193 - Women Honored, Soldiers Humiliated

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Here we are in Matthew's Gospel, and he is risen. He is risen indeed. And the message came out and spread to the world. And how did the message get out? To a very unlikely messenger. You know who it was?

It was the women who had been with Jesus all along. And we'll see them tell the news today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning. This is Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And this is More Than Ink, and this is where we gather together around our dining room table in a relaxed manner to read God's Word, to share our insights, to look at it, and to encourage you to do the same thing. You know, we often think the only people who can tell us about the Bible are people, professionals is what I put them in.

And they're good. I appreciate professionals, people who do a lot more study and academics. But, you know, the Bible was written for ordinary people to read it and to have the Holy Spirit just really change your life as a result. So we're here hoping that you'll be encouraged to sit down and read it yourself, just get in a relaxed place and just read it slowly and question it. Well, reading it slowly is important, because this is not just an academic exercise, a intellectual challenge that we pose to ourselves. This is a means of drawing near to God. We take time to personalize what He has written, the letter, as you said, what He's written. What, Lord, are you saying to me? How can I draw near to you through what I'm reading here?

Right, right. And God's Word is central to our relationship with God. And I might just add, you know, the Word is written in such a way that very simple people, like you and me, can read it and glean just tremendous things. But then you can read it again and go deeper, read it again, go deeper, get some academic chops behind you, read more stuff. I mean, it's like it has infinite depth.

So it's open for the simplest to the most academic. We just want you to sit down and look at the Word. You know, that's the power of stories, right, that every time you retell or reread a story, you discover new depth in it or new insight that you hadn't seen before. Yeah, so we often, especially for new believers, say, boy, you need to get into a gospel. You need to see Jesus face to face in that.

We recommend just do any gospel, please. And so here we are. We've been looking at Matthew now for many weeks, and we're coming down. We're in the last chapter of Matthew now. Jesus has been crucified and put in the tomb. And the weekend is going by, and it's quiet, and people are grieving, and they can't even believe what they just saw. You know, I've thought about that a lot this year in particular, what that empty day in between, right, the crucifixion and the resurrection, how the Lord allowed them that day of quiet rest and grieving when they really did not know for sure that what He said was going to happen.

I think they were so shocked it never maybe even occurred to them. It clearly wasn't in the mind of the women when they went to the tomb. But the women are central in this part of the story, and they figure here not from the death and burial clear through the resurrection accounts because the women are the first ones entrusted as the witnesses of the resurrection.

So we're going to see that in a minute. But who were those women? Mary Magdalene is mentioned in every account. Mary, the mother of James and Joseph is mentioned. The mother of the sons of Zebedee, we don't know her name. Right, but we know her sons. We know her sons, James and John.

And just in reading through this earlier, I was thinking about Jesus on the cross. John's gospel records that Jesus actually said from the cross, John, behold your mother. So He gives His mother into the care of John. So when it says the mother of the sons of Zebedee, well, John was taking care of Mary in her acute grief at this point. So where we left off was with Jesus laid in the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea in a very hasty manner, right?

Dark was falling. And the women were watching. They stuck around to make sure it was done right, and it wasn't.

So they were ready to go back. They knew what tomb He was in. And it does mention the fact that Joseph of Arimathea, when he took the body down, he just put it in linen. It doesn't mention any spices. Well, I think one of the other gospels does, but not nearly what it should have been.

It does. It's not complete, though. So it's not done until they decide it's time to just come and do the proper thing and finish it. But the tomb has been sealed now. Not only the stone rolled in front of it, but an official governmental seal placed on it.

That's where we left off. The seal at the threat of death from Rome itself. So they're not sure what they're going to find. And actually, one of the other gospels at this point says that when they were on their way, they were going and saying, but who's going to roll the stone away? That's a big problem. Matthew doesn't include that.

I think it's John or Luke that says that. Yeah, it's a big problem. That stone, it's a big round stone, and it's rolled in front of the tomb. It takes several men. A couple of guys to move it, yeah. It's a heavy thing.

