads bowed in shame as they had run off and hid when their Lord needed them the most

• Now he was dead

• When he died, their dreams of a Messianic takeover died with Him

With the passing of time, Jerusalem would have returned to normal

• in fact it was beginning to return to normal just a few days later

• sure, the rumors were still circulating about what had happened on that fateful day, but people had to make a living and get on with life

• Caiaphas even had a better night

• That is until another earthquake rocked the city early on Sunday morning

• Caiaphas hurried to the temple to see if it had been damaged just in time to meet the Roman guards who had been assigned to guard the tomb

• They rushed in looking like they’d seen a ghost

They passed on the fateful news which caused Caiaphas to turn a deathly grey -“Supernatural beings had come, causing them to collapse on the spot, they pushed aside the stone like it was a pebble, and that Jewish King they had crucified a few days earlier walked out of the tomb right past them, He even smiled at them”

• Caiaphas was shocked but not stupid enough to imagine the implications

• He paid a huge sum of money to the guards to say his disciples had stolen the body

• But it was useless, the news began to spread from other sources all over the city

• The cry – “He is risen” echoed across the city

In heaven too it was the scene of jubilation

• Something momentous in God’s plan of sharing eternity with humankind had just occurred

• After leaving Mary in the Garden, Jesus had ascended to present Himself to the Father and the Father had welcomed Him with open arms

This embrace symbolized two powerful truths

1. For the first time a human had crossed the divide between mortality and immortality

• At the miracle of the Incarnation, with Jesus’ birth, it was God who had crossed this great gulf between immortality and mortality

• Jesus took that momentous step of crossing that divide and joining himself to fallen humanity in order to redeem us back to the Father

• God laying aside his glory and stepping into the corrupt world of time and space

• Now with the miracle of His resurrection and ascension to the Father, Jesus, the first genuine human being in the “image of God” crossed from “time and space” to “eternity”