Resurrection Transformation

RESURRECTION TRANSFORMATION

Mount Hope

Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020

Matthew 28 New Living Translation (NLT)

The Resurrection

28 Early on Sunday morning,^[a] as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb.

² Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. ³ His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. ⁴ The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint.

⁵ Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶ He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying. ⁷ And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Remember what I have told you.”

⁸ The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message. ⁹ And as they went, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.”

The Report of the Guard

¹¹ As the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and told the leading priests what had happened. ¹² A meeting with the elders was called, and they decided to give the soldiers a large bribe. ¹³ They told the soldiers, “You must say, ‘Jesus’ disciples came during the night while we were sleeping, and they stole his body.’ ¹⁴ If the governor hears about it, we’ll stand up for you so you won’t get in trouble.” ¹⁵ So the guards accepted the bribe and said what they were told to say. Their story spread widely among the Jews, and they still tell it today.

The Great Commission

¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him—but some of them doubted!

¹⁸ Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations,^[b] baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. ²⁰ Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

           

            Happy Resurrection Sunday, church family!  Today’s Gospel is one we are all familiar with, so I don’t want to spend a lot of time giving an eschatological explanation of the meaning of the events.  You all are spiritually mature enough that that would be redundant.  We all know that when the women went to the tomb the tomb was empty, Jesus had risen, his grave clothes were tossed aside – except for the cloth that covered his face – we’ll get to that later – and we can shout Hallelujah because he overcame death on that old rugged cross. 

But the question we might ask ourselves is what did Jesus do between the time he committed his body to the Father and the time the women came and found the tomb empty?  Was he just laying in the tomb all day after the crucifixion? 

One of the things that I always found remarkable in the Bible – and I don’t know if you ever noticed it – in all the parables and stories in the synoptic Gospels about Jesus’s life and ministry there is only one story of Jesus being “asleep”.  That is in the Gospel of Mark.  You know the story of the storm on the water and the disciples went to the back of the boat where Jesus was sleeping to wake him.  But was he really asleep?  Here is where being fully human and fully God come together.  Theologians refer to Jesus’s state as the hypostatic union – being fully God and fully man.  Having two natures, human and divine, which are inseparable.  It is explained that his human nature was asleep, but his divine nature never sleeps.

So, Jesus’s human nature has been crucified.  It’s gone and once it was gone, he became fully divine again.  So when he breathed his last human breath on that Roman soldier and released his divine breath….oh, help me here church!  You know where I’m going with this?  He was no longer in that body!  He was released and set free in his fully divine nature!  Hallelujah!

The disciples and his followers mourned his humanity.  They had not yet comprehended the full depth and breadth of his divinity.  Thank you, Jesus!  I hope I’m not getting too deep for you this morning.  Afterall, I had not planned to preach this morning, so ya’ll gotta bear with me.

In that moment of ending his divine nature, the body was no longer of use to his divinity.  It was those who were left – those who stood with him at the foot of the cross – his mother, her sister, the other Mary and John – who felt the anguish of his departure.  Even the Roman soldier who received his Spirit in his last breath, was overwhelmed by the events that had taken place and his part in it.  Then there was Joseph of Arimathea who petitioned to claim the body for burial and Nicodemus who provided the borrowed tomb.  They all wanted to preserve the body – the humanity of the man they had come to love.

This has been a Lenten season unlike any other in so many ways.  We have been isolated and unable to fellowship like we normally would; we’ve had time to study, pray and fast.  We’ve been able to conduct worship in different ways – and I’m going to tell you, for me it has been a challenge to keep still sitting in front of the camera and trying to preach a message when I am getting excited by the good news.  Sometimes I get so filled, I want to jump, dance or something and I know you can tell because I start moving in my seat.  So, can you image what those women felt when they went to the tomb on Sunday morning and found it empty?  The body was gone!

Let me get back to the dash – you know the story of the dash, right?  You know on Homegoing service program and the headstone when they put the year of birth, then the dash and the year of death?   Well, that time between when Jesus gave up his humanity and the women went to the tomb was his dash.

Jesus, in his divinity, never laid in that tomb, church.  His human body may have been put in there, but his divinity never made it there.  Jesus had worked today after he shed that human body.  In his obedience, God gave Jesus the keys to the gates of hell and during his dash, he went down and freed all the saints who had gone on before him.  He released and set those prisoners free because before his death, they had no way to get out of exile.  Jesus came to set us free, but he also came to set the saints who had gone before him free.  That’s where he was on what we call Holy Saturday.  We don’t know what day of the week it really was and it really doesn’t matter.  How do we know this?  Because the Bible tells me so in Revelation 1:18 when Jesus reveals to John in a vision saying, “I am the Living One; I was dead and now look, I am alive for ever and ever!  And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

The reason we are jubilant every Sunday, but especially on Resurrection Sunday is because when Jesus got up from that grave, we all got up.  We got up from the stench of the grave and the fire pits of hell.  We took off our grave clothes.  There is a song by Stephen McWhirter called “Grave Clothes” and the lyrics say, “You show up, the power of death is broken.  Just one touch and I am changed.  From your lips my true name you’ve spoken.  You’re calling out who I’ve always been.  I’m taking off my grave clothes – he’s talking about those burdens we carry, those sins we can’t seem to free ourselves from.  I’m putting on righteousness.  I’m taking off my grave clothes.  I’m putting on resurrection.”  And he repeats the chorus.

Why, during this Lenten season, did God see fit to sit us all down and take us out of our churches?  Why did he strip us of our idols – our traditions, our comfort zones?  Did God strip us of our grave clothes?  When we come up out of this, will we be resurrected and transformed as Christ was?  Will we see the world with a different set of eyes?  Mount Hope’s mission statement is “Transforming the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ”.  Will that still be our mission, or will it have a renewed meaning for us when we strip off our grave clothes of this isolation?  Have we been setting captives free during our isolation with the Gospel?  Have we even been in the Word during this time or worrying about toilet paper, paper towels and chicken wings?

Remember earlier I mentioned that when everyone got to the tomb, they noticed that Jesus’s grave clothes were lying in a corner, but the cloth that covered his face was neatly folded?  I’m sure some of you have heard this story before, but today is a day when I think it should be shared again as a reminder that we may be in isolation, our human form may be wearing down, falling asleep and unable to stick to what was our “normal” routine, but if our spirits have not been uplifted, if they have not matured, if we have not been spiritually transformed, then we have not been listening to what God has been saying to us.  We have to throw off our grave clothes, get up out of our tombs and put on the full armor of God and be prepared for the battle that is before us.

Why did Jesus fold the linen burial cloth after his resurrection? The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the other grave clothes. The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded and was placed at the head of that stony coffin.

Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.

She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, “They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb, and I don't know where they have put him!” Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other disciple outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in.

Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying to the side.

Was that important? Absolutely! Is it really significant? Yes!

In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, we need to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day. The folded napkin had to do with the master and servant, and every Jewish boy knew this tradition. When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it. The table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just out of sight, until the master had finished eating.

The servant would not dare touch the table until the master was finished. Now if the master was finished eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers and mouth, clean his beard, and wad up the napkin and toss it onto the table. The servant would then know to clear the table. For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, “I’m finished.”

But if the master got up from the table, folded his napkin and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table, because the folded napkin meant, “I'm coming back!”

Let us be reminded daily during this post-Easter season, Jesus Christ is “Not Finished.” He is coming back for his faithful servants within his Church.