The Resurrection (Part 3 of 4)

Music Playing Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg shines a light on these main characters from that first Easter morning. I invite you to turn again to the portion of Scripture that was read for us just a moment or two ago. And when you have turned to that, I'm going to read again part of that material, and a little more from Luke chapter 23, reading from the New English Bible.

Once you've found the portion at Luke 24, listen as I read these verses from Luke chapter 23. His friends had all been standing at a distance. The women who had accompanied him from Galilee stood with them and watched it all. Now there was a man called Joseph, a member of the council, a good, upright man, who had dissented from their policy and the action they had taken. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was one who looked forward to the kingdom of God. This man now approached Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Taking it down from the cross, he wrapped it in a linen sheet and laid it in a tomb cut out of the rock in which no one had been laid before. It was Friday, and the Sabbath was about to begin.

The women who had accompanied him from Galilee followed. They took note of the tomb and observed how his body was laid. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes, and on the Sabbath they rested in obedience to the commandment. But on the Sunday morning, very early, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared.

Finding that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, they went inside. But the body was not to be found. While they stood utterly at a loss, all of a sudden two men in dazzling garments were at their side.

They were terrified and stood with eyes cast down. But the men said, Why search among the dead for one who lives? Remember what he told you while he was still in Galilee about the Son of Man, how he must be given up into the power of sinful men and be crucified and must rise again on the third day? Then they recalled his words, and returning from the tomb, they reported all this to the eleven and all the others. The women were Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and they, with the other women, told the apostles.

But the story appeared to them to be nonsense, and they would not believe them. When Luke introduces his gospel in the opening verses of chapter 1, he is very careful to distinguish his objectives. He articulates them as being threefold. Actually, first of all, he tells us that his gospel is the work of careful investigation—that there's nothing haphazard about it, that it is not conjecture, that he is reporting that which he himself has carefully investigated. Secondly, on the basis of that, he has provided for his readers what he refers to as an orderly account. If you read through the gospel, he believes, and with accuracy he reports, that there is a sequence and a cohesion to the gospel that will reward the careful reader. And the reason that he has done both of these—namely, carefully investigate and then provide an orderly account—is so that his readers may then in turn know the certainty of the things that he's been teaching. They may know that, as John says elsewhere, what they're dealing with is historical information—the things that the apostles had seen with their own eyes, heard with their own ears, and in many cases had actually handled and had touched. Now, I remind you of that, because we're dealing now not with the first chapter but with the last chapter. And in this last chapter of his gospel, all of this careful investigation and orderly accounting, in order that there may be the sound and certain basis for faith, is brought to bear upon this matter of the resurrection. And here we have, in this chapter, Luke's record of these things.

We read part of it, and you can read ahead if you want to prepare for subsequent studies. But in first reading, it's not difficult for us to see why some are tempted to dismiss this record as being nothing more than a bunch of old wives' tales. It's not uncommon for people to say, Well, of course, I'm interested in Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount, and I like the idea of the golden rule, but when it comes to the issues of, for example, the resurrection, isn't that just a mythology? Isn't that just a fabrication?

Surely it's just old wives' tales. Now, those who say that, of course, are simply following on the example or the pattern of the apostles themselves. And if you were listening carefully, you saw that Luke tells us in verse 11 that the women, despite their reporting of the events as they found them, were not believed by the men. Indeed, their words seemed to them like nonsense. So that's one reason why people would dismiss the resurrection account.

After all, it was just a bunch of women talking about something they had apparently seen. Secondly, people say, Well, I couldn't possibly accept the gospel records, because there are so many differences between the various gospels. Matthew says one thing, Mark says another, Luke says another, and John says something else entirely. Now, the general rule of thumb on this, of course, is that the discrepancies—such as are articulated, and there is no doubt that there are discrepancies—that these discrepancies are not of the substance of the faith. But they are the kind of discrepancies that you get between The Plain Dealer and The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and so on, each reporting eyewitness accounts of that to which they have sent their reporters. And indeed, for those of you who are unsettled by your friends making such an assertion, the obvious and straightforward rebuttal of their notion is that the very disagreements between the gospels—was there one person there or two? Did one speak or both? Did the women get there, or were they coming from there?

And so on. Not only is it possible to harmonize these things, but these very incongruities speak to the credible nature of the gospel materials. These are the things that convince the reader that what they have in front of them is not some kind of dramatization of the religious convictions of the early church, written after a period of time had elapsed, but rather, when we read these little events, we have a deep sense that what we have in front of us is nothing other than an eyewitness account.

We don't have some kind of carefully crafted deceitfulness. And I would suppose that in these dramatic moments, as much as anywhere else in the gospel records, we would be expecting to find a kind of broken and trembling testimony of things. And to bring it right down to the very bottom level of thinking, husbands and wives driving in the car with one another will be able to testify to what I know to be true, and that is that we can both have observed something in the last minute, and one of us reported as X and the other reported as Y. And indeed, not only what we saw but also what we said.