Okay. We better read the text. But they're being faithful, and they're going to come out, and they're going to finish the burial process.

But they don't know how it's going to happen. So we're in Matthew 28, chapter 28, verse 1. Now, after the Sabbath toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord had descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, do not be afraid. Let's stop there for a minute. Okay, okay.

We'll get back to the fear in a minute. So this is not the same earthquake as it happened a couple days before. No, no, a couple days before, yeah. We don't know if the women actually witnessed the earthquake, or if the angel was sitting there and the earthquake had already happened. I mean, we don't know. It kind of has the feeling of this kind of disordered recall. You know, these events were so incredibly unexpected.

And if you've ever witnessed anything that catastrophic or that cataclysmic, you sometimes are later going, now, which happened first? Now, did you see that? I saw this.

Did you see that? So it kind of has that feel. And have you heard the term harmony of the Gospels? People who write these harmonies take the four Gospels and try and write one linear event that include the different passages and interweave them.

And if you find one of those, it's most useful to use that for this passion. Yeah, it's really interesting. Really good, because they take these events, which seem to interleave, but kind of confusing, and they make sense of making one timeline out of them.

So it's really good here. You know, I was just laughing when I was thinking about the great earthquake, because I don't know who it was. It might have been Charles Spurgeon. But someone said, did the earthquake roll away the stone, or did the rolling away of the stone cause the earthquake? Yeah, and I think, yeah, that's a really good point.

Well, I'm of the opinion that it probably is that. It was the latter, because the shock of the death of Jesus caused an earthquake. So here at the revealing of the resurrection, it makes sense that it would be another earthquake caused by the event itself. And again, this is another place where you need to read the other Gospels. Luke is the one that mentions that they came carrying spices. Right. So we know what their purpose is.

You can't read that here. It just says they're going to go see the tomb. So they're coming to finish that preparation. What I really love about this image, though, is that this angel, after he rolls the stone away, goes and sits on it. He just sits on it like, you know, it's done.

We're done here. Yeah, it is a profound statement of conquering in a way. It's like, this is what I did, and I'm sitting on it. If you want to find out who's responsible, here I am. I'm sitting right on top of it. So it's just such a great scene, such a great scene about saying, who did this?

The guy sitting on it, probably. You know, it's interesting, too, that his appearance was so shocking that the guards who were there, it says they trembled and became like dead men. Did they pass out?

Yeah, I think so. Did they faint? They fall away?

We don't know exactly. And these are tough Roman soldiers, and boy, they just poof, they're out. Well, probably, and I'm sure they were startled, right? Shocked. Yeah. But the angel doesn't address them.

No. He turns to the women and says, don't be afraid. I know that you seek Jesus who is crucified. He's not here, for he has risen, as he said.

As he said. Come see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he's going before you to Galilee. There you'll see him. See, I have told you.

So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. We'll stop there for a second. We'll stop there. It really is nice because he gives the proof. He says, you know, you were here. Right. You were here when they laid his body in here. I'm sure they saw where he was laid. They might have stuck around for the ceiling.

Yeah. It's hard to know. So they know the tomb, and they know the place he was laid. So when the angel says, you don't believe me?

Take a look. That's where he was laying right there, and you guys saw that. You saw it yourself. See the place where he lay. And they had seen where he was laid.

So for them, it was like, you're right. There's nobody there. He's not there. Now, Matthew doesn't mention the grave clothes. Right.

But it's possible that the women saw those as well. It's John, I think, that tells us most of the detail about the grave clothes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because the grave clothes are there. Right. But the body's not in them. Yeah. And even the way John mentions the grave clothes, it's very unusual because it looks like he just kind of came out of them. Well, yeah.

And they're neatly folded. That Jesus himself perhaps folded them. Yeah. You've got to go read that.

That's why I say, read the other gospels, because they give you a little bit more detail, and it's just fascinating. Because that says the body didn't just disappear. Right.

