Matthew 23
Notes
Transcript
Easter
Easter
Turn with me over to Matthew chapter 27. We are skipping over a few chapters for the moment, but we will come back to most of them after Easter. I wanted to go ahead a skip to the end of the story though since we are coming up on Easter so I am sorry but I am going to spoil the end of Matthew for you guys if you were wondering what was going to happen to this Jesus guy.
Now of course we who live in the Bible belt are familiar with the story of Easter. We know about the crucifixion and the resurrection. In many of our common stories from the Bible though we let ourselves grow cold to the message of the story and do not get the full impact of the story because of our familiarity with it. Tonight then I encourage all of us to think about the story of Easter with a fresh mind and fully grasp the weight of what it means for us. While it may seem repetative, it is still extrordinarily important for us to as believers. Honestly, this is my favorite sermon to preach every year. While it is not the exact same sermon each year I always preach about the cross around Easter and I look forward to preaching on the same topic every year because this one story is what every other story and every event in our lives is centered on. Without this story all else is meaningless.
So, Matthew 26, 27, and 28 are really all three focused on either the crucifixion or the resurrection. In 26 we see the Pharisees, who have been after Jesus through this whole book, have finally made their move and arrested Jesus. They charge Him with blasphemy, mock Him in court, spit on His face, and beat Him all for supposedly speaking against God. We can already see the torture that He is enduring being charged with blasphemy when He is God Himself. Then He is turned over to the Romans who give people a choice either to free Jesus or a criminal named Barabbas. The crowd rejects Christ and chooses Barabbas to be freed.
Matthew 27:26–28 “Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him.”
Matthew 27:26–28 “Then he released Barabbas to them; and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered Him to be crucified. Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around Him. And they stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him.”
This is when things become gruesome. I am sure many of you know the details of the scourging that Christ endured, but to refresh your memory and for those who do not know, what they would do is force the person onto their knees with their hands tied above their head to a post. Then they would take a whip called the cat of nine tails. This whip was nine leather strands with jagged pieces of metal as well as metal balls tied into it and they would whip the person in a way that it would wrap around their rips and and pull chunks of flesh off of the body. Many people died from the scourging alone as they would either bleed out or their internal organs would be hanging out from the back. After the scourging they placed a scarlet robe on Him to further mock Him and the robe also served to stop the bleeding just enough to keep Him alive.
Of course after this He was led up to Golgotha and crucified, nails through His hands and feet and hung there from roughly 9 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon when He finally gave up His spirit and died.
Why? Why did Jesus go through this terrible death on the cross and suffer all of the indignities not just in His death but through His entire life on Earth?
Ephesians 1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace”
Ephesians 1:7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace”
In His death Jesus provided forgiveness of sins well why is that necessary? Through sin we are seperated from God and cannot live to our full potential as His creation here on earth and cannot spend eternity with Him as to be in His prescence in a sinful state would destroy us. So, God wanted to provide a way for us to be in His prescence and have communion with Him. To do this though we needed to have righteousness. This then begs another question, if God loves all of humanity and God is all powerful then why did He not simply forgive the sins and make us righteous? Why is it that Jesus had to become man, live the life of perfect obedience, die on the cross, and resurrect on the third day? Why was this the only way that it could be done? Well let me tell you that there are some things that God cannot do and I am sure you have heard this before. One of the things that God cannot do is be unjust. God could not just forgive us without payment because He needed a way to remain just in doing so. This is where Jesus comes in. It was always the Fathers plan to send Jesus to become the mediator between God and man. The one who we can gain access to the Father to and the one who would earn righteousness for us when we could not earn it ourselves. This is why it could not be just anyone who was crucified and we count it as the sacrifice for all believers as it had to be a perfect sacrifice. Jesus had to not only die, but live the perfect life that we could not so that He could bear our sins and earn for us the righteousness that is then counted towards us so that we may have fellowship with the Father.
Furthermore, the atonement that Christ made through His life and death was not simply for a possibility of salvation. Many will say that what Christ did was open up a door for people to walk through. He gave the world a chance at salvation. The God of the Bible never works in chances. He did not send His son to die so that people would have a chance at salvation, but so that the sins of all who believe would be definitevly paid for. Every sin that I have made or will make has been paid for and was on His mind on that cross. If you are a believer in this room then His death was for your sins specifically. Not in a general sense, but specifically for all those who believe in Him.
