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. But they did not
believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Peter,
however, 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.
Introduction
Well,
we know what happened. Jesus is alive.
The
night before he died, Jesus said to his disciples these words: “You will weep
and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn
to joy” (John 16.20).
He
was saying that a prophecy given by Jeremiah 600 years earlier was about to
find its ultimate fulfilment: “I will turn their mourning into gladness; I
will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow” (Jeremiah 31.13).
But
it wasn’t comfort and joy at first light on Easter Sunday. It was fuss and
commotion. “Where’s the body gone?”
It
was panic and fright. “Who are those two men in shining white clothes and what
are they doing here?”
It
was puzzlement and confusion. "Peter and John saw the strips of linen and
wondered what had happened."
It
was derision and unbelief. “The men didn’t believe the women. Their words
sounded like nonsense.”
You
can understand that. What would you think if three women burst through the
doors of this church, interrupted the service and said they’d just been to
Preston cemetery and saw an open grave wand a dead person come to life.
Not
one person would say, “Oh all right then.” And on the first Easter Sunday
nobody said “Oh! The tomb’s empty, Jesus must have risen! Alleluia!”
It
took a while for it all to sink in. The tomb was empty.
"What could it mean?" Then there was an appearance. "Could it
be?" Then another. "Yes, I think it could." Then one more
appearance. "It really is!"
Slowly,
gradually, reluctantly, grief turned into gladness.
Sceptics
Going Nowhere
In
the 1990s, about 150 liberal scholars got together to discuss which verses from
the gospels were authentic and which were exaggerated or made up. They called
their movement the “Jesus Seminar.”
They
decided to sort everything we read in the gospels into 4 categories.
1)
Yes, Jesus certainly said or did what it says.
2)
This is consistent with what we definitely know of Jesus but we are not certain
this is authentic.
3)
Maybe, maybe not.
4)
This is definitely fictional.
They
rejected quite a lot. They threw out the verse where Jesus says: “I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” They
felt it was too exclusive. It was offensive to other religions. So Jesus
couldn’t have said that.
They
threw out Jesus’ parable about the sheep and the goats. They felt it was too
judgemental. It was unacceptable to imply that there will be a final
reckoning. And Jesus would surely never say anything that would disturb
anybody would he?
They
threw out all the miracles. They decided that these were myths invented to give
Jesus a bit of credibility.
And
naturally, they threw out the resurrection. It was ridiculous. It was silly.
They
ended up with a pretty unimpressive Jesus who said a few nice things and
tragically got himself killed for stirring up a fuss.
But
who wants to join a movement where God is dead, where Jesus is an unfortunate
loser and where new life is impossible? You might as well join Hen's Teeth
Appreciation Society.
With
the Jesus Seminar if you’re sick, you have to stay sick because there’s no
healing.
If
you’re addicted, you have to stay addicted because there’s no deliverance.
If
you’re banged up for violent crime you have to accept that a life in and out of
jail is your lot because Jesus is still in the tomb and he cannot therefore
change your life.
Unfinished
Business
Have
you ever noticed that in John 20.6-7 it says that Peter “saw the linen cloths
lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on
Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by
itself” (ESV).
It
seems like an incidental detail (and obviously noticed by an eye-witness). OK,
so the head bandage was folded up by itself.
But
Andrew White, who is the vicar of Baghdad, says: “This is a powerful oriental
symbol, taking from the dining table. If you folded your napkin when you left
the table, it indicated to your servants that you hadn’t finished and were
coming back. The cloth from around Jesus’ head is deliberately folded because
he hasn’t finished. He’s coming back”
Jesus
is alive today and he's got unfinished business. Here are some examples.
In
yesterday’s Sun newspaper there was an article about Shane
Taylor. For many years, Shane was considered to be one of the most dangerous
men in Britain’s prisons. Originally jailed for attempted murder, he had his
sentence extended by four years when he attacked a prison officer with a broken
glass in an incident that provoked a prison riot.
After
that, he was sent to some of Britain’s most secure prisons, where he was often
held in solitary confinement because of his violence towards prison officers.
But
when he was in Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, he went on the prison Alpha
Course saying “I was mostly interested in getting the chocolate biscuits.” He
had a vision of Christ and started to read his Gideons Bible.
Eventually,
he got to the Holy Spirit day. The chaplain picked up a Bible and opened up a
few verses where it said ‘Jesus Christ died on a cross for you. He died for
your sins and you can be forgiven.’
Shane
prayed for the first time. “Jesus Christ, I know you died on a cross for
me. Please, I don’t like who I am, please forgive me.” He was immediately
baptised in the Holy Spirit.
This
is Shane Taylor’s testimony; “As I talked I had a weird feeling in my belly.
Then I started to feel this bubbly feeling slowly coming up my body –
through my legs, my chest. When it got to about halfway I started to feel tears
coming into my eyes. I tried to hold it back. I stopped talking, thinking that
was going to stop it. Here I was, a hard man in prison – I didn’t want to cry.
But it rose up and up and up until suddenly I began to sob. I hadn’t cried in
years. I could feel a weight being lifted off me because I felt light.”
And
Shane says this: “Everything suddenly became clearer than before. I knew it was
real. I knew God existed, I knew Jesus was alive and that I was going to live
for him forever. My behaviour changed so much that I went from being in the
segregation to getting a trusted job in the prison within a few weeks.”
Almost
exactly a year after the Holy Spirit day that changed his life, he was freed.