There was someone here who wanted you to notice this. Exactly. Exactly. Another thing I like about this passage, if I was writing a fictional story, at this point, what I would say to the women is, Jesus is risen, and he's gone into heaven, and he's sitting on the right hand of the Father, which is like he's gone, and you can't talk to him anymore. But this whole idea about going to Galilee, you get to talk to him. It's as though it's saying in a very strong sense, there's still relationship to be had with Jesus.

Right. He's sticking around for a little while. It's not like, I'm sorry, he's gone. You missed him. He got on the bus, and he's in heaven now.

It's like, no, more relationship is going to happen. And so he schedules this meeting with the apostles, and presumably with many of the other disciples. Well, you know, that verifies the resurrection, right?

It's not just, oh, well, we wonder what happened to him, maybe he rose from the dead. Right, right. Who knows where he is now? He's gone.

Right. No, he showed them. They touched him. They ate with him. He fed them.

Breakfast on the beach, right? That's much later. That's not in Matthew's story. That's in John's story. John's story. But it is such a lovely touching way to kind of re-engage with the apostles who are just really struggling.

Really, really struggling. Peter, especially, he betrayed him three times. So I just think it's a nice way that the story is constructed by God so that what'll happen is that it'll soften the blow of when he actually does go to heaven. We're going to talk more, and there are now more important things for us to talk about now that you know about the death and resurrection and what that means. So I just love that whole aspect, instead of just saying, oh, sorry, he went to heaven, can't talk to him anymore.

He's gone. So we don't know what the Roman guards were doing at this point, but the women have this conversation with the angel who says, don't be afraid, like those guys. And then, so the angel says, now see, I've told you, so go and tell his disciples. So they go quickly with fear and great joy, and they run to tell the disciples, and look at this in verse nine, and behold, Jesus met them.

They didn't expect that. And said, greetings. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Right, right. So they touched him.

Yeah. They touched him. He was standing there.

They fell at his feet and took hold of them. And it's important to just say the obvious. This is bodily. Right. This isn't just in spirit. This is someone you can touch. Right. Right. This is bodily. So Jesus said to them, this is verse 10, do not be afraid.

Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me. Now, as it turns out, they saw him sooner than that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But Matthew doesn't tell us that. Matthew doesn't tell us that. But they do have the meeting in Galilee. That's a real thing. And that wonderful scene where they're all out fishing and Jesus is on the shore kind of waving to them. Yeah. Read that about John.

John 2021. So there's a real meeting up there. Really warm. A very warm meeting. An opportunity for Peter to kind of unwind his offenses against Jesus by denying him. I mean, it's just a, I just love the warmth of this reunion after the death and after the resurrection. And it calms him. It aligns him. It points him in the right direction for the rest of their life. It's a very touching thing. I wish Matthew covered more, but John filled in the gaps for us.

So there we go. And now, something else that's lovely here is that, as Matthew says, and they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped. More than one woman.

Because Luke's and John's gospel zero in on Mary Magdalene and her encounter with Jesus. But these women were all together. They were all there. Yeah.

And I might add again the obvious observation that Jesus didn't push them back when they started worshiping. No. No, no, no, no.

Don't do that. Like it makes me think of back when Barnabas and Paul were on that first missionary journey and they go into Lystra and people suddenly say, oh, that's Hermes and that's Zeus, and they start worshiping him. And then I looked it up and Paul and Barnabas, they tore their garments. They rushed into the crowd and they said, men, why are you doing these things?

We're men of the same nature as you and we're bringing you good news. Well, Jesus doesn't do that here because he's worthy of this worship. And so it's obvious, but we seldom notice it is the fact that they worshiped him as though he was God because he is. And he did not restrain them. I just think that's just the coolest thing ever.

The coolest thing ever. You wonder how long that they were in that posture before he said to them, don't be afraid. Go and tell my brothers. And again, another obvious observation is if I was writing a story as a piece of fiction, I would not elect to put women as the bearers of this news because women had no credibility. No. They had no credibility. They're hysterical. Yeah, exactly. They probably were actually. Well, and we know from Mark's Gospel, they actually consider them as kind of, we're not going to believe that. So you don't write someone who had such low credibility as being the herald of this incredible news. The actual witnesses.

