About this sermon
On the first day of the week the women found the stone rolled away, and two men asked them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” The account carries the marks of history, from women as the first witnesses to the disciples’ confusion and unbelief. Luke’s Gospel presses every reader to answer who Jesus is, and the risen Christ is the answer to the angels’ question.
Sermon transcript
This evening we are going to be in the gospel according to Luke chapter 24. And as I have occasionally visited in the evenings, I have gone through various texts in Luke and had been quite heavily in chapter 23 recently. And I thought I couldn’t just skip to something else. We need to see how things turn out. We need chapter 24. And even to marvel at the existence of chapter 24 in Luke, The other I was reflecting about when I was looking through my bookshelf.
I enjoy to read biographies. Half of my bookshelf is really filled with them. One that I really loved was John Adams by David McCullough. And I remember reading that. It’s 650-something pages. I remember reading it and wanting more. And as I got to page 651, I read the account of the death of John Adams.
And turning the page, my heart sank, because that’s the last chapter. That was at the end of the book. There wasn’t any more to read. He was dead. We get the account of Christ’s death and crucifixion in chapter 23. And yet, there’s another chapter. There’s something beyond that. It’s the most unique biography in all of human history. We have a chapter 24 of Luke. see the account of when the women came to the tomb to prepare a dead body.
And they will be asked a question, a question that we also need to be asked as well as we encounter Christ as he is and as he was in the text. Lord, let us bring ourselves to a time of prayer first. Lord, we ask that you would be present by the means of your Holy Spirit. Be in the midst of the reading of your word and the expounding of your word. or teach us anew what it is that you have for us in the gospel, in the life, in the work, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Savior and Lord. It’s in his name that we pray. Amen. Let’s look at chapter 24 together of the gospel according to Luke. Hear now the word of the Lord.
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb. taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.
Remember how He told you while He was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise. And they remembered His words. And returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the leavened and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna. and Mary, the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in, and he saw the linen clothes by themselves. And he went home marveling at what had happened.” Grass withers and the flower fades, but this is the word of our Lord, endorsed forever. Amen. We have an account here of the women going to the tomb. If you look previously in chapter 23, you will see that there was Joseph of Arimathea. We’re also told in other gospel accounts that Nicodemus helped him in preparing the body.
But the women go back. Apparently, either they did not finish in time for the Sabbath to commence, And so they had to leave their work, or what I actually think was probably more likely, these two upper class men were trying to do a manual labor job. They made a mess of it. The women saw that, and they said, we are going to go back and do it right after the Sabbath. And when they come, they see the tomb is empty, and they are confused. They don’t understand what’s happening. Now let’s just pause for a minute, as we are very familiar with this account, but think about why Luke is including these details.
Because these details seem like an embarrassment to everybody involved in this story, right? First off, this seems like an embarrassment because in the first century, you’ve probably heard, the testimony of women was often doubted, whether in the courts of the Jews or also in the courts of the Romans. What can you say? Many of the Romans in that time, in today’s standards, would be sexist. They didn’t believe a woman’s testimony over a man’s. Secondly, not just that, the women were said not to realize right away what had happened, but to be confused, to not understand what had happened.
Remember the things that Jesus had said. If you go through Matthew’s account, three or four different times Jesus is telling them, I will die and on the third day rise again. He has told them this multiple times. And we’re given an account of the men at home cowering, afraid of what’s going to happen to them.
This makes everybody either look a bit dense or a little cowardly. Why include these details then? Well, because that’s how it happened. History has this funny way of recording what happened and not what would sound good or look good to us. It’s not always the tidiest or the most flattering story to the people that are in it. This is not the version that you would make up.
You see, the version that you would make up in that time would have the men arriving first. They would immediately realize what had happened. And you would probably have Peter or somebody saying that he rolled the stone away just by himself because he had been lifting weights and he was that strong. There would be things to brag about, things that would hold up in the court of law.
But that is not what is there. You know a made-up story when you hear it, and this is a story that rings with history. That was back when C.S. Lewis said it. He read all of these Greek myths, and when he read the New Testament, he said, this is different. This is an account of history. This isn’t a myth.