Or is it just in my home? Well, I just said that to you. Response? No, you didn't say that to me. You said something else to me. I can't believe you're saying that. I have only just finished saying it to you. No, you did not say that to me. You said something else to me.

What is that about? Discrepancies in the reporting of the incident that has taken place in the same cubicle in the last sixty seconds. So it's no surprise when one gospel writer quotes just one of the two individuals and identifies one man. He has chosen simply to identify the one man, the spokesman. It's not relevant to him to identify the second man. The other individual looks at it and says, Now, there were two people there.

Let's make sure we say there were two. And the last thing that points to the incongruity of what is before us here is actually the prominence of the women themselves. The prominence of the women themselves. Now, this isn't immediately obvious to us in the twenty-first century, but in the first century, we need to realize that women did not figure in a court of law.

Their testimony was inadmissible. A Jewish man, in his prayers, would thank God in the morning that he had not been born a Gentile or a woman. I know that falls on our ears somewhat differently two thousand years on, but those are the facts. And therefore, when you read the gospel records and you discover that it is the women who come at the head of the list, that it is to the women that the risen Christ first appears, that it is to these women, then this is actually one of the clearest indications of the authenticity of the gospel records themselves. Now, I hope as I go through this that that will become apparent to all of us. And I want simply to work my way along the line of the text that is given us, viewing it very much through the lens of the women.

We'll come back to it again, turn the prism a little, and look at it from another angle. But for now and for this morning, let's just begin with these women. On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices. Now, the reason I reread from the NEB was to point out to you—and I hope you picked it up—the emphasis by Luke on the women. He has shown his readers that the women have featured prominently in the whole crucifixion narrative. If your Bible is open, look at verse 27 of Luke 23, where he says, A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Now, remember, he said he did a careful investigation, he put down an orderly account. He didn't add here, including women, to be politically correct.

This is historic reporting. Verse 49, he does the same thing. But all those who knew him—notice again—including the women who had followed him from Galilee, verse 55, the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee, followed Joseph, saw the tomb, how his body was put in it, and then they went home and made preparation, resting on the Sabbath day, the seventh day, and getting ready for all that would follow on the first day. And here on the first day of the week, verse 1 of chapter 24, we have the activities of these women—these women who are first to receive the news of the resurrection.

Notice the preparation of these women. They had gone home, verse 56, and prepared spices and perfumes. They had made a commitment to one another, presumably, that they would be there very early in the morning. The phraseology here is for the crack of dawn—that they were up and out of their beds and ready for this activity. It was not that they somehow or another, in the course of the morning, finally decided they would get together after meeting for coffee somewhere in the market, and perhaps we'll go over and visit the graveyard. No, they had made their preparations.

They had waited out the Sabbath day. You have the picture of them just chomping at the bit, ready for the dawn to break and for them to be about their business. And preparation and commitment is followed by action, and Luke tells us that they went to the tomb. Off they go to the tomb. Ah, it's not very customary anymore for people to make visits to graveyards. In Scotland, for me, a Sunday afternoon, on a particularly bad Sunday afternoon, involved a visit to the cemetery—usually to visit the grave of some ancient relic of mine who had died a hundred years before. But someone had remembered that it was on this day that they had died, and off we went with a bunch of daffodils to the tomb and stood there for a moment or two and put flowers there. It was actually very precious, and it is a happy memory.

And it is an increasingly lost art and conviction. Anyway, these women went to the tomb. Why did they go to the tomb? Because it was a tomb. There is a classic impracticality about what they're doing, if you'll forgive me, isn't there?

They're going to the tomb because they're going to anoint a body—to anoint a body that has already been dead for some considerable time. But you see, when love is at work, men and women do unusual things. When love is at work, men and women allow their hearts to rule their heads.

Men and women may actually do things that are ultimately futile. And it's clear that their hearts were ruling their heads, because Mark tells us in Mark 16 that it was only when they were on their way there that they said to one another, What are we going to do about the large stone? How are we going to roll the stone away? In actual fact, they asked, Who will roll the stone away for us? You see, they were in need of some strong, brave men—some strong, brave men—some brave men—some strong, brave men—who were all hiding, while the strong, prepared, active, committed, devoted women went to the tomb. Have you noticed how many times there's a sign that says Men at Work and No One's Working? But the fact of the matter is, it is very often a picture of the local church, men at work, that the sign proclaims, and the absence of men, and the presence of the women. Now, verses 2 and 3 tell us what they thought they'd face and didn't, and what they thought they'd find and didn't either.

The Greek is very interesting. It plays on the verb to find. They found the stone, but they didn't find the body. They found the stone that was rolled away, which was striking in itself, and they didn't find the body which was even more striking.

And the opening phrase of verse 4 covers a multitude of perplexity, doesn't it? While they were wondering about this. While they were wondering about this. The NEB says they were utterly at a loss. Utterly at a loss. They were at a loss for words. They were at a loss for explanation. They were, if you like, riveted to the ground, stopped dead in their tracks, confronted by irrefutable evidence.