But Jesus did. What an extraordinary honor he pays to these women by saying, you're going to be the first ones to tell. And I thought about that a little bit because they were the quiet ones who believed him all along and were caring for his needs and seeing him through the physical task of doing his ministry. They were always there quietly, faithfully. And they had been believing him all along, which, you know, the 12, they were always there, but they were more job oriented, task oriented, right? Yeah.

Lord, what do we do? We're going to go do the thing, right? Yeah. That's why this is. The women were just making life happen. And this is why this is just such a great honoring of them. They're the ones that are the servants that were low, that did all the menial work, that made things happen. And then Jesus gives them the honor of saying, you get to go and tell the news.

You get to go. And they didn't believe him. Well, yeah, but still, it's an extraordinary thing.

It's really. And in fact, you sense something about the warmth of the reunion that's going to come up here, because in the end of 10, he says, you know, go tell my brothers. This is the first time he calls them that, his brothers, to go to Galilee. And that, what a great news, because if she uses that word itself, it'll tell them, even though you guys all abandoned me, even though you were cowering under bushes, you know, even Peter, even though you denied knowing me, I'm still calling you my brothers.

So the warmth of the next meeting coming up is just, is prefigured right there. Go to Galilee and I'll see you there. We have an appointment up there. And they're the ones who were honored to go into their presence and say, you have an appointment with Jesus, go to Galilee.

He'll find you. Yeah. And Peter instead runs to the tomb. Yeah. Okay.

Let's, let's read on. Yeah. So verse 11, while they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place. And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers and said, tell people his disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.

Now that's exactly what they were trying to avoid by sealing the tomb. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Verse 14, and if this comes to the governor's ears, we'll satisfy him and keep you out of trouble. That's Pilate by the way. Yeah. So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among Jews to this day, what the story about having the body stolen out from under the nose of armed Roman guards.

That's what's really so funny about it is that the story on its face is absurd. Right. I mean, like who would believe that? Who would, who would believe, why would a Roman soldier admit to sleeping anyway? Right. Right.

And moreover, if they were all sleeping, and that's the other thing, they're all sleeping. I think that was worthy of death, wasn't it? Yeah, totally. They would get executed if they were sleeping on guard. Totally. Yeah. And when they were guarding like this, they usually rotated who was sleeping and who was guarding. So, so they all fell asleep. And then how would they know who stole the body if they were all just snoring?

Yeah. I mean, so there's so much about, and why is it that they were not killed as a punishment for having this happen? All of these things people would ask in their mind when they tell the story and they go, you know what? There's a lot of things that don't end up here.

Doesn't end up here. Yeah. You know?

I don't think so. So the story is absurd on its face. It's absurd on its face. And but it, again, it got traction because it was the only alternative. Well, that's the thing. It's always interesting to me what alternatives people will believe when they simply don't want to believe the truth.

Yeah. In the face of an explanation that just doesn't hold water. I mean, clearly doesn't hold water and it's not a matter of having to prove it or disprove it. The story itself is just silly. Well, you want to ask which is more possible?

That Roman guards would fall asleep on guard or that Jesus actually did rise from the dead. Right. Right. Right. Right.

You know? I mean, really. That's exactly where you go here. But it's the only option and so you have to believe the option as crazy as it sounds. But people will do that because they just don't want to face up to the fact that he's risen from the dead. Now also, you notice in this entire affair right here, there is no disputing the fact that there's no body. There's no body. And there never has been a body. Right.

Since. You know? If there had been a body, you know, Pilate could have just dragged it down the street and says, here's your risen savior. Right.

He's not here. But what happens in this story, including this, testifies the fact that no one's disputing that the tomb is empty. Right. It's just empty. And so now we have to explain what happened with this empty tomb. Well, the apostles stole it even though we anticipated that and we did everything in our power to stop it.

