Sermon Tone Analysis

“HE IS RISEN”

LUKE 24:1-12

Sermon by Don Emmitte, Grace Restoration Ministries

SOME BACKGROUND… While there are resurrection accounts in all of the Gospels, Luke’s narrative is divided into three episodes, which are combined in such a way as to form a connected literary unit.

However, it is only in the first episode where we find parallels with the others.

Even then Luke is distinctive.

At two significant points we find variation from Mark’s account of the empty tomb.

In Mark the angel tells the women to go to the disciples with the instruction that Jesus will meet them in Galilee (cf.

Mark 16:7); and, he also reports the fear of them women keeping them from saying anything further about the resurrection (cf.

Mark 16:8).

Of course the Markan account presupposes the women overcome their fear and tell the disciples or the Gospel would have never gone forward.

The key in this, however, is that there is great reason to place our complete trust in the accounts.

They simply could not have been so different in these minor reports had they been purposefully manufactured.

The remaining stories are found only in Luke.

They are set in Jerusalem or in the immediate vicinity.

The motifs are different from the other Gospel accounts.

In Luke the action in the life of Jesus moves from Galilee to Jerusalem, which then becomes the center from which the early church begins.

It is only in Acts that we see the other appearances over the forty-day period between the resurrection and the ascension.

With that in mind, let’s look at the text for today:

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.

(Luke 24:1-12 NIV).

Arthur Schopenhaver, the classic pessimist, was forced to admit to the joy of the resurrection when he wrote: “Every parting gives a foretaste; every coming together again a foretaste of the resurrection.”

AND AS SIMPLE AS IT IS TO SAY, IT IS THE FOUNDATIONAL TRUTH OF OUR HOPE; IT IS THE CORNERSTONE OF OUR JOY IN A WORLD OF SORROW!

I like the story of the young twelve-year-old boy, wearing tattered jeans, a dirty t-shirt, and worn sneakers standing in front of the store display window looking at a picture of the crucifixion of Jesus.

A man dressed in a business suit stopped and looked over his shoulder.

The little boy said, “That’s Jesus, mister; I know all about him.”

The man said, “Where did you learn all about him?” and walked on a bit further.

The boy ran after the stranger and said, “That’s not all, mister.

He’s resurrected.

He is alive!” “How do you know that?” the man asked.

“’Cause he’s here in my heart!”

In that simple testimony the little boy summed up the very essence of our faith!

As we celebrate this glorious Easter day, others all across the world join us, in a thousand different languages, shouting with joy He Is Risen!

However, the real question for us is simply, “So What?”

What difference does the resurrection really mean to us?

THERE ARE THREE ESSENTIALS FOR US TO CAPTURE TODAY…

FIRST, HE IS RISEN (v. 6).

That is to say He REALLY is risen!

Jesus’ resurrection is not just a beautiful story.

It is not a myth or legend developed to provide a happy ending to a tragic story.

It is an historical fact.

We have too many validations of it.

In the Scripture we find seven different accounts by different writers, in different situations.

The testimony of adverse witnesses, even those who would not want to affirm the truth of Christianity, but simply had to admit he was risen; and He was seen by many witnesses after his resurrection.

Even with all of this there are still those today in our ultra-rational, scientifically motivated world, who would challenge us to “prove it.”

Well, let’s use the so-often touted logic of the world.

Let’s consider the alternatives to the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

After all, logic demands that we reason through the alternatives, step-by-step.

Ultimately there are only three alternatives to the resurrection.

1.

First, some would say he did not actually die.

Through history this has been known as “the Swoon Theory.”

They would say that Jesus did not actually die on the cross; rather, he simply “swooned,” or fainted.

He was merely unconscious when they took his body down from the cross and placed in the tomb.

Later he awakened out of this coma and came out.

The disciples merely claimed his resurrection.

But, is this really logical?

Go back to the men who actually executed Jesus.

These were not ordinary men.

They were trained, experienced executioners.

These Roman soldiers were experts in the most inhumane form of torture and execution ever devised by the human race.

They had crucified hundreds of others.

They knew how to make them die!

And, they knew how to make sure they were dead!

They did with the two thieves that were crucified on either side of Jesus.

How could they have made such a mistake with the most important of the criminals they were charged with executing that day?

They would have never allowed him to be taken off the cross alive.

However, even if that would have somehow slipped by them in their haste to be rid of their day’s duty, Jesus could not have survived the initial preparation for burial.

Over 100 pounds of ointment and spices designed for initial embalming of the body would have been placed on him and then he would have been tightly wrapped with linen like the ancient Egyptians did with their dead.

Further, to be sure there would be no false rumors about this man and his possible resurrection, they rolled a great stone in front of the tomb and sealed it posting two guards in front of the it!

To say Jesus just swooned or fainted from five mortal wounds in his body with the massive loss of blood from scourging and crucifixion and then 36 hours laying in a tomb, suffering the cold and deprivation without medical attention of any kind, suddenly to regain consciousness and remove the bindings, roll back the stone from the inside, elude the guards and find some clothing to make his appearance to the disciples strong, healthy, and vigorous is an incredible fancy!

Logic and reason must declare he was dead when they put his body in the tomb!

2. So, we must move to a second alternative: someone must have stolen his body away.

Well, there are only two possibilities in this line of reasoning.

Either his enemies or his disciples stole the body if that is the truth.

Either of these is at best improbable and at worst ludicrous.

His enemies wouldn’t have stolen his body without later producing it to quell the growing declarations of his resurrection by his followers.

Can you imagine them keeping silent if they could have simply produced Jesus’ body?

It would have been publicly paraded down the streets of Jerusalem putting an end to all of these rumors of a resurrection!

Or, to say his disciples stole the body and secretly hid it away is equally impossible to accept.

Men will die for the truth; they will not die for a lie!

There is no way to explain this mighty Christian movement when men were emboldened to defy authorities, facing prison and harassment, loss of family, friends, and their lives for the sake of a lie.

They didn’t do what they did for a lie!

They did not steal away his body!

3.

There is one other possible explanation: the disciples must have imagined the resurrection; they all suffered from mass hysteria.

They were hypnotized.

They saw a vision or a ghost and merely thought they saw Jesus.

REALLY!

Now we’re stretching!

We must conclude logically that the women came to that tomb early that morning and saw an empty tomb.