And the empty tomb didn’t happen in a way that was convenient to the legal system, convenient to history or to the reputations of these disciples or of these women. Life just happened that way, and it was recorded. by Luke, the one who is an historian.
I think we need to realize this because as we read this, often we will have certain sections of scripture that we’ve heard over and over again. We read them, we almost read them like, like families may read towards the night before Christmas around a fire, right? To children on Christmas Eve. But Luke did not intend the story to be understood or read that way. If you go all the way back to Luke chapter one, how does Luke begin his gospel? He begins it this way.
He says, in his months, as much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past to write and orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught. My undergrad degree is in history. This is how you write history. You take eyewitness accounts, you take primary sources, you put them together in an orderly account. is acting as an historian here, as a first century historian. He’s gathering his gospel from eyewitnesses.
That’s why he includes so many names that sometimes when you’re reading it, you have no reference for who they are. Who is Joanna? Who is this buried mother of James? Who are some of these names that are recorded in here? This is Luke’s version of footnoting, right? He is writing to people in a time in which many of these eyewitnesses are still alive. In a sense, he’s saying, I got this from Joanna. Go ask her, her account. I got this from Mary, the mother of James. Go ask her what her account was. This is completely unlike what you see in the rise of many cults. The rise of many cults, what do you have?
You have a private experience, a private revelation that is only confirmed by one person, right? Joseph Smith, what did he say? I got these plates that nobody can read except for me with these special glasses, right? What was the account of Muhammad? I got the special revelation from an angel on a mountain. Nobody else heard it. It was just me. What is the account of these women? I was there with several other people. Everybody is confirming this. This was a public event. This wasn’t a private revelation. which presents us with something of an application question here. When we read the account of the resurrection, the question that we are asking is not merely, how does the resurrection story tell me how to love better or to make me feel better?
The question is, where is the body of Jesus? Did he rise or did he not? And do you believe that he rose? Because if he didn’t rise, this is a story about telling lies. If he did rise, then this is a story about God’s power over death, over sin, the acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice, and the need to be made right with God. And that is a pretty hard contrast.
Because if you don’t believe he rose, there’s not a whole lot that you can take from the ministry of Christ except a lesson not to make the wrong people mad because they will kill you. I don’t think there’s any lasting lesson from the life of Christ if he didn’t rise again. Because if he said he was not a mere teacher. He’s not something that we just have something to learn kindness from.
He came as a son of God to take the sins of the son of men in his body on the cross, to crush the power of sin, to defeat death and to rise again. The resurrection, then, is the linchpin of the entire Gospel of Luke. We can’t skip chapter 24. The end of the story didn’t come just with the death of Christ on the cross.
If it didn’t happen, we need to find a better use of our time than listening to the teachings of this man. But if it did happen, if Christ is not a liar and said he is who he said he is, this makes a claim on our life. We are, we are met with a choice. We need to take a side. Are we on the side of the tomb has Christ or that Christ has power over the tomb? Because Christ here confronts us in a risen form.
And even I find this almost ironic in verse three, did you notice this? They said that they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. I find that a bit ironic because if the women were right in their assumptions that Christ was dead and in the tomb, then he is no Lord, right? Lord is a title of authority, something that has authority over you, and dead men do not have authority. For Christ’s words and his life and his person to have authority, he must be alive. For him to be Lord, he must be risen. He must be currently alive at the right hand of the Father. Does he have authority?
Because if a dead man says, love your neighbor, or I forgive you for not loving your neighbor, which must come next, then they’re just words of a 2,000-year-old dead man if he did not rise again. There is this false idea in the world of a middle ground. Again, if I can to refer back to Lewis, he was right when he wrote this. He says, Christianity, if false, is of no importance. And if true, is of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. It’s one or the other. Either it’s true or it’s not. Either he rose or he did not. I was reminded of that stark contrast of the difference that the resurrection makes when I saw a news item a couple of months ago.
This was from a minor celebrity. Some of you may have heard of him. His name is Neil deGrasse Tyson. He’s known for putting pithy statements on his social media. He was the host of a rebooted version of Cosmos. He’s gone on record as somebody who is attached to a scientific worldview, where he says he does not believe any divine powers behind the universe. And I appreciate his intellectual consistency when he posted a few months ago this message to people that were following him.
