I was reading this week about a pastor named Wayne Major. When Wayne was in high school, he and a friend would pull a great prank. One of them owned a car in which you could pull back the upper part of the back seat and slide into the trunk. That gave them the idea for this prank. One of them would hide in the trunk while the other would drive the car and pick up one of their other friends. The two guys in the front would get involved in a deep conversation. Meanwhile the one hiding in the trunk would remove the upper part of the backseat and sneak out and take a place in the backseat as if he had been there all the time. Then he would suddenly join in the conversation. “Surprise!”
Wayne had all kinds of stories of the various startled reactions that they got with this stunt.
I like surprises, don’t you? If I had to choose one word to characterize the reaction of Jesus’ followers that first Easter Sunday, it would be, “Surprise!” But maybe we shouldn’t be surprised at that. After all, it is the most astounding event in human history.
A Baptist church in Bangladesh was showing a film about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to an audience filled with people who had never heard the gospel before. Little children sat in front and in the aisles. The adults stood in the back. As the story of Jesus’ crucifixion unfolded and Jesus’ broken body was laid in the tomb, there were tears and audible gasps. As the affected audience watched, one young boy suddenly spoke up. “Don’t be afraid,” the little boy said. “He gets up again! I saw it before.” (1)
Can you imagine being exposed to the Gospel for the first time and watching the crucifixion scene being reenacted? And then through the power of the motion picture to witness his resurrection? Surprise! He who was dead is now alive!
Pastor Phil Callaway tells of driving his five-year-old son past a local cemetery. Of course, five-year-olds sometimes have an interesting perspective on things. Noticing a large pile of dirt beside a newly excavated grave, the boy pointed and said: “Look, Dad, one got out!”
Calloway laughed at the time. But, he writes, “. . . every time I pass a graveyard, I’m reminded of the One who got out.” (2) Surprise!
Try to see this morning’s Bible passage through the eyes of the women who first visited the tomb. Imagine their surprise when they discover that Jesus “got out.” Why were the women coming to Jesus’ tomb so early that Sunday morning? They had some unfinished business. It took a long time to anoint a body for burial, and they couldn’t complete the process before the sun went down on Friday evening after he was crucified. The Sabbath began at sundown on Friday, you’ll remember, and ended at sundown on Saturday. These were devout Jewish women. They were careful not to do any work on the Sabbath, even to prepare their friend’s body for burial. So the women had to come back to the tomb on Sunday morning to complete the burial ritual.
Luke 24:1-12 reads, “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Then they remembered his words.
“When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles . . .”
Somebody saw a cartoon of the women after they had visited the tomb on Easter morning. One woman is kneeling and weeping in joy, the other one is looking at her basket and commenting with a scowl on her face, “Well, I certainly hope you kept the receipt for all these burial spices.”
I doubt any of the women worried about the cost of the spices that morning. I doubt they were worrying about anything. They had just witnessed the most important moment in history, and they were determined to share the good news. Surprise! He’s alive!
Let’s consider for a few moments some of the surprising elements of Easter.
First of all, the resurrection marks the moment when life overcame death. That’s the primary reason most of us are here today. Death has been overcome.
Professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He wrote about that experience: “A genuine feeling of fear came over me--I could die from cancer. But then another reality hit me even harder: I’m going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. I am definitely going to die. It’s just a question of when. [Suddenly] everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live.”
And that’s when he remembered something that his friend Larry Moody told him: “Zinger,” he said, “we are not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We are in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living.” That’s what Easter is all about.
Listen to the angel’s words again, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” We’re not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. Easter reminds us that we are in the land of the dying on our way to the land of the living.
Paul Azinger wrote about how his perspective on life changed as he underwent his cancer treatments and then returned to the PGA tour. He wrote, “The only way you will ever have true contentment is in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m not saying that nothing ever bothers me and I don’t have problems, but I feel like I’ve found the answer to the six-foot hole. I know I’ll spend eternity with God and I have a promise that as a child of God He’ll help me deal with anything. He promises to offer me contentment regardless of what life brings, even cancer.” (3)
The resurrection marks the moment when life overcame death.
The resurrection also marks the moment when hope overcame grief. The power of death and loss and grief can destroy a person. It can make us lose all hope.
Pastor Stephen Brown says he was devastated after his younger brother, Ron, died suddenly of a heart attack. Ron was only in his forties, a popular district attorney, a terrific father. Stephen never even got the chance to say goodbye.
Several weeks after Ron’s death, Stephen decided to visit his brother’s grave. It was a cold, rainy afternoon in late winter. Ron’s grave was not yet marked, and Stephen couldn’t find it. As he trekked through the mud, his grief overwhelmed him. Standing in the rain, Stephen began sobbing. “God, this has been the worst month of my life, and now I can’t even find my brother’s grave.”
