CWA part Gospel - Resurrection of our LORD - KBKuschel
Matthew 28:8-10
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
Put yourselves into the sandals of the women. You believe you are a sinner. You believe God forgives sin. You believe you are acceptable to God because He promised a Savior who would do everything necessary to provide you with salvation and righteousness.
You followed Jesus. You listened to Him teach. You listened to Him answer questions. You listened to Him apply the Law to people’s hearts to show them their sins. You listened to Him apply the Gospel to people’s hearts to show them that they were forgiven because of God’s love. You are convinced that He is the Prophet promised by God. He is the Bringer of truth.
You watched Jesus work among the people. You saw Him heal people who were sick,. You saw Him make nature work under His directions. You saw Him raise people who had died. He had the power of God at His disposal. When He claimed to be using His own power, you considered that He might be the Son of God.
You were convinced that this Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ of God. The One promised by God to provide you with forgiveness of sins, holiness and eternal life. You got to be pretty comfortable with that conclusion.
But then He died. If He were the Son of God, how could He die? The crowds at Calvary reinforced those doubts in your mind. “If he was the Son of God, why didn’t He come down from the cross?” Why didn’t He just escape? How could He give eternal life if He is dead? And dead He was. You were there when they laid him in the tomb. You were going to finish the burial process on Sunday morning.
But when you went there, He wasn’t there. His body was gone. The angels said, “He has risen.” Could it be? Doubt again. Too good to be true. What really happened? More doubts. Then Jesus met you and greeted you. You grasped His feet to make sure that this wasn’t a ghost. You knew it wasn’t, so you worshiped Him. He was who He claimed to be. His resurrection proved it. You could on go on with the rest of the day and the rest of your lives without doubt. Jesus is your LORD and God.
Doubts. They are part of our lives as human beings, aren’t they? Doubts that get bigger as we grow up. When we as children learned about Jesus, there was no doubt who He was. He is God. No questions. But as we grow up, our intellect rebels. A person who was God and human? It doesn’t make sense. A person who does miracles? Miracles can’t happen. Doubts.
Doubts about the claim that Jesus is the only source of truth from God. What about all the other spiritual resources in our world. They all claim to have the truth. What if Jesus was only another prophet? What if Jesus was just another purveyor of a religious system? Don’t other spiritual resource people in other religious systems also do miracles? How do we deal with doubts like these?
Scripture always solves these doubts in the same way. It always points us to the resurrection of Jesus. Was Jesus the Christ? Only if He was God. Was He God? Scripture says “Yes.” Proof? He rose from the dead. Can you believe what He spoke and taught. If He was God. Was He God? “Yes.” Proof? He rose from the dead. Whose power was He using when He did miracles? Scripture says His own. That’s only possible if He was God. Was He God? “Yes.” Proof. He rose from the dead. Because Jesus rose, we are free to live without any fears about who Jesus of Nazareth is. He is our LORD and God.
Hymn 152:1-3
Put yourselves back into the sandals of the followers of Jesus. They had been with Him for three years. They had personally grasped the forgiveness and eternal life which He offered them. But He expected that they would share those gifts with others. For three years they had been soaking up the message they were to share.
They had been given some trial runs. Jesus had sent some of them out to take His message to other villages. They reported back. They had some success. They had some failure. They reported power over forces that opposed Jesus. They had a taste of what they were supposed to be doing with their lives after Jesus would depart from their presence, something He had promised to do.
B1 Their message was very clear. They had pointed to Jesus as the Christ. They had told people that Jesus was the One who had come to take the guilt of people on Himself. They told people that He would sacrifice His life to pay for their sins.
They told people that Jesus was their righteousness. He was living for them. Jesus was not sinning. Jesus was going to cover them with His holiness. That would make them able to be right with God.
Now Jesus was telling the women: “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” Jesus’ followers were still under orders from Him to take His message to others. Why should they have confidence that the message they were bringing to others from Jesus was true? Why did the women eagerly and quickly go and tell the other disciples the message from Jesus?