We put the seal of Rome on it. You're going to die if you do this. Soldiers don't sleep on their routine guarding missions. I mean, we did everything we could think of anticipating this might happen. And then it happened. So in their struggles to make sure that the fraud didn't happen, they authenticated the fact that the only reasonable explanation is that he raised from the dead. That's the only reasonable explanation. And these two things have to go together. He had to have humanly died and be validly dead in order for the resurrection to have the significance that it had. Right.

Those two things must go together. Paul says in Romans that he was delivered up for our transgressions, but he was raised because of our justification. Right. So the resurrection is the validation that the sacrifice of Jesus was acceptable to God and the power of sin and death is broken. Yeah. And did death win with Jesus?

It sure looked like it. It looked like but at the resurrection, we know that he's more powerful than death itself. And that also brings promise of life with him after death too. That means that resurrection, life in resurrection is something that we can hope for too because he did first. Well, and in Paul's huge statement in 1 Corinthians 15, he kind of capsulizes this very thing about the gospel.

He says, let me just read it. It's just a few verses. This is 1 Corinthians 15, starting with verse one. Now, I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain, and here it comes, for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, and then he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as it were to one untimely born, he appeared to me also. So here's the core of the gospel. Jesus died for our sins. He was really, truly dead.

He was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, God had told it ahead of time and Jesus walked through it and then was seen and talked with by all of these people who were still alive when Paul was writing. You can go ask him. That's right. Did you see Jesus? Right. Go ask him.

Go ask him. So there's first hand witnesses on a large scale that saw the resurrection. That's what really fueled the beginning of the church this way because you could ask someone, did you see, I saw Jesus, did you really? There was a great movie that was made several years ago called Risen and it's a fictionalized account of what goes on here but of a Roman soldier who intimately sees the details. It's from the point of view of a centurion. Of a centurion, yeah. Except that story of the centurion at the death of Jesus.

Surely this guy was. It's fictional in terms of what he goes through but so many aspects of this story just really struck me in how they dramatized them because as you stand back and you look at the veracity of the stupid story that they were telling and you look at all the things that this centurion would see first up and close, it's no wonder that someone watching this closely would be really overwhelmingly convinced about who Jesus is. And this is what God has done. God did in the resurrection, the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus, had put kind of an indelible mark in the timeline of human history saying deal with this.

That's right. This thing happened. And it didn't just stir that first century crowd of people there. It's been stirring people ever since because the story itself is extraordinarily hard to explain any other way. And so many people have said when you see the explosion of Christianity across the world at that time, it's such a tidal wave of cultural change, something of gigantic magnitude happened. And if you can't come up with an alternative explanation from the resurrection, then you're only left with the resurrection.

That's what it is. The resurrection itself is made in such a way that it's impossible for us to refute unless you believe silly constructions like what the soldier said. Oh, they came and they took his body. Which doesn't explain why all the apostles too would die martyr deaths believing a lie.

That doesn't make a lot of sense either. So the force of all of the story, I mean, you just look at it and go, I don't have an alternate explanation. It's got to be the resurrection. And that's the one thing that most philosophers will say, I can't get around the resurrection and the story of the resurrection and what happened in the culture, what happened through the apostles. It can't just have been a hoax.

The hoax explanation does not hold water on any sociological level. But people who are determined to disbelieve, there's no changing their minds. This makes me think of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1.18, he says, the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, foolishness, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, that message that one would die as the holy sacrifice for our sin, give up his life for ours, and then rise from the dead, demonstrating that it was a sufficient sacrifice. Sufficient. Yeah. That's enough. Yeah.

Yeah. The whole story of the cross and the resurrection is so profound that Paul said, when he went to the different villages that he traveled to, he says, I just kept it. I kept the topic on the cross, the cross alone. And I'm not ashamed of that gospel.

Well, we need to quit because we're out of time. Next time we'll come to the last section of Matthew's gospel and we'll see this great reunion with the guys. So I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And join us again next time. It's a thrilling meeting. So we're here on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you're there, take a moment to drop us a note. And remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. I might go for that. That'd be good enough. This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.