Luke 24:1-12
‘From perplexity of the empty tomb to the promise of a risen Lord’
Introduction
For most people there’s something very special about Easter morning isn’t there?
If you had to pick three words which come to mind when you think of Easter morning,
I wonder what would they’d be? Perhaps for the kids those three words would be chocolate, chocolate, and chocolate!
Perhaps for most adults in our society it would be something like, family, and long-weekend, and chocolate!
What about us in the church?
As we celebrate this great festival of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus from the dead, what words come to mind? Perhaps words like hope, joy, new life.
This is of course as it should be; it’s because of the resurrection of Jesus that we can receive new life, that we do rejoice, that we live in hope.
But how strange then, that when we turn to the accounts of the first Easter morning, we find very little of these things. Not just a lack of chocolate, but a lack of hope and joy, certainly at first.
Instead, we find confusion, fear, and doubt.
What’s going on?
This is what we want to consider this morning.
There are three main points I want to touch on this morning:
Why did they come to the tomb?
How did they react at the tomb?
And what changed them as they left the tomb?
Overall, we’ll see how they are moved from the perplexity of the empty tomb, to the promise of a risen Lord.
Why did they come?
So, why did these women come to the tomb? Jesus died on the Friday afternoon of course.
Pilate granted permission for his body to be taken down to be buried, and these women were there to see that by the way, but it was all a bit of a rush.
Once the sun went down that was it, Sabbath time, no more work for the next 24 hours or so,
including anointing a dead body for burial.
Now incidentally, I can’t imagine that Sabbath was much of a rest for the disciples, or for Pilate, or even the religious leaders.
Ironically, the only one really resting was the Lord himself in the tomb.
God rested only the seventh day after his work of creation, now Jesus rests on the seventh day after his work of salvation.
That’s why your tomb has become a place of rest in Jesus. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
So when the Sabbath is over, the women wait for the first glimmer of light in the deep dark dawn, to guide their way to the tomb.
What was on their minds and hearts?
We could say first, love. Perhaps this is their last act of love for their Lord. We can understand this dynamic can’t we? A loved one dies overseas and the family can’t rest until the body is found and properly cared for. So the women go to the tomb to honour their master even in his death by caring for his body. So there’s love.
What else is going on? Surely grief. Grief makes people do things that aren’t always completely thought through, doesn’t it? The heart tends to rule the head in grief. Grief makes people do things like taking large amounts of embalming spices to a tomb with a huge stone in front of it, when you have no idea how you’re going to move that stone. So yes, grief.
They loved their Lord, they grieved for their Lord,
But what we need to see very clearly here, is that one thing they almost certainly were not feeling, was hope. One thing they were almost certainly not coming with, was faith that Jesus had risen.
It is very clear as you read the Gospel accounts, that what happened on Easter morning was something no one expected.
And that is truly wonderful.
Because thanks be to God, that he does not wait to act for us, until we are ready.
Thanks be to God, he does not make his power contingent on us maintaining our faith and hope.
Thanks be to God, he does not wait to ask our advice on how he should accomplish his plans for our good in this world.
No, when the apostles were scattered and hidden, and the women came only to complete the rituals of death, already then, God was at work, to undo death and its power, by raising his Son from the dead.
As people, our tendency is to look at ourselves and become immersed in our little world and think it all depends on us, what we do, what we don’t do, what happens to us. Our biggest problem is thinking that goes like this: I am the centre of the universe.
But in the resurrection of Jesus we are called to take our eyes off ourselves, to see God acting for our salvation. It’s what he does in Jesus Christ that is the centre of the universe.
And he did it when no one expected it, and when no one was even watching. He did it for the whole world. And for me and for you – for all of us.
Even before we had ever so much as thought of God, or talked to God, or reached out for him, he had already determined to send his Son to live, die and rise again for us , so that you we could live with him forever.
How did they react?
So that’s the lead up to these reactions and helps us understand them a bit better. But now let’s linger a little on these reactions themselves.
When the women see the tomb empty, we read simply in verse 4 that ‘they were perplexed’.
It’s very important to see this, that the first reaction to the empty tomb is not for them to jump up for joy and say Christ is risen! Let’s start a world-wide movement, build cathedrals, start hospitals and homeless shelters, send missionaries to the four corners of the earth, organize fellowship breakfasts and so on.
No, they are perplexed, they are confused.
When the angels show up they don’t expect the best, they are frightened.
Then, when the women take the good news to the other disciples, their reaction is even worse.
Verses 9 and 10,
9and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest… 11But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
The disciples’ first reaction to the report of Jesus’ empty tomb is to completely dismiss it, they think it’s nonsense. They aren’t just confused and perplexed, but we actually read they did not believe. Their first reaction is unbelief.
And what’s even more interesting is that this theme continues through the rest of the chapter. On the road to Emmaus and later in a larger group, the same sorts of reactions, and there Jesus even actually appeared to them.
There’s something important for us to learn here.