Now after His death Jesus’ body was prepared and placed in a tomb that would have been essentially a cave in a mountainside and a stone was placed at the enterance of the tomb to seal it shut. Now the Pharisees still were not satisfied as they remembered Him saying after three days He will rise so they went to Pilate and requested that the tomb be guarded to the disciples won’t come steal the body and claim that He had risen. This is important because that is exactly what many people tried to claim happened yet Pilate had trained soldiers guarding the tomb and we are supposed to believe that a group of 11 scared young untrained men either defeated a group of trained soldiers or somehow snuck around them moved a giant stone and snuck a body out without anyone noticing. This is a ridiculous notion as all but one disciple were not even present at the crucifixion and were likely hiding in fear of being the next to go on a cross.
Let’s look at the Biblical account of what happened.
Matthew 28:1–3 “Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.”
Matthew 28:1–3 “Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.”
Matthew 28:4–6 “And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
Matthew 28:4–6 “And the guards shook for fear of him, and became like dead men. But the angel answered and said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”
Matthew 28:7–8 “And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.” So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.”
Matthew 28:7–8 “And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him. Behold, I have told you.” So they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to bring His disciples word.”
Matthew 28:9–10 “And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.””
Matthew 28:9–10 “And as they went to tell His disciples, behold, Jesus met them, saying, “Rejoice!” So they came and held Him by the feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me.””
Verses 11 through 15 then tell us that the guards were then bribed to lie and say that the disciples came while they were sleeping and took the body. From that we get an acknowlegement from the officials that indeed at the very least the body of Christ was there and now it is not.
Now though we have a he said she said style problem. The disciples said that Christ has risen and the authorities say that His body was stolen. Of course we as believers know that He has risen, but that does not mean that we should not look at the evidence for it so that we can have a firm case when we run into opposition.
Of course we have the accounts of the disciples to lean on as 10 of the remaining 11 died for their belief that Christ had risen. This was obviously something that they were so bought in on that you could not convince them otherwise even unto death. I have talked with people however that did not see that as valid proof stating that possibly they just wanted the influence and status that they gained in being leaders of the church. To which I point them to Paul.
1 Corinthians 15:3–5 “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.”
1 Corinthians 15:3–5 “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.”
1 Corinthians 15:6–8 “After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.”
1 Corinthians 15:6–8 “After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.”
Paul here states that first Christ appeared after the resurrection to Peter, then the other disciples, and then to five hundred believers at one time, then by James (likely the brother of Christ), and then lastly to Paul himself. Two things are important here first look at the appearance to Paul. This appearance negates the argument of influence previously made as Paul had more influence prior to His life with Christ. He gave up power and influence to live a life of persecution, inprisonment and eventually death for his belief that Christ had risen and appeared to him. I brought this up in a debate with an athiest once and their best arguement against the conversion of Paul was maybe he was crazy. That does not hold up in court. Even so though, Paul also states that He appeared to 500 believers at once and most importantly Paul states that at the time he is writing this letter some of them are still alive. This means that anyone could have fact checked Paul to see if he was telling the truth. Paul was confident that these men had also seen Christ and would stand firm in that conviction. These eyewitness accounts are all the historical evidence that is needed to prove without a doubt the resurrection indeed happened. Some will say that trusting in the word of others is not evidence, but if you hold that view then you must not believe any history as that is all historical evidence is. The only way that we can know about nearly any event in history is to trust in the word of the people who were there and recorded the history and as for the resurrection the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of Christ rising on the third day.
Why is this so important? Why is it important to be able to know that Christ has risen? Because without that one single fact the rest of Christianity crumbles. If Christ had not risen then all would have been meaningless and the church would have never started. All that we do and all that we are as Christians rests on the empty tomb. Without His resurrection from the dead we can have no faith in our own eternal life in Him. The empty tomb then is a sign of hope, hope that one day we will also be resurrected. A hope that death is not the end but just the beginning of eternity with Him. That is why Easter is important. We must take time not just every year or every month or week or even day, but continually to remember what Christ has bought for us through His life and death and what the empty tomb is a sign of.