Because He had risen. Jesus’ resurrection is the “Yes,” that God the Father gave to all the work Jesus had done. Was Jesus successful in taking the guilt of humans. YES. Proof? He rose from the dead. Was He a success in taking the place of humans and suffering death and hell to rescue us from it? YES. Proof? He rose from the dead. Was Jesus successful in supplying us with holiness so that we are acceptable to God. YES. Proof? He rose from the dead. Should the women be confident that the message from Jesus which they had for the other disciples was valid. YES. Proof?. He rose from the dead.
We are today’s followers of Jesus. Jesus hasn’t brought us into His family just so that we might be a part of His family forever. He has also given us a purpose. Our purpose is the same as that of the women in the verses before us today. Our purpose is to transmit the words and message of Jesus to others. We can do that through our congregation. But the LORD is interested primarily in having us be transmitters of His truth to others as we rub shoulders with them in our day to day existence.
The message is simple. I am a sinner. Jesus took my sins. Jesus suffered death instead of me. Jesus suffered hell instead of me. That frees me from my guilt and the threat of punishment. Jesus lived a holy life for me. That gives me His holiness. That makes me right in the sight of God. That’s the message.
Is it really true? Is there any portion of that message that should be doubted? Does God really say people are not guilty and acceptable to Him because of Jesus. The answer in the Bible is “YES.” Proof? He rose from the dead. Because Jesus rose, we are free to live without doubt about the Gospel.
Hymn 152 : 4-6
Put yourselves back into the sandals of the followers of Jesus. You had become quite used to having Jesus with you all the time. You traveled with Him. You ate with Him. You were like family. You couldn’t think of what life without Jesus would be like. You dreaded the time that He wouldn’t be with you, something He kept telling you about. Now it had happened. He wasn’t with you. He had died. Would you be able to handle the future on their own? It was doubtful.
But now He was alive again. Now he had shown Himself to you. Now he had told you to tell the disciples they too would see Him. This is very important. His death hadn’t stopped His presence among you. Nothing else would stop His presence among you either. You could go on with your lives without doubt about the future because Jesus was still with you.
Jesus’ followers had another very important issue to face. Death. Humans die. That’s just the way it is since Adam and Eve sinned. But Jesus had told you that even though you would die, you wouldn’t really die. He kept teaching you that He gives eternal life, a relationship with God that doesn’t end after one dies. You believed that. Now He died. What did that do to His promise? What did that do to your confidence? More doubt.
But now Jesus was alive again. He showed Himself to the women. He wanted to show Himself to the disciples. Jesus could conquer death. He could conquer the deaths of His followers. He could keep His promise. You would rise from the dead as Jesus had promised. Proof? He rose from the dead
How do we handle each new day of our lives? Life isn’t easy. We are unemployed. We are confronted daily with that unpleasant person at school. We have physical handicaps. People keep telling me to just do it, even though God says not to. Can I handle life? I doubt it.
We don’t have to. Jesus is with us. He gives us patience. He gives us wisdom. He gives us strength. He will lead us to do what we are supposed to do. Is Jesus really with us? “YES.” Proof? He rose from the dead. That gives us freedom to live without doubt about tomorrow.
How do we handle death? It’s scary, isn’t it? We watch people die. We don’t want to experience the pain. We watch people get killed. We don’t want to stop existing that suddenly. It’s scary because we don’t know what is next. But we do. Jesus told us. When we die, we go to be with the LORD. Then on Judgment Day, we continue to exist in perfection, body and soul, with Jesus.
Is that really true? “YES.” Proof? He rose from the dead. He conquered death for us. We will conquer it too. How do we handle the concept of death? With confidence, knowing where we are going, knowing what is going to happen next. How do we handle the concept of eternity? With confidence Why? He rose from the dead. Because Jesus rose, we are free to live without doubt about our eternal future.
Conc: LORD JESUS, please help us to celebrate Easter every day by living free from doubt about Jesus, about the Gospel, and about the future.
Hymn 152:7-8