He said, Quote, the universe is blind to our sorrows and indifferent to our plans. Have a nice day. I thought the heaven I stayed was a nice touch to it, but if he’s right about God not existing, no divine universe, no resurrection, then in fact he’s right. The universe doesn’t care. It’s just an update of that poem in high school. Did you ever have to memorize that poem by Stephen Crane? A man said to the universe, sir, I exist.
However, replied the universe, the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation. All that means is, if there is no God, then who cares? And the answer is no one. The universe isn’t personal. It wouldn’t care about your pains or your life. It wouldn’t care if you’re a nice person or a lying cheat. The reality would be that you live, you die, that’s it, fade to black, no meaning, no judgment. Some people like that. Have fun now, some pain, and then you die and that’s the end of it. And you know, if Christ is in the tomb somewhere. That is exactly right.
And I can’t judge you for that belief because the universe wouldn’t care. One thing that we can’t do, though, if that is what we believe, is not be a believer because we think that the Bible is immoral. Nobody would care, right? The universe wouldn’t care. There would be no morality. There would be no meaning.
The reason, then, that I believe what the scriptures have here. The reason that I believe the tomb is empty and Christ is risen is not mere pragmatism. It’s not because of feeling. It’s not merely because it makes me a better person, because what would that even mean if Christ is truly dead?
The only reason that you should believe this is this, that it’s true. All of it. That is the only defensible reason to believe. To believe, in fact, that there is a God who is infinite and unbound by time or space or anything that made a creation of time and space. To believe that that creation is good.
To believe that something went wrong, namely sin, in the original design of the creation, corrupted by evil and misery and now death. to believe that God revealed himself in human nature, in human history, culminating in a man who was God and man in one person, Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life, died a death of propitiation for sin, and then on the third day rose again from the dead.
We should not believe any of that just because we believe things easily. We should not believe any of that just for warm fuzzies or that it makes your life better. In fact, it doesn’t make me feel that my life is perfect. It reveals the places in which it’s not. It doesn’t give me, in fact, easier things to do, often harder things to do. The only reason to believe this is if it’s true.
So when you read through the Gospel of Luke, When you read those 23 chapters of the account of Christ’s life and his death, when you get to the point at this place, you should have an answer to the question, who is Jesus? honest answer. Who is he? When you read through those 23 chapters, you can read through those 23 chapters. In my home church, I preached over 100 sermons on it. You want to listen to all those before you give your answer. I would suggest that, right? Take all of the information that you can about the life of Christ. John Owen once said, take what you know of him and what you have heard of him and answer this question. Who is he? What do you make of him? Who is he to you?
Because good teacher, that moderately important, is not one of the options on the table. After reading all that he said and did, good teachers don’t claim to be God, don’t claim to forgive sins. Who does Jesus seem to you from the history that you have in your hands? Let me ask you, do you believe the women? Maybe you’re like the ancient people. Maybe you’re a little bit sexist. You don’t believe the testimony of women. I guess the universe wouldn’t judge you for that. What about Peter, though? What about the apostles?
What about 11 men who gave their life on the testimony that we have seen him alive, right? Well, 10 out of the 11 are going to end up executed. John got off easy with life imprisonment, exile to an island, right? Would any of those men have testified to the resurrection just because it made their life better? No, it made their life harder. Would any of them have testified to that just because they wanted power? They didn’t get power. Instead, they got painful death. That is not helpful. But they died for that. Why? Because they believed it was true.
Do you believe the testimony of witness after witness after witness that says he rose again from the dead. Do you believe the Jesus that you have access to in your scriptures to say the things that he taught, the things that he did, is he who he says he is?
And if we come to the point in which we have the answer that is staring us in the face, that he was who he said he is, then we must answer the angel’s question. And that’s what I want to leave you with, is the angel’s question. Why do you seek the living among the dead? That’s a great question for us and for the women. You know, it was a survey that I was listening to a speaker.
He was a Christian, a philosopher, and he was going through a quiz. And one of the questions on his quiz to a Christian audience was, who is the most influential and important person alive today? And when he was getting the answers back, he noticed that over half of them did not put Jesus. He says, is Jesus not alive? Shouldn’t he be the most important and influential person in your life? It was a realization that they didn’t think of Jesus as alive at the right hand of God the Father. Why do we seek the living among the dead? Why do we act as if he is not, in fact, alive?
You know, if I asked you to come over to meet me at my office for lunch, the grounds of New Life has two different places. There’s a road in between the church offices, and then on the other side is a cemetery. If I asked you to meet me at noon, and I see you out there, and you were in the cemetery calling out to the ground, Jared, I’m here for lunch, I’m going to think that you’re a bit crazy, right? Why would you look for me, a living person, among the dead of the cemetery next door?
Well, this is basically what the women were doing, right? They needed to be asked the question, why do you look for the living among the dead? What do you do then with the empty tomb? Is he risen or is he not? Why do we keep going to the tomb and expecting to get a response?
And now this is also a question that we must answer in our own lives. And that is why do we keep searching for the living Christ, and the answers to questions only the living Christ can answer among the deadness in this world. Why do so many seek living and life among the philosophies of people like Neil deGrasse Tyson that say the universe doesn’t care and our world is just filled with dead things, things that don’t give life, things that don’t care, things that die. This is what happens every time we try to find meaning and fulfillment and ultimate purpose in a job or just in our kids or in our opinions and political party or in distracting entertainment. or the next high from some illegal drug just tempting death, or from the pursuit of all of these things, merely will end in death. Why do we seek a living meaning in the dead things of this world, and the dying things of this world? You know, our faith is often misunderstood by the world, isn’t it?
You remember a couple of months ago, the big news that everybody was watching on TV as it happened, the burning of Notre Dame’s cathedral. Remember all the commentary that came out of it that said, this is the death of religion in France. This is the death of the Christian religion. There was interesting articles that came out that said this was the death of religion in France.
And, you know, it made me think back to the fact that I’ve read somewhat extensively of two men who either were French or lived in France. Thomas Aquinas studied at the University of Paris, and John Calvin was French and lived his life in France and had traveled, at least at some point, to Paris. And I thought, I wonder what these men have written about Notre Dame, because it was in existence during their lifetime. And you can do searches, you can find these online databases of the works of John Calvin and the works of Thomas Aquinas.
Do you know how many times they were mentioned by both men? Zero. the most important architectural wonder of their time in their country, the greatest achievement of their country. And what did they have to say about it? Nothing. It just wasn’t as interesting as writing about Christ and his life and his work. Tens of thousands of pages and not a mention of that. Why? Because Jesus was what would last and not Notre Dame. Jesus is alive while Notre Dame is in smoldering ruins right now. Each of them could have written about it. It just wasn’t as interesting as Christ.
When we look at our life and what it is that we pursue, we can pursue many good things. But are there the things that will last? The things that will last when buildings fall down, when businesses fail, when kids are gone, when projects have ended and are forgotten. One thing lasts. One thing lasts. When we hear the words of the thief on the cross, Jesus, remember me when you enter into your kingdom. And when he replies today, you will be with me in paradise.
Then we know that we have the living stone among the dying things of this world. Why do we seek the living among the dead? Life, joy, meaning, fulfillment, true life and forgiveness are not found among the dead. They are only found among the risen living Christ. Seek life from the living Christ.
Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we are so guilty of acting as if Christ is still in the tomb, of seeking things that will pass away as our entire life’s duties and pursuits. Lord, convict us that, in fact, there is only one thing that lasts. That is you, your work through your Son, and the applying of that by your Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray that we would love those things, that we would be joyous about those things, that we’d marvel at those things just as the women and Peter did when they saw that in fact Christ was risen.
So this we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Often is sung around the season of Resurrection Sunday, but we are going to sing it now because it’s still true now. It’s number 360. Today, yesterday, and tomorrow, this will be true, Jesus Christ is risen today. Would you stand as we sing number 360.
Jesus our Lord is risen today Alleluia. Sons of men and angels sing Alleluia. Raise your joys and ♪ Rock of my life, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Sleep in heavenly quiet, hallelujah ♪ ♪ The dreaming bird is gone ♪ ♪ Fight the battle, Lord ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ The Son depleted, Lord ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Holy Gents, his blood no more ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ The stone will wash the sea. Alleluia. Christ has washed the gates of hell. Alleluia. Tears will be washed in your eyes. Alleluia. I
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