At the absence of a body, the stone now rolled away, nothing as they anticipated finding it, feeling a little silly, perhaps, with the spices and the perfumes in their hands that they had been preparing only hours before and had hastened to the tomb with in the early hour of the morning. And Luke says, And they stood there wondering about this. I'd like to know all that's wrapped up in they wondered about this. When I read biographies, I want to know that biographers got to get to tell me what they wondered about. If it's a good biography, I don't want to just know they wondered. I want to know, What did you wonder about?

And, of course, we don't have it here, but they must have wondered all kinds of things. Certainly, there's no indication that anybody all of a sudden said, Duh! This is the resurrection! Is there? Empty tomb, nobody, stone gone—must be the resurrection!

No! Isn't that amazing? Well, it's certainly amazing from where we sit, with the advantage of all the time we've had and all the things we've read, but for them it wasn't amazing at all. The last thing that crossed their minds would have been a resurrection. Their hearts ruling their heads, they make the journey, expect the stone, the stone's gone, expecting the body, the body's gone. The great expectation on the part of the Jew for the Messiah was threefold—that when the Messiah rose in prominence and power, the pagans would be overthrown, the temple would be rebuilt, and God's justice would be established on the earth. The whole of the Old Testament record was, if you like, a story in search of an ending. And these women, along with others who had followed Christ right up to the point of his crucifixion and indeed to his entombment, would have thought in Messianic terms along these lines. And consequently, the crucifixion represented to them an obvious dead end. Certainly, it can't be Jesus of Nazareth who's going to overturn the pagans, who's going to rebuild the temple, who's going to establish the justice of God.

Because after all, his career has come to a crashing halt in this Palestinian tomb, albeit we don't know what's going on here with this absent body. And to the extent that he had an anticipation of the resurrection, it would have been very much along the lines of Martha, who, in John chapter 11, when she encounters Jesus, who is making his way to the home, she says to him in John chapter 11, verse 21—I'll just read it for you—"Lord Martha said to Jesus, if you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died. But I know now that even God will give you whatever you ask. And Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. And Martha answered, I know he will rise again in the resurrection of the last day." I know there's going to be a resurrection at the last day. So to the extent that he had any notion of resurrection, it was somewhere out there and on.

The last thing in their mind would have been that Jesus would rise so soon from the dead and would appear so dramatically to his followers. Now, again, let me remind you, this is careful investigation. This is an orderly account.

Follow the orderly account. While they were wondering about this and while they were perplexed, here is a reason for even more perplexity. Suddenly, unexpectedly—the Greek is essentially out of the blue—two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. John tells us, John chapter 20 and verse 12, he says, and two angels were present. It's actually helpful to me to have this described here by Luke with his kind of clinical analytical mind, and he says there were two individuals whose clothing gleamed like lightning.

That's the best he can do for it. An angelic supernatural encounter, and their clothing was bright enough, striking enough, to outclass the whiteness of the tomb in which Jesus had been laid. But this supernatural intervention ought to be no surprise.

I'm not disturbed by it at all. They were here at the arrival of Jesus. They announced his birth. The angels arrived. And I wonder if some who were present on that occasion in Bethlehem were dispatched now to the scene in Jerusalem, and the word came, Okay, I want a few of you that were down there in the fields with the shepherds to go down here, two in particular, in order that you might speak to these women. And they don't just stand there looking cute. They speak. The women have been frightened.

They bowed down with their faces to the ground, and the men don't get into that at all. They just ask them a very straightforward question. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Well, the fact is, they weren't looking for a living person, were they? They were looking for a dead person. That's why they had all the stuff in their hands. Jesus was dead.

It was over. They were going to anoint his body, close it down, fold it up. Here they are, looking for life in all the wrong places.

William Barclay, whose commentaries I use falteringly, can't resist the opportunity at this point to suggest that men and women do the same as these particular women had done. And that is that they go looking for Jesus in all the wrong places. They go looking for him among the dead. Alistair Begg on Truth for Life with a message titled The Resurrection. Teaching the Bible is at the heart of all we do here at Truth for Life. This is because we know that when God's Word is taught, unbelievers will be converted, believers will be established and grounded in their faith, and local churches will be strengthened. And that's our mission. And it's also the mission you're supporting when you pray for and when you financially support Truth for Life. We're grateful for your prayers, and if you're able to support us today with a donation, we'd like to say thank you by inviting you to request a copy of a book called The Cross in Four Words.

But don't put this off. Today is the last day we'll mention this book on this program. You may be familiar with the basics of Christ's death, but the more we understand about the cross, the better we're able to share God's amazing grace and forgiveness with others. This is a short but thorough book that helps explain four outcomes of Jesus' redemptive work. Request your copy when you give by clicking on the book in the app, or when you call us at 888-588-7884. I'm Bob Lapeen. Hope you can listen tomorrow as Alistair concludes his message on the resurrection by examining a very important announcement that demands from us a response. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.