Sermon Tone Analysis

Call to Worship

Today as many of you know is Resurrection Sunday.

It is the day when the Lord Jesus Christ who for the last three days laid in the tomb after his crucifixion dead and covered in linen sheets, came back to life.

This Sunday is thought to be the day that the Lord triumphed over death and arose victorious from the grave.

Now anyone who knows me knows that I don’t pay attention to dates, calendars or holidays.

It is just not something I am up to date with.

However, this day is a day that will forever be remembered.

It is the day when the sting of death no longer holds Christians captive.

Instead it is a day of rejoicing.

And because of that, we as Christians do not merely celebrate the resurrection once a year on Easter Sunday.

Instead, we celebrate the resurrection of Christ daily in our own lives and at least once a week corporally.

Yet that does not mean that we cannot set aside a day which focuses solely upon the resurrection.

Granted the resurrection of Jesus is so vitally important that it should be spoken of every Lord’s day, yet it is also okay to have a specific day where that is all that we talk about.

So with all that in mind, today we’re going to examine the resurrection of Christ as found in .

So if you have your Bible which I would strongly encourage you to bring it with you, please turn with me to the Gospel according to St. Luke chapter 24.

Read and pray.

Today as we begin to examine the Resurrection of Christ, I am going to have three points which will be the focus of our text for the day.

The first point is that the resurrection of Jesus is historically accurate.

The first point

The second is that the resurrection of Christ has tremendous theological implications.

The third and final point is that Christ’ resurrection has application in every persons life.

So let’s begin by looking at the first point.

The resurrection of Jesus is historically accurate.

Since the inception of the Christian Church some 2000 years ago, there has been many different reasons given for the resurrection of Jesus.

From the disciples stealing Jesus’ body to Christ only existed in a holographic manner.

There is no shortage of answers given by the skepticist and the unbeliever.

One of the earliest responses given is that the disciples had set in motion a plan to steal the body of Jesus after His crucifixion.

In fact you can find that in

Matthew 27:62

Here you have the Pharisees going before Pilate, warning that Jesus had said that he would raise after three days and asking Pilate to place guards in front of the tomb of Jesus.

But they didn’t only place guards to watch over tomb, they also took and sealed the tomb in such a way that they would know if it had been tampered with.

It’s kinda ironic that the Pharisees did this though as they ended up being witness to one of the most unique events in history.

And they also will end up giving credibility as to authenticity of the resurrection.

All this by merely trying to keep Jesus in the tomb and the disciples out.

So I want you to get this picture into your head for a moment.

Picture with me if you will, a tomb carved into the side of the hill.

The body of Jesus laid on a stone and wrapped in a cloth linen.

Outside the tomb, you have a massive stone which would have taken at least four guards to move.

And this stone is rolled in front of the opening of the tomb and is sealed by a wax Roman seal.

This seal was there as a way to attest that the tomb had not been messed with.

Inside this wax seal on the stone was a stamp authenticating the Roman authorities as being the only ones to open and to close the tomb.

This whole thing kinda makes you think the Jews were a little bit nervous about what was to happen don’t you think.

Well, as the Scripture tells us a little later in that account in , on the first day of the week, after the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

Yet on her way there, there was a great earthquake and an angel of the Lord rolled back the stone and sat on it.

As you can imagine, the guards who were in charge of guarding the tomb were a little shaken up.

Put yourself in their shoes for a minute.

Here you are, a guard set to keep anyone from getting to the body of this religious figure and in the wee hours of the morning, you’re awoken to the ground shaking like crazy and an angel sitting on the stone.

Verse 4 says that for fear of the angel of the Lord, the guards trembled and became like dead men.

Now listen, these guards were expecting to face opposition.

Why else would they be assigned to this task if they didn’t expect to see some opposition.

Yet they had no idea that what they would be encountering would be beyond their imagination.

Here before them, sitting on the stone that once guarded the tomb of Jesus was an angelic being.

And what they saw terrified them in such a way that they really should have been the ones in tomb.

I mean we have the expression of being scared to half to death, yet these guards would have passed for dead men.

They were so terrified that they didn’t have the ability to move.

And after everything was done and over with, and the women went to tell of the resurrection of Jesus, some of the guards ran into the city to tell the chief priests everything that had happened.

Yet none of this was expected by the women who were there.

They had planned to go and to place oils and aromas around the body of Jesus to keep the smell down.

They had not intended to get there and see an angel telling them that the Jesus whom they sought has arisen.

And when the women got there that morning they

The chief priests was a group of people made

And here’s where the story gets really interesting.

The Pharisees and the Sadduccees, those appointed to serve as the chief priests and the like were a people who knew the Old Testament in ways which would put most of us to shame today.

There are times that I wonder how

They had the ability to read through and see the coming of the Messiah.

They had the ability to see the death burial and resurrection of the Messiah in the Old Testament.

Yet instead of believing that God had finally sent the long anticipated Messiah and looking unto Jesus to be made right.

The chief priest immediately gave a large sum of money to the soldiers and told them to lie.

They told them to say that in the night, the disciples came while the guards were asleep and stole the body of Jesus.

This is what they were supposed to tell the people.

Anyone who asked them about the resurrection of Jesus was to be lied to by order of the highest religious office in the land.

Can you imagine that for a moment?

But here’s where the stupidity of the lie comes in.

Their story doesn’t match the evidence.

First off, no Roman guard would admit to sleeping on the job.

That was grounds for the person to have to stand before the Emperor for failing at their task and that was not something that a Roman guard would want.

Do you realize that the first century Roman soldier didn’t join the military for the paycheck.

In fact, many soldiers until a certain point basically had to pay to be in the Roman army.

This was a job of honor.

It was taken serious in the highest of degrees and for a soldier to admit that they were derelict of duty would bring upon them a shame that could put in jeopardy all they had worked for.

So long story short, no guard is going to sleep on the clock.

At least not in a way where they couldn’t defend the post in the way they were called to.

On top of that, Scripture also recounts for us that the clothes which wrapped the body of Jesus were left in the tomb.

Neatly taken care of and folded up nice and neat.

Let me ask you a question and it is going to be one that is gruesome but it none-the-less needs to be asked.

How badly beaten and destroyed was the body of Jesus?

Listen to

Isaiah 52

Did you catch that first part?

Isaiah foreshadows what the body of Jesus will look like and it states that his appearance was so marred that He almost didn’t even look human anymore.

Jesus wasn’t merely some man who had a heart attack and killed over all in one piece.

Instead Scripture states that Jesus was beaten in such a way that His muscles and flesh would have been open wide in many different areas.

Now let me ask you another question, if you were going to move a body which was wrapped up in cloth and that would help to keep your hands from going into the wounds of another human being, wouldn’t you leave the cloth on them?

If the disciples showed up to steal the body, why in the world would they have unwrapped Him?

Considering the landscape and climate, they would have needed all the help they could get in order to remove the smell from the hot daytime hours.

Is this making sense to y’all?

It is seriously lunacy to claim and argue that the Disciples stole the body of Jesus to fake his resurrection.

Not only would they have to then deal with the body of Jesus before the odor got to strong, but several of them didn’t even believe in the resurrection at all.

Think about Thomas for a minute.

What was his response to hearing that Jesus had rose from the dead?