The empty tomb, and even an appearance of Jesus, does not automatically lead to faith in his resurrection. There’s more to it, which we’ll get to in the third point today.
Perhaps some of us here today are actually a bit sceptical when it comes to all this resurrection stuff.
Well what we see in this text is that actually, we’re in good company. The company of the first disciples. They didn’t stay there, but they started there.
If that’s any of us, let’s hope we don’t stay there either, let’s hope we are on the path to faith in the risen Lord Jesus. Then we are in good company.
Or for others of us, perhaps we have family and friends who are in that boat? Perhaps Easter is even a difficult time in family life. For many of us it can be a time to gather with brothers and sisters in Christ and worship the risen Lord, while for others it’s not, and this can sometimes create tensions in family life.
To put it simply, this text teaches us to be patient with unbelievers.
The resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of the whole Christian faith, and we believe it’s the most wonderful truth in the world, but it’s not easy to believe. The very first thing it caused was perplexity, confusion and doubt.
It doesn’t end there, but it does start there.
What brought the change?
So we’ve seen why they came to the tomb, then how they reacted to the tomb, but finally now, we want to see what brings the change in them when they leave the tomb.
Because one of the most remarkable changes in the New Testament, is the change in the disciples of Jesus. They go from hiding in fear after Jesus dies, to being courageous witnesses to him, which we see especially in the book of Acts.
What brought this change?
For Peter and the others that change doesn’t happen until later, but for the women, this change begins right here in our text:
5The women* were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men (angels we’re told later)* said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. * 6Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ 8Then they remembered his words,
That empty tomb of Jesus on its own, is not enough for faith.
Even the appearance of Jesus is not enough for faith.
It’s wasn’t enough for the first disciples,
It isn’t for us today.
Instead it’s as if the angels point these women back to Word of Jesus, to the promise of Jesus that he must be crucified and rise again. It’s not until they hear again that Word of promise, that then they begin to make sense of this strange set of events.
And again, this is exactly what happens right through this final chapter of Luke three times. On the Emmaus road, Jesus appears to them but they don’t recognize him, but when he begins to teach them from the Scriptures about himself, then, their hearts begin to burn within them.
And when later Jesus appears to the disciples and eats fish and shows them his hands and feet, they still do not believe in him, but then he says,
‘These are my words that I spoke to you…’ (v 44)
And it says then he ‘opened their minds to understand the Scriptures’.
It’s ultimately not the empty tomb or even Jesus appearing to his disciples that seals the deal, that moves them from perplexity to faith, it’s Jesus’ Word, and remembering that Word.
And it’s as he opens their minds to understand and believe it, it’s then the change happens.
Sometimes we might struggle to believe in Jesus and his resurrection, and we might think,
‘If only I could’ve seen the empty tomb, then I’d believe.
‘if only Jesus appeared to me, then I’d believe’.
Nope, not how it works.
It’s not our experience which seals the deal, It’s Jesus’ words, and even more it’s when by the power of his Sprit he opens our minds to understand and believe in his words of promise,
Then the change comes.
Jesus had spoken on this point before in the parable about Lazarus and the rich man. There the rich man finds himself in hell and wants to warn his brothers, and so he pleads for someone to be sent to warn them.
He’s told, no, they have the Moses and the prophets. But the man is insistent, no if someone goes from the dead then they’ll repent.
And it’s amazing the way that parable ends,
‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets,
Neither will they be convinced even is someone rises from the dead’.
It’s the same in the Transfiguration too. They see one thing and interpret it wrongly. So the Father says, ‘Listen to him’.
And this teaches us something more generally too about our Christian life, namely that our experience and emotion are not definitive for us. We do not interpret the word of God through the lens of our life experience, we interpret our experience through the lens of the Word of God.
This is so important.
Because the experience of our Christian life is so diverse. It’s often confusing and hard to make sense of.
So for example, we don’t always feel like a forgiven child of God, do we?
But remember Jesus’ word to us. He says we are.
And we don’t always experience the presence of the risen Jesus with us in every moment of your life, but remember Jesus’ word to us,
He says ‘he is with us always’.
And we can think about this dynamic in relation to the whole world’s experience. We look at this world, we want to experience the evidence that Jesus has conquered evil and death in his resurrection.
And yet we turn on the news and see another terrorist attack, we speak to a friend and hear of another bad diagnosis, and it seems as if the power of death continues to reign.
But then we remember the Word of God, that word of promise, where he tells us that in his resurrection Christ has destroyed death and the power of the devil.
In his resurrection the first fruits have been gathered. The rest of the harvest is coming.
That Christ has won the victory. That is his promise to you and to me – to us all.
May Jesus open our minds to understand it, to believe it, to cling to this wonderful Word in life and death,
‘Why do you seek the living one among the dead?
He is not here, he is risen’.
Conclusion
We saw why they came,
We saw how they reacted,
We saw what changed them.
From the perplexity of the empty tomb, to the promise of a risen Lord.
Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed!
In the name of Jesus, Amen.