Suddenly Stephen sensed a presence near him, as though Christ had drawn alongside to help. These same words that the angel spoke came to mind like a burst of light: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?’
“Those words comforted me,” Stephen later wrote, “and I haven’t been back to the cemetery since. I don’t need to go back. The One who loved Ron and knew him came to me in my grief. He promised never to leave, and that has made all the difference in the world.” (4)
Even death cannot destroy the hope of those who believe in Jesus Christ. The resurrection marks the moment when hope overcame grief.
Finally, the resurrection marks the moment when we have to make a decision. Will we leave here like the women, bursting with joy and telling everyone we know about the eternal life offered through knowing Jesus? Or will we leave here like Peter, who saw the empty tomb and the grave clothes and just walked away unconvinced?
One of the most surprising elements to the story of the first Easter is the initial reaction of the disciples to the women’s testimony about finding the tomb empty. Luke tells us that they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. There was one exception. Peter, says Luke, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
What a tepid response to such a dramatic event! The resurrection demands a greater response than that. It is the decisive moment in human history. Jesus, who claimed to be the living embodiment of the one true God, died. After three days, he came back to life. There is no other belief system on earth that teaches this about their founder or prophet or god. The resurrection serves as the foundation of the Christian faith and the Christian church. Without the resurrection, all we have is a nice philosophy for living.
If the resurrection is a lie, then the Christian faith is a lie. If the resurrection is a lie, then death is the end of the story for every one of us. If the resurrection is a lie, then you had no reason to get up and come here this morning. If the resurrection is a lie, then millions of Christian churches across the world should close their doors for good. If the resurrection is a lie, then all the hospitals and orphanages and homeless shelters built in Jesus’ name should close their doors. Ultimately, what do they have to offer?
But it isn’t a lie. It’s real. It’s true. And it is the most important truth known to humanity.
A young woman for years kept house for her father and mother. Morning, noon, and night she got their tea out of a can which had a picture of the rock of Gibraltar on the lid. Later in life she was able to take a trip to Egypt. On the way, one bright morning, she looked through her porthole of the ship and saw the rock of Gibraltar--the same rock she had seen on that can of tea all those years. “I almost cried out,” she said. “I kept whispering to myself, ‘Then it’s real! It’s been real all the time!’”
That’s how we will feel on that day when the dead in Christ shall rise . . . It’s real! It’s been real all the time! Christ is risen from the dead and because he lives, we shall live too.
Pastor Ray Pritchard tells of a sermon preached over 100 years ago by a man named T. DeWitt Talmage of New York City. Talmage illustrated our coming resurrection by referring to what was then a new-fangled invention called a phonograph. He spoke of how a person’s voice could be recorded and preserved on a cylinder and then played back again and again even after the person had died. Then he asked this question, “If man can do that, cannot God, without half-trying, return the voice of your departed?” But if God can bring back the voice, then why not the lips and the face and the body and bones? He concludes with this wonderful sentence: “If man can do the phonograph, God can do the resurrection.” (5)
And God can. And God did raise Christ from the grave. And God will raise those whom we love who are in Christ. The resurrection is real.
In his classic novel, The Robe, Lloyd C. Douglas has a character called Marcellus, who had become fascinated by Jesus. He wrote letters to his fiancée Diana in Rome. He told her about Jesus’ teachings, about his miracles, then about his crucifixion and his resurrection. Finally, he informed her that he had decided to become a disciple of Jesus. In her letter of response, Diana said, “What I feared was that it might affect you. It is a beautiful story. Let it remain so. We don’t have to do anything about it, do we?”
And the answer to her question is, Yes, we do have to do something about it. We have to decide: is the resurrection the truth or a lie? If it’s the truth, it marks the most important moment in human history. And it calls us to a very special kind of life here and now--a life following Jesus.
When Jesus was born, a host of angels announced it and sang his praises. But the only ones who heard it were a few poor shepherds working the night shift. When Jesus rose from the dead, only two angels showed up to announce it, and they told it to a handful of grieving women. Only a few will accept the message of Jesus. Only a few will experience the reality of the resurrection. And only a few will leave here and go tell everyone they know, “Jesus is alive!” Will you be one of them?
1. Ray Pritchard, http://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/2002-03-31-Why-Are-You-Weeping/.
2. Men of Integrity (March/April 2006) Cited in Davis, Barry L. 52 Sermons From the Gospel of John (GodSpeed Publishing, Kindle Edition).
3. Azinger, Links Newsletter, vol. 15, no. 1. Cited by Robert Russell, https://www.lifeway.com/en/articles/sermon-easter-resurrection-new-life-1-corinthians-15.
4. Robert Morgan, “Words by an Unmarked Grave,” From This Verse (Thomas Nelson Inc., 1998). Cited at http://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-24-commentary.