About seven months later he met Samantha. They got married in 2008 at South
Bank Baptist Church, here on Teesside.
“Jesus
has changed my life” he says. “Before, I was a man of pure hate and anger.
Jesus has showed me how to love and how to forgive. Almost all the people I’ve
upset, all the people I stabbed, all the people I hurt, have forgiven me and
now we can talk.”
If
today was Good Friday I would talk about churches bombed in northern Nigeria
and burned down in China. I would talk about Christians sent to labour camps in
North Korea, framed for blasphemy in Pakistan, imprisoned without trial in
Iran, beheaded in Syria, summarily shot in Libya. I’d be saying that nothing,
not even death, can separate us from the love of God in Christ. I'd be talking
about Acts 14.22 which says "through many tribulations we must enter the
kingdom of God."
But
this is Easter Sunday and the kingdom is now as well as not yet. I got the
latest edition of Premier Christianity magazine through the
post this week and there’s a really encouraging article in there about signs
and wonders all around the world. Let me read you a few that show that Jesus is
alive.
“Jesus
is miraculously revealing himself to Hindu people on a daily basis according to
Ravi, an Indian evangelist. On one occasion he went searching for a man in an
orange robe with a white beard and turban, having received a word of knowledge.
He met just such a man who turned out to be a high-ranking Hindu maharishi who had
also dreamed that he would meet Ravi. The guru gave his life to Christ that
same day and has gone on to preach the gospel to his followers.”
Here’s
another one.
“Miracle
accounts are on the increase in South America where the charismatic churches is
growing rapidly. When American student Alex Humphrey went on a mission trip to
Peru with his home church, a colleague prayed that they would see an eyeball
grow in someone’s head. The following morning they prayed for a man who had
lost an eyeball in a childhood accident. ‘At the end of our prayer I felt
something move underneath my hand,’ recalls Humphrey, ‘His previously scarred
shut eye was open and underneath I could see the white of an eyeball. By the
time we left church he had two functioning eyeballs where once there was only
one’.”
And
this one’s even more amazing.
“The
Far East offers numerous miracle accounts, including people who are being
raised from the dead. Elaine Panelo was living in the Philippines when she was
dying of cancer. She was admitted to hospital and was eventually pronounced
dead. Later in the mortuary, a Baptist pastor prayed over her, and was shocked
to see the white sheet that covered her was moving. ‘You’re alive’, the pastor
told her. ‘You were dead for almost two hours.’ A later medical
check confirmed that her cancer had also disappeared. A Filipino doctor
and her husband who had diagnosed Elaine when she was ill were converted
through her testimony.”
Would
you like to hear one more?
“A
revival is taking place among the Makua tribe in Mozambique. Hundreds of deaf
people are being healed, according to evangelist Heidi Baker. A healing from
deafness rate of almost 100% over the last ten years has led to over 2,700
churches being planted. Baker believes that the physical healings are a sign of
the spiritual ears of the Makua people being opened to the gospel. ‘In a
village, everyone knows who is deaf, so the miracle cannot be denied. Not only
does that person come to Jesus, but so do a huge number of people in the village’.”
There’s
lots more. There are reports of signs and wonders attesting to the reality that
Jesus is alive on every continent including amongst atheists and in the Muslim
world.
Jesus
has got unfinished business. And he's been busy.
Response
You
might never have done this before, or even thought about it, but I want to ask
you give your life to the risen Christ today. I’m not inviting you to join a
religion. God forbid! People have got enough problems already without religion
adding to them. I'm talking about experiencing a new, living relationship with
Jesus Christ.
Let
me be clear about this. Religion says “If you do these churchy things instead
of these bad things, God will love you.” That’s like a dad saying to his little
daughter “If you do all these things on this list I want you to do, then I will
be your daddy and I will love you.” So forget religion. The gospel says “While
we were still sinners Christ died for us.” That’s grace.
Will
you give your heart to Christ this morning?
You
might have done that a long time ago, and it was great. But maybe you’ve gone
off the boil? Why don't recommit your life to him this morning?
Maybe
you want to come to him with a request. You’re looking for guidance. You need
healing. You crave peace. You’re out of a job. You could do with some
encouragement. You need him to provide. You want a new start.
Jesus
said “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.”
That’s
why we pray for people in the chancel at the end of our services. Jesus is
alive and that he's got unfinished business here. If you want to give your life
to Christ, or recommit it again, or ask for healing or the baptism in the
Spirit or for a spiritual breakthrough, I want to invite you to come to the
front during the next block of sung worship and someone will pray with you.
Why
do we ask people to leave their seats and come to the front? Because Jesus did.
To
a man who had been an invalid for 38 years, Jesus never said “Lie down and keep
taking the tablets.” He said, “Get up, take your mat and walk.”
To
a man with a paralysed hand Jesus never said, “Stay seated, I don’t want to
embarrass you.” He said “Stand up in front of everyone. Now stretch out your
hand.”
To
the parents of a convulsing boy he said “Bring your son here.”
To
a woman who had been bent double for 18 years he said “Come forward.”
To
a man who had the job of feeding 5,000 people he never said “Well this is
obviously impossible.” He said “What have we got to work with here? Five loaves
and a couple of fish? Well, all right, bring me what you’ve got.”
Listen,
bring the little you have to Jesus and let him multiply it.
The
head bandage was folded up neatly. He’s not in the tomb. He has unfinished
business.
Let's stand to pray...
Sermon
preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 20